The Sydney Finale - the Bridge Climb and the Opera House

OK...thanks for sticking in there...this is it...the end of the Sydney narrative. The highlight of the trip was taking part in the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. Since 1998, it has been possible to fork over a stupid amount of money and climb the Bridge, which took eight years to build (1924-1932).

We gladly did this and it was worth every single dollar. What an amazing experience! At the top of the Bridge, you are afforded 360 degree views of Sydney and its environs. We could see all the way out to the Blue Mountains the morning we made our ascent. It's an awesome three and a half hours. They don't fool around though - lots of instruction, reassurance, and a breathalyzer test all for good measure. They also don't allow anything even resembling your own camera on the climb. No way, no how are you getting your own camera up there, no matter where you hide the thing. Which explains why I have no pictures of us climbing or from the top o'the Bridge for you (you can get a snippet of the experience by clicking on the link at the start of the post). They do, however, take a slew of pictures of you while on the climb. You do get one group photo for free and then as you walk through the Gift Shop (they took very good notes from Disney) at the end of the ride, you see all the other pictures they took of you. It's wicked hard to say no to at least one. We did buy one, but our stupid, lame scanner is not working, so no posting of that photo. I am completely serious in saying that this is something you should not miss! We had such a good time and will have memories forever about our climb. If you do go, see if you can get Max as your Climb Guide. He was ours and he's great. Studying several languages right now so he can one day work at the UN. He's ready now, if you ask me.

Now, a last word about Sydney's other world-renowned icon, the Opera House. Call me blasphemous, but when you get close to it, it just screams 'Mike Brady School of Architecture.' It is quite a testament to the late 60's/early 70's architechtural style, which is to say, yikes. From a distance, it's stunning, but when you get up close...it's like "Butterface," but for a building. RE "butterface," if you have to ask...email me. Here's some long views of the building:


When you get close, you find out that the roof is covered, and I mean COVERED, in thousands of mosaic tiles. Who even knew?! See what I mean:

We did learn that a much-needed renovation of the Opera House interior is about to begin. They'll be spending something north of $700 Million AUD to bring it into the new Millenium...apparently nothing much has changed since it opened in 1973. Ouch.

Australia was simply amazing. We had a great, great time. It was wonderful to spend a week with Shari. We laughed a lot and just shared a lot of precious time together. Count your blessings, though, as it spared you from some posts about the Clintons' behavior at the DNC as well as McCain's wild, patronizing pick of Sarah Palin for VP. Suffice to say, the Mitt-ites aren't a happy bunch. Just take a look at the handiwork of Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and his take on Mitt's reaction. Brilliant.

Sydney Highlights - Round Tres

Home stretch here people - see the earlier posts to get caught up on the Sydney saga so far.

Sydney is chock a'block with cool galleries and museums. We spent an evening in the Art Gallery of New South Wales - they have a remarkable collection of Chinese art that was really interesting to see.

We also spent some time at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which I've decided I just don't get - contemporary art, that is. Cool building in Circular Quay though.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention more of the food we got to sample while in Sydney. Amazing stuff. The crowning event for me was getting Shari to try kangaroo, which she gamely did (no pun intended, either!). Granted, it was only a little and it was on a pizza, but she tried it. We ate at this great little place in the Rocks called the Australian Hotel and that's where I ordered a kangaroo pepper pizza. It was awesome! Check out the link to the Hotel...we ate outside and soaked up a lot of character. It's a really fun place.

While we were walking around the Rocks, Shari sampled mango ice cream and really liked it:

I was delighted to see that my obsession with the cupcake could be fed, even more than 9,000 miles from Chicagoland. I bought a strawberry vanilla cupcake at the place pictured below. It was really, really good-the cupcake.

On our last night in Sydney, we met a friend of mine who recently moved to Melbourne from Hong Kong and was in Sydney for business and we had a most amazing dinner at a restaurant in Circular Quay that has been consistently ranked at the best in Sydney - the Quay. To say that it was amazing would be an understatement. It's already been rated Sydney's best restaurant for 2009 and it's only August 2008. You have to click on the link to the restaurant to take in their menu. Words cannot adequately describe this place. From the views to the food, it was all perfection. The mud crab congee that I started with was beyond incredible. I can't say enough about it, other than to tell you to go there. Fantastic. Simply fantastic.

Sydney Highlights - Round Dos

Having survived my first full Sunday as a member of the bishopric here in Chicagoland (note to self-pack a cereal bar or something in the Church book bag!), it's time to post just a bit more about our fiesta in Sydney.

Shari was quite a trooper, agreeing to attend one of the two days of the conference I was at - the NBTA AsiaPacific Annual Conference. We rode out to the site of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games for the conference. The venue was in the stadium where the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of those games were held. It's now called the ANZ Stadium. Here are a couple of shots:


We took these during the "behind the scenes" tour of the Stadium that we got to take. The Stadium is primarily used for Rugby Union games, Rugby League games, cricket matches, and some Australian Rules Football, or AFL, games. It was cool to see the inner workings and to also see some of the remnants of the Olympics. We even made it on to the Gold Medal stand:

Now before this becomes a painful slide show, reminiscent of the ones your spinster aunts made you sit through of their trips to see Great Aunt Esther after her hip replacement, hang in there, just a few more pictures!

After my conference responsibilities ended, Sydney was ours to explore. Some of the highlights included making it to the suburb of Carlingford to attend a session at the Sydney Temple:

Gracias to the weak American dollar, that trip to the Temple was a $150USD cab ride roundtrip. Ouch!

We explored Darling Harbour and Chinatown via the Sydney Ferry and managed to get a picture of ourselves riding the ferry:


Chinatown was awesome. I found a dumpy bakery where I was able to by pork bao and eggtarts. I was completely content. It kept my mind off the Bridge Climb....we got a picture of what we would be doing while we were on the ferry:

More on the Bridge Climb in the next post -

Sydney Highlights - Round One

Before I get rolling on the highlights of our trip to Sydney, I first have to shout "Go Cougars!" BYU won their season opener against Northern Iowa this evening, 41 - 17. It wasn't pretty for the Cougars (some unpleasant mistakes were made), but they won, and NI's QB, Pat Grace, deserves some kind of medal for the punishment he took in the game.

Enough of that...let's get it out there right now...Sydney now ranks as one of my favorite cities in the world. There, I've said it. In short, we had a fantastic trip - a wonderful week-long getaway for Shari and me.

I won't bore you with the details of the flights, other than to say that they were long; I slept for most of the long legs to Sydney, even in Mother United's old Business Class seats; Shari watched several chick flicks and all the flights were on time. Except for the flight to Sydney - delayed so that they could hand each of us a bottle of water as there was no potable drinking water on the airplane and then there weren't enough meals loaded for the folks in Economy. Oh and I'd also like to point out that Shari's run of not flying Economy internationally remains unbroken.

We arrived in Sydney last Sunday morning, bright and early, and were met by the director of NBTA Asia Pacific, Karen Davies, and her husband, Bruce. They were so cool to meet us and take us on a drive around Sydney. They were great - especially when you consider we went straight from twenty hours of flying to their car - we had a serious case of the "Boeing stink," I'm sure, but they were wonderful to us. We got to see Sydney from the local's point of view. I'll let pictures do the talking now:

We'd been off the plane about an hour when we took the above picture, with Sydney in the background.

Above is a view from the bluff we were on.

Then we headed over to Manly Beach for breakfast. Take a look at the following pictures and tell me what season it is:


WINTER! This is winter in Sydney. Umm...after two heinous winters in Chicagoland, sign me up for this kind of winter any day of the week!

We then wound up in Sydney itself and took in our first close-up views of the famed Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. In a word, breathtaking:

We capped our tour of Sydney with our friends by going to Harry's for a meat pie. I'd liken it to the Australian version of In-n-Out. I could not have been more delighted that we were there.

Shari got an original, including a mash of peas on top:

Harry's was outstanding. Loved it. I got a curry meat pie and it was all kinds of excellent. After getting a taste of Sydney, it was off to the hotel - the Four Seasons Sydney. Can I just tell you that we LOVE that hotel?! As we poured out of Karen's car, the bellman greeted us by name. Now, that was pretty cool. Although when you think about it...these guys are so well-versed in guest relations, and they knew that these two Americans were going to be checking in after a wicked long flight, but man are they good. So when we got out of the car, looking like refugees out of some B-grade disaster movie, it probably didn't take a genius to guess who we were, but just the same, it was a sweet move. The entire staff made us feel welcome the entire time we were there. Our room had stunning views of the Opera House and the Bridge. We were most lucky to be there for the week. If ever you stay there, make sure you stay in one of the Executive rooms, so you can meet Jane, the manager of the Executive Club. She is an absolute delight. The concierge, Jorge, and Luke, from his team, are awesome as well. We felt at home the entire week - and that sums up Sydney. It felt like home, and I don't mean that in the sense that it felt like the US. It just felt comfortable and like somewhere you'd like to be.

More pictures to come -