Day 5: "On your feet, mates!"

7:00pm – I. Am. So. TIRED! (Especially after just spending an hour writing about yesterday’s activities.)

My dad woke me up this morning at like 7am so I could have enough time to shower and get ready for the day. That means I’ve already been up for over 12 hours. That man could be a drill sergeant or something, I tell you. I don’t understand how anyone can be so chirpy in the morning, or who can wake up on his own so early, but that’s my dad!

Today was kind of a wash – literally and figuratively. We were supposed to go on this Captain Cook Hop-on-Hop-off sightseeing cruise tour (similar to the bus we went on yesterday, except on a boat). It stops at Luna Park, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, Taronga Zoo, Manly Beach, and a bunch of other hot spots. By the time we got to the bus station that was going to take us to the wharf for the cruise though, it started drizzling so we had to scramble to find new plans since cruising in the rain isn’t nearly as much fun as it would be in nice weather. We decided instead then to head back to the Opera House for a tour and perhaps a show. At 8:45 in the morning. We got back on the double-decker sightseeing bus to take us there since we had a 24-hour pass and still had an hour or so left from yesterday. We stayed on the bus (mainly so Suny and I could nap) a bit longer than we needed to, so we ended up getting there around 10am.

We alighted (hopped off) the bus at the Opera House and by then it had stopped raining. The weather here is so crazy some days. Like for the past hour it has been POURING rain with thunder and lightning, and then it just stopped. It got so ridiculously cloudy though that we could hardly see out from our window, and now it’s perfectly pleasant outside.

Anyways. So we went to the Opera House, which to be honest with you, Suny and I weren’t all THAT stoked about, considering we weren’t in the mood to hear some woman sing so fiercely and shatter a glass of wine. That was clearly a misconception though, because this Opera House is much more amazing than we gave it credit for. First of all, the building itself is so unique and architecturally gorgeous (as I mentioned in my last post), and its setting along the water could not have been more perfectly chosen. 

We learned so much about the place today, like how the original estimates for the building were $7 million in costs and 3 years in time to build it. They were completely off, as it took nearly 16 years to build and $102 million. The chief architect of the project was a genius by the name of Jorn Utzon. When the original Opera House committee decided to create such an edifice, they welcomed submissions from architects all over the world for its appearance. Hundreds of ideas were sent in, and even though his was sent a few days late, Utzon’s was chosen primarily because of its unique spherical design. Most of the other ideas incorporated some sort of flat rectangular building, whereas his idea pushed the boundaries of science and creativity.

I know you guys are probably thinking I’m typing all this information up off pamphlets or notes I’ve taken or something like that, but I promise you, the tour guides here are so well-educated, interactive, and engaging that I’m learned LOADS every single day. I’m essentially just regurgitating it all into this blog, or as much as I can remember in any case.

So back to this Opera House. We toured the entire building and got to see many of the different halls and rooms, including the Concert Hall which seats about 2,700 people. Our tour was interesting in that we each got our own set of headphones, and our tour guide had a microphone, so she could speak softly into it and we would all hear what she’s saying. This came particularly in handy when we were in each of the halls since we didn’t want to disturb those working on sets or preparing for their shows. 

My favorite hall was the Concert Hall, which is freaking HUGE! We entered the hall through its lobby, which has PURPLE carpet! One of the performers, a very supersitiious man, refused to walk on the carpet because in his country, purple felt is used to coat the inside of a coffin. I guess they created some sort of special back entrance for him then. All the seats and banisters etc. within each of the halls are made from native materials grown in Sydney. The seats were low-backed and comfortable, but since the backs only reached about a few inches below my shoulders, it’s pretty hard to fall asleep in those chairs – which I guess is how they wanted it. It would be pretty rude to have someone snoring in the middle of these expensive shows and ruining it for everyone else.  Right now they’re getting ready for a performance on that stage called The Illusionists, which is a magic show featuring five different magicians from around the world. Suny and I were SO excited when we saw the advertisements for it, and then so dejected/SUPER BUMMED OUT when we realized the show starts after we leave Sydney. Suny’s really into magic and loves watching magicians perform, so it would have been perfect, but they decided to start the performances three days too late. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in any of the halls since they had sets on stage and for whatever reason thought we would copy their ideas…? I don’t know. 

We also visited the Opera Hall, which stands side by side with the Concert Hall. This was another one of Utzon’s ingenious ideas, whereas most of the other submissions had the two halls either one on top of the other, or far apart from one another. Based on the design of the Opera House though, by creating separate wings/spheres for each of the halls, the sounds from each wouldn’t interfere with each other. We could actually see the lobby of the Concert Hall while we were in the lobby of the Opera Hall, and vice versa. The Opera Hall is smaller than the Concert Hall, seating only about 1300 people, I believe. They have high rise balconies for dignitaries and celebrities to sit, but those aren’t the best seats in the house. In fact, the best seats are in Row J, so if any of you go to the Opera Hall, try to get seats there. The people who sat in upper balconies of the hall were more interested in being seen than actually seeing the show, so although they had plush box seats, they couldn’t really see the entire stage. Also, there are two seats in the hall that are haunted: L4 and L5, which the ushers refuse to sell. I forgot the reasoning for why exactly, but apparently those seats crash into the floor or something crazy wicked, and ever since the first night, they’ve just refused to sell those two seats, even if the entire place is sold out. The roof of the Opera Hall has a drop hatch, so people can descend downwards onto the stage if they wish. One trumpet player, I forget his name, always does that whenever he comes to perform here. During the group’s first visit, the band/orchestra was so confused because they couldn’t find him since he didn’t tell them that he would be pulling this little trick. From then on, though, they grew to expect it.

The Opera House has a bunch of other stages, although much smaller in comparison to the big two that I just mentioned. One of the halls, the one directly below the Concert Hall, is actually used now as a small theatre for La Solei (?), a type of circus/acrobatic performance and the theatre seats about 250 people. It used to be the prep room for the Concert Hall, but they decided it would be more effective to use it as its own smaller hall to host some of the smaller events. Interesting fact: Coldplay has used that same stage to record a few of their songs since the acoustics are apparently impeccable.

More about Utzon. So since this Opera House project took much more time and money than originally anticipated, the governments eventually changed over their leadership about ¾ of the way through the planning and construction. Although the government at its initial stages was very supportive, once the project started demanding more funding, newly-appointed officials grew impatient and the government started pressuring Utzon and his team to quit, or to accept collaboration from the government which was trying to change Utzon’s original ideas. Without a lot of options, Utzon resigned from the project and didn’t look back. He moved back to Denmark and never actually saw his idea to the finish. Eventually his friends and supporters here started sending him pictures and videos of the completed project, but he never came back to see it for himself. After all the hardship that he faced, however, he still agreed to design the interiors of a couple of the rooms in the Opera House and contribute ideas. One of the rooms, used for receptions and banquets, is named the Utzon Room in his honor. He is very highly regarded in Sydney as an incredibly respectable and admirable man, and his dignity remained intact up until they day he sadly died in 2008.

(The title of this post, by the way, comes from our tour guide at the house who would let us sit and rest our feet for about two minutes in each of the halls before calling out “On  your feet!” and we would proceed onto the next place. For an already-tired person, the whole process of sitting down and getting up so many times was just exhausting.)

I feel like I have so much more I could say about the Opera House but my memory is failing me right now. I just know that the entire place completely surpassed my expectations and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to tour it. For all those who want to come to Sydney, if you do nothing else while you’re here, you must see the Opera House. Since we were there so early, none of the real shows were playing, so we stopped for lunch at the Opera House café overlooking the water with the Sydney Bridge in the distance.

All day, Suny had been non-stop talking about going to the Star City Hotel and Casino (to watch football), so after lunch we took a cab from Circular Quay out to Darling Harbour and walked over to the casino. Turns out, it’s not too far at all from our hotel and the harbour – just about a quick ten minute walk.

Oh gosh, it’s raining again. With thunder and lightning. Ughhh…

Okay I’m gonna try to wrap this up quickly. So we got to Star City, Suny watched his football game – Saints vs. Lions I believe – and my parents and I just gambled. When we got to the hotel, the lady at the door didn’t believe I was 18, and was about to make us go all the way back to get our passports since apparently my Virginia ID looked fake? But she was Desi and eventually let us pass without a passport. We went up to get a club card to access the slots and games, and the man there, Daniel, also had difficulty believing I was of age to play. He kept quizzing me on my license as he inserted our information into the computer – “When’s your birthday? Where are you from? What’s your middle name? How old are you?” Like honestly, are you joking? So annoying.

Turns out, Australians have a real gambling problem. Australia is actually the largest gambling nation in the entire world. So, along with our little club card, they also gave us $50 on our card to use as credit. So, when we would use 30 cents or something on a slot turn, if we didn’t win anything on that turn, a credit would be deducted from the $50 and come back to us. Essentially that meant we kept making money, so long as we kept winning, and if we didn’t win, we stayed at the same dollar amount until our credit diminished. We had to be careful though because if you bet like 20 cents on a turn and only made 10 cents, you didn’t receive any credit. I guess they do this to entice these gamblers to keep going after their free $50 credit is up, but we were a little too smart for that. Some people use up their $50 and have nothing to show for it since they just keep going, but we all stopped at the right time and ended up walking out with almost $200 total. Penny slots are my jam. When we went to Charlestown in West Virginia for my birthday, I left with about $62, but I wasn’t as successful here. My dad made $50, I made $41, my mom cashed out $29 and Suny got $25. Suny’s the worst at playing slot machines – mainly because he hates them. He would much rather be playing poker or whatever, but since we had a free $50, we thought we might as well use it! He’s honestly the worst though. No excitement, no desire to win, just flat out nothing. He’s like completely bored with the process of pushing buttons or something.

So, that went well, everyone left happy, and we got ice cream to celebrate! We have literally eaten ice cream every single day we’ve been here. We went back to my favorite place at Harbourside on our way back to the hotel, with the Swiss-made ice cream, Movenpick, and I got another Crème and Meringue cup. No cone this time since the lady behind the counter wanted to charge me $2 for it. Although I’m now mad rich from my $41 winnings and everything, I wasn’t about to splurge on that. (I think I’m a lot cheaper than I let on.)

Before finally heading back to the hotel, we stopped by to shop in the mall for souvenirs and things. Wait! Before we got to the mall, we for whatever reason decided to go to this small Korean shop, and let me just give you the names of the first few things we saw: Essence of Kangaroo, Sheep Placenta, and Liver of some animal (I stopped reading to gag). They also sold rugs, mats, and God knows whatever else made from real animal skin and parts. As my parents looked around, I stepped outside because I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was starting to get really nauseous. The store was atrocious and I have no idea who would shop there. (No offense to any of you who do – go do your thing, just leave me out of it.)

After that little encounter, we went to the mall and as we walked around, I noticed just how much the Australians here really appreciate their native aboriginal culture. About half of each of the souvenir shops have something or another related to the aboriginals, whether coasters or boomerangs, rugs or paintings, whatever the case may be, they really embrace their aboriginal culture. It’s so different from America where we basically shun the natives, take their lands and force them onto reservations, when their ancestors are the reason the original settlers even survived there.

Final thought: The name “kangaroo” actually means “I don’t know”. When the settlers arrived here, they saw the kangaroo for the first time and wondered what it was. They asked the natives, who had no idea what they were saying so they responded “kangaroo” which in the aboriginal language means “I don’t know”.

Okay, we’re gonna head out to dinner now and my family’s pretty annoyed with me since I just spent like two hours typing all this instead of showering. Oh well, at least I’m all caught up! They can deal with my smellyness.

Until later, hoo roo, mates! :) 

10:00pm – We just had dinner at this awesome restaurant called Cyren at Harbourside. We didn’t want to venture too far off from the hotel because it was pouring down rain with more thunder and lightning. For the record, I hate thunder and lightning, and the fact that the restaurant had floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the harbour, which we were sitting right next to, was not the least bit comforting. 

I ordered Fish and Chips off the kids menu which was delicious and perfectly portioned, my parents also got some grilled fish with chips, and Suny ate more of Seth’s relatives. The “chips” (French fries) here are so good compared to the states. They actually incorporate it as part of the meal rather than just a side dish of grease. The food altogether was really good, but the experience would have been nicer if the rain wasn’t pounding down so hard. We could barely hear each other over the pitter-patter of the rain, but its effect on the harbour was still pretty cool.

After dinner Suny and I walked over to the food court area to use the internet and we noticed that there are guys here taking down the Christmas tree! L I guess this is a symbol that the holidays are actually over, but Christmas in such a warm climate was never all that believable anyway.