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| Day 19: November 18
- Sydney |
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Our
last full day in Sydney we elected to purchase tickets
for the Explorer bus. This is a bus route that allows
you to visit the most popular sites and have a ticket
for the entire day.
Since we had already done some parts of Sydney,
we opted to stay on the bus to Mrs. Macquarie's
chair. This is a rock formation in the botanical
garden that the former governor's wife liked to
visit. This is also a popular spot to take pictures
of the SOH and Harbor Bridge together. As such,
it was overrun with oriental tourist groups and
we had to fight for a spot on the chair.
Our next stop was at the boomerang store. It is
a small family store in an area of Sydney which
is being rejuvenated. It was a small unadorned shop
with boomerangs everywhere. We picked up a few souvenirs
and the matron of the shop offered up prayers over
Kirsten's ankle.
Lunch was in Chinatown where we ate at a very small
restaurant where they make their own noodles by
hand. We chose a noodle dish and steamed dumplings.
The noodles were hard to eat with the plastic chopsticks,
but they were worth the struggle.
We would up our tour with a stroll through Paddy's market. The market is a set of hundreds of stalls selling everything from fruit to
cellular phone faceplates. It was a huge conglomeration of schlock, so nothing was purchased.
We picked up the bus and took it back to Circular
Quay. Kirsten went up to relax and Howard went out
to pick up the last few souvenirs. He went out to
the SOH and saw sailboats racing back through the
bridge. Later that afternoon we saw the Princess
cruise ship deport for open seas past the opera
house.
Finally it was time for dinner (Machiavelli's) and packing. Sadly we are returning from holiday tomorrow and we leave Australia behind.
We both agreed that we like New Zealand better because there was more to do and the country was not at spread out. |
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An old hotel |
Luna Park |
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Sydney Harbour Panoramic |
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