5:30pm – Before I begin this
recap of today’s activities, can we just talk about how PITTSBURG
IS OUT OF THE PLAYOFFS!?!?!??! I just got out of the shower to come
upstairs and see the last play of their game against the Broncos in
overtime and I could not be more stoked! I can’t wait for the Ravens’
game on Sunday – I’m so glad they decided to wait to play until
after I came home. :)
Alright so you’re probably wondering
what the heck Taronga is. “Taronga” is an aboriginal word meaning
“great view” (I like to think of it more as EPIC view) and our main
attraction for today was the Taronga Zoo. Going off of that, every single
place we went to today had the most picturesque views. I know I keep
carping about how amazing the scenery is here, but the views we saw
today just topped everything, so I thought it would be an appropriate
title for today’s posting.
This was our first water ride experience
in Sydney and it was so picture-perfect. Since we already visited Circular
Quay (where the Opera House is) we didn’t need to go back, so we hopped
off at Taronga Zoo first. The zoo is in this amazing location, surrounded
by beaches and trees and perched high up along the cliffs. The layout
for it is so weird though! I felt like we were going around in circles
so many times because all the exhibits kind of branch off from the center
of the zoo and there’s no one set path to follow to get anywhere.
To get to the entrance, we took a Sky Lift which is run by the same
concept of a ski lift, except you sit with a small group of no more
than 5 people in a Ferris wheel sort of contraption if that makes sense.
The lift took us up along the cliffs and we could see the beautiful
water, coastline, and city skyline from above. We could literally see
for miles and miles…it was so incredible. I don’t even have words
to describe how incredible it was. The ride lasted no more than two
and a half minutes though lol and then we were at the zoo!
Although we went to the Wildlife Reserve
last week and saw kangaroos and koalas among so many other animals,
the Wildlife place didn’t have quite as many animals as the zoo, like
elephants, giraffes, tigers, lions, TAZMANIAN DEVILS, seals, penguins,
etc. which we got to see today. The zoo also had kangaroos and koalas
too, but we focused on what we hadn’t seen already.
When we got to the zoo, we were a bit
overwhelmed by the map. It looked simple enough, but we knew we didn’t
have all day to explore the zoo since there were other stops we wanted
to make on our sightseeing cruise. As we walked into the zoo, two elderly
lady volunteers were standing to greet us – carrying lizards. Now,
although lizards are better than snakes, I still kept my distance. Suny,
of course, just had to touch it.
We saw alligators, koalas, and lots
of different kinds of birds, but the first real animal exhibit we stopped
at was the Komodo Dragon. Although I’ve heard the name before, I’ve
never really seen one or knew what to expect. First of all, the thing
is gigantic. When they say it’s the largest lizard in the world, they’re
not kidding. It’s like a baby crocodile or something and its tongue
is just like that of a snake’s. I was so intrigued by this creature
even though it freaked me out a bit. After checking out the dragon,
we walked into the Reptile House which was just a huge mistake. I’m
deathly afraid of snakes, and we saw way too many, including Boas, Anacondas,
Pythons, and even Taipans, which have one of the most deadly venoms
in the snake world. The Wildlife Reserve had smaller snakes, whereas
this place decided the bigger the better. I was so antsy the whole time
and my dad had to help guide me through the exhibit so I wouldn’t
sprint to the exit. There were also a lot of lizards and turtles there
to serve as buffers between all the snakes.
11:00pm –
(Just got back from dinner, continuing from earlier…)There was a huge
line to see the tiger cubs, and since we’ve already seen tigers (Suny
and I even have a picture with a tiger cub from Myrtle Beach), we thought
it would be better to check out the Ausgrid Seal Show and then head
back to the ferry. The seal show was really cool! It wasn’t as big
as the ones they have in Orlando/Sea World, but they had a bunch of
different seals that they trained with all sorts of tricks. I think
they had like 5 different seals, all different types too, that they
trained to wave, skip around the water, bounce up and hit hanging balls,
and walk on their front paws among some other neat tricks. The last
seal up was a baby, only three years old, and the trained had taught
him how to throw away trash, which he did perfectly, leaving us with
a nice message to head out on. If a three year old seal is capable of
throwing away his trainer’s trash, surely we as humans should be able
to pick up after ourselves too. It was nice to be able to just sit in
the shade and watch the show, especially since by mid-day it was getting
pretty hot. It wasn’t humid or anything, and the air quality here
is pretty good, but the sun was really beating down on us and draining
all our energy pretty quickly.
After the show, we hopped back on the ferry to go to Luna Park, our second major stop for the day. Luna Park is an amusement park along the harbour that offers free admission to everyone. It’s kind of like a fair in that whatever rides you want to go on, you pay for, but you can also get an unlimited access pass to get you onto whatever rides you want. They have this huge Ferris Wheel that overlooks the harbour, the Opera House, and the Sydney Bridge. The views from the top are amazing, I’m sure, but since each ride was $10 (unless we got the unlimited pass), we didn’t exactly feel like paying $40 just to go on one ride. Plus we were already planning to go to the Sydney Eye Tower later in the evening and that’s amuch better bird’s eye view of the city. They have all sorts of carnival games in the park though too, and Suny and I played a view. For the first time, I was the one who actually won HIM a prize! Normally Suny wins me a million things, from monkeys to dogs to chipmunks and the like, he’s always winning games and bringing home prizes for me. This time though, we played against each other in this shooting game where we had to hit the targets with a gun as they lit up, and I won! Of course we had unlimited bullets and the first one to hit 30 would win, and we were the only two people playing, so one of us was bound to win…but I won! I felt really proud of myself. :)
They’re so crazy about the Angry Birds game here in Sydney that so many of the prizes were the birds themselves, and I won Suny the black bomber one. I’ve also noticed how they have other Angry Birds merchandise EVERYWHERE. The souvenir shops especially have t-shirts, plush toys, key chains, whatever you name, they probably have it in Angry Birds form. They’re nuts about the game here! I also won us two tiny dogs – one purple and one blue – and two tiny crocodiles – one purple and one blue, from a game that I couldn’t seem to win a real prize on, so they gave me those as pity prizes.
On our way back to the hotel, we came
across another street performer. This one was HILARIOUS, like absolutely
hilarious, and his main trick was juggling three fire torches while
atop a 3 metre tall unicycle. This guy was really impressive, but what
melted my heart was when the man’s son came on stage and tried interrupting
his dad’s performance. His dad gave him one of his swords to play
with, so this little kid (his name is Pim and he’s 3 years old) started
running around the circle waving a sword. The man had called up another
boy (his name is Michael and he’s 11 years old) to help with the trick
before all this happened, so Pim started chasing Michael around the
circle with the sword. Then the man gave Michael a sword too to see
what would happen, and both the kids were about the start going at it
when the entertainer stopped them and said he was just kidding. Pim
was seriously the cutest little guy ever though. He kept running onto
the stage and grabbing his dad’s leg or just being a little distraction.
I don’t know if Pim was part of his act, but he definitely bought
my sympathy points – that’s for sure.
We headed back to the hotel, showered and changed, when I realized how unbelievably SUNBURNED I got earlier today from the zoo. I have never in my entire life gotten sunburned, and I have spent countless hours laying out by the pool in the summer without using any sunblock or sunscreen whatsoever. I guess the ozone layer is thinner down here or something because my arms and nose are so burned along with my exposed lower neck area. I have no idea how to even treat sun burn. Ice? Lotion? I’ll try both.
When we were all ready, we headed out
on foot to the tower. It’s not too far from our place – just across
a few bridges and down a few streets (which really isn’t that bad
here), but we monorailed it instead of walking since we already got
in a more-than-necessary amount of walking earlier in the day. The monorail
took us almost right below the tower, to the Westfield shopping center
which is another high-end designer retail place near Pitt St. and Market
St.
The tower stands above it at 304 metres.
We headed up to the concourse level where we got to watch a short 4D
film about the city of Sydney. Before entering the theatre though, they
had all these facts about the Sydney tower, like how it took about $26
million and six years to build. They also had a graph of the world’s
tallest towers and how Sydney Tower stacks up. I don’t know why they
would do such a thing since this tower is such a shrimp compared to
all the other towers. It’s about 100 metres shorter than the Empire
State Building and less than half the height of that huge tower that
was recently constructed in Dubai. There were two towers missing from
their map though, and seeing the world skyline without them, even though
it’s been 10 years, really hit me hard. To think that they’re not
even acknowledged, or marked in dotted lines instead of solid lines,
or to think that all the design and construction work to create those
towers in the first place has now just vanished into thin air is so
upsetting. You can’t just erase the twin towers from a graph like
that, as if they were never there. :(
I don’t know if it was because I
was bummed out by the memory of the twin towers, or because we were
on a ferry earlier and my legs still felt like jelly, or because these
kids meals are finally catching up on me and I need to replace them
with adult meals, or because I’m realizing that this is one of our
last nights here, or a combination of all that, but when we got to the
top of the tower, I started feeling really sick. When we were at Luna
Park earlier, I was also feeling dizzy and seeing spots at one point,
but while at the top of the tower, so high up in the air, I felt like
the entire room was spinning and the tower was teetering. The palms
of my hands and the balls of my feet were sweating and I just felt so
uncomfortable. I couldn’t even stand at the window glass because I
felt like I could so easily tip the balance of the entire building.
It was like I was still on the ferry and I just felt like everything
around me kept bouncing up and down. I finally sat down close to the
middle of the tower, away from the windows, and tried to compose myself
before my family members noticed anything suspicious. I got a chocolate
bar from the food stand which got my sugar levels back up so I could
at least walk around. I still felt really uneasy though, but I wanted
to make the most of the opportunity and get as many pictures of the
views as I could. Towards the end of our time there, my mom wanted to
get a picture of me up against the window with the city in the background,
and it basically took every ounce of strength I had to sit on the ledge
(in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window) and not run away.
I had no idea what had gotten into me at that point but I just needed
fresh air and I needed to get the hell out of that tower.
Even the elevator back down to the ground was painful. The lifts themselves are so tiny, made for probably like 6 people max, so our family got in, and then this moronic group of like 6 people decided to jump in our elevator instead of wait for the next one. Since there was no one monitoring the lifts going back down, there was no one to say anything. Since I entered the elevator first, I was smushed up against the wall so everyone could fit. The entire time we were descending, I was just praying to God to get me out of the elevator and back on solid ground. Just as we reached the bottom and the elevator stopped, the doors didn’t open.
The morons who entered the elevator
after us didn’t press the button or something, so the elevator went
back up…304 metres into the air. I could feel my lungs collapsing
and my head pounding me as we ascended back up to the top, and I wanted
to just tell my parents to get out of the elevator at the top and that
we would take the next one, but since we were so tightly packed, worse
than sardines, I just closed my eyes and waited for it to be over. We
finally got back down to the ground (again) and I nearly passed out
after being the last one to step off the elevator. I know this is sounding
really dramatic, but the sad thing is that I’m not exaggerating at
all. It was such a horrible experience. I never thought I was afraid
of heights, and I never have been before, but there was just something
about being up there that wasn’t settling right with me. :( Together,
the sunburn and this tower experience are really hurting my self-proposed
invincibility factor. Just saying.
Once I got some fresh air outside,
I could feel the color coming back to my face and my strength coming
back to my joints. We walked back to Darling Harbour and ate at this
burger joint Suny wanted to try out at Harbourside. I forget the name
of the restaurant, but the burgers are apparently the best in all of
Australia. I don’t remember what everyone ordered, but I ordered one
of the veggie burgers. Another strange thing that’s happened to me
while I’ve been here is that I’m not so inclined to eat meat as
I usually am. Back in the states, I LOVE eating meat – chicken, lamb,
sausage, you name it and I’ll eat it. But, being here in Sydney has
turned that around. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been spending
so much time with animals at the zoos, aquariums, and wildlife reserves
and whatnot, but I can’t really tolerate eating meat anymore. It’s
so weird! I mean, I’m sure I’ll eventually go back to eating chicken
at least, but right now I’m just so turned off by anything that has
to do with eating animals. Plus, the veggie burger was so delicious!
The patty was made out of some mixture of potatoes and peas and other
vegetables and they added avocado, salad, tomatoes, onion, and some
special relish. I absolutely loved it.
We headed home after dinner and Suny
and I watched a rerun of the Broncos vs. Steelers game which just ended.
I’m so exhausted but I can’t wait for tomorrow! It’s almost midnight
here so I should probably get to sleep. We’re going to the Powerhouse
Museum tomorrow which has the Harry Potter Exhibition and I’m so excited!
Since tomorrow is our last day in Sydney, we’re basically spending
the rest of the day shopping, packing, and tying up any loose ends.
On Wednesday we leave for Coffs Harbour up north where my dad’s cousin
lives. It’s about an 8 hour drive but we thought the drive would be
more fun than a flight, especially since there are a bunch of beaches
along the way and the scenery I’m sure is going to be amazing as usual.
(We booked a one-way ticket to get back to Sydney for our flight back
to the states though.)
More minor observations from down under:
- Instead of calling the food “take out” or “to go”, it’s called “take away”.
- Almost all pick-up trucks here have covers over the beds. (Probably to sneak drugs around, not that law enforcement would particularly care.)
- Both the drinking and gambling age is 18, which no one believes I am.
- If you don’t want to pay for your water, say you want “tap water”. Don’t say “normal water” or “still water”, because you could end up paying $6.50 per bottle that they put on your table. (We learned that one the hard way.)
Another note, I have over a hundred
views on this blog!? How is that even possible. I’m sure like half
of those are myself, and probably 40 views came from random people who
click “next blog” and haplessly land on mine, so that means
you guys have viewed my blog 10 times!?! That’s ten more times than
I thought anyone would. Shoot, if I saw my blog, I’d take one look
at how much text there is and peace out. :P I can’t tell you guys
how much I appreciate all the thoughtful messages and comments you guys
send me about my travels! You all give me my motivation to keep writing
and I can’t thank you enough!
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