It was surprising to see a busy and crowded Sydney and that was what I saw. Last November I went to Sydney. It is a beautiful city, though with the usual city’s problems like traffic jam and quick-paced.
Unlike the photo in my Calendar (or most other photos I saw about Sydney) showing a beautiful but empty architecture of Sydney Opera House, the real Sydney the real Sydney Opera House I saw packed with happy people drinking, socialising and having fun. This is the one. Oh! So beautiful, I mean the crowd, the setting sun’s rays, the blue blue sea and, though less, the building.
It was a Saturday evening of early November 2008, summer just began. The air was still cool. Summer heat? That would be a week later. The place was packed with people. The Opera House’s restaurant filled with people with Tuxedo and evening gown. Outside the Opera House beside the sea stood many many people outside and inside pubs and cafes. At Circular Quay, you see people people and people filling the leisure atmosphaere with excitement.
There are more people at Sydney now. Many years ago, my friends who studied at Australia told me…”everything close after 6pm. You can’t find a shop open after 6pm.”
The last time my wife visited Sydeny with her parents with a tour group more than ten years ago, the group stayed at a hotel near King Cross. Yeap, the red light area. At night she heard police sirens.
I imagined Sydney in November was quiet, boring, hot, with lots of flies, some dangerous gansters and probably has to be very careful of pick pocketing thief. But I was dead wrong.
I walked the city with my cousin, who stayed and worked along Sussex Street, at 10pm or later…probably till 12 mid night. From Darling Habour she led me to the Rock, Circular Quay, backed down to Hyde Park, and finally stopped at a Gloria Jean cafe to have tea. The toilet at the opposite McDonald was the dirtiest of all I saw in Australia, UK plus Turkey. But walking at night at Sydney, we both feel safe. It was one of the best walk since a long while ago. We both walked quietly, only few unsequence sentences of conversation. Or may be not, may be we did talk, just that I forgot what we were talking.
I took this silhouette of Sydney’s cityscape from the Ferry. I gave this photo a name “Nocturnal CityScape of Sydney”. The ferry ride came with formal dinner. The food in the ferry is bad. One large chunk of beef.
An Opera House’s evening. We were on the ferry coming back from Bluemountain through Homebush Bay Wharf.
Ferry ride past through many nice yatches.
This is the Sydney I remember, crowded, quick-paced yet you can find calmness just a sail away…
