So it was my third time in Sydney. I had six full days in the city to appreciate it once more and round up my time in the southern hemisphere before flying back to that hemisphere farther north.
Tracy (the girl from Richmond Hill that I had met in Katoomba) had told me about the Biennale Art Festival in Sydney: a festival that occurs every two years with venues in prominent art galleries, and a few other places, all over the city. All of the venues offered free admission for the festival, so I decided to make it a high priority to visit many of the art galleries during my time in Sydney.
My first destination today was the Museum of Contemporary Art near The Rocks and Circular Quay in Sydney. My last time in Sydney I had really learned the way around so I decided to walk along the beautiful harbourfront and through the pretty Royal Botanic Gardens to the museum. Along the way I took many really nice pictures, but most of them are on (or soon should be) on Picasa, as always. I think this picture is pretty fun, though, so I’ll put it on here. I found a group of people playing soccer in the Royal Botanic Gardens, right near the harbour, and captured this shot:
The Museum was pretty cool. I didn’t take many photographs there, though. Like many museums, they don’t like you taking photos, and had people standing in each room to shoo you away if you try. So annoying.
The real highlight of the day was a short ferry ride away, however. I caught the free ferry from the steps in front of the museum to Cockatoo Island. This island was a prison in the 19th century and a shipyard for much of the 20th century. The shipyard closed many years ago, but many of the warehouses, metal shops, cranes, barracks, and docks remain on the island, gradually rusting and falling apart. For fans of urban exploration, Cockatoo Island is a true gem. I didn’t know about it at all until Tracy told me how she went there and didn’t have enough time to explore the whole place before she had to leave. I intended to go there for only about two hours, but I ended up getting completely sucked in by the place and was there for closer to five hours.
I wandered around the derelict machinery for so long. Since the island was officially one of the venues for the Biennale (hence, the free ferry ride and admission!) many of the abandoned metal shops and warehouses were host to art exhibits. All of the art pieces were contemporary pieces, and I think were created especially for the festival.
My favourite piece was this one in a darkened upper room of a warehouse with boarded-over windows. Six or seven projectors were displaying filmed scenes on the walls. All of the scenes were strictly black and white and showed silhouettes of some sort of action. One of them was of a man in a Russian military uniform dancing. One was of various people, robots, animals, and strange assemblages of beings gradually marching down a road holding revolutionary banners and placards. One showed meetings minutes from a meeting of a Soviet committee from the 1920s. Most of the meeting involved one Comrade Bukharin telling everyone else in the meeting how stupid he thought they were. All of the action was synchronized to a single rousing soundtrack of a Russian march. The piece was so well done and different from anything I had ever seen I had a difficult time leaving so I could see more fantastic art.
The theme of the Biennale was “Revolution” -- in any of its possible meanings: political, rotational, whatever. Different art pieces explored “revolution” in different ways. The communist themed artwork on Cockatoo Island was just one of really cool and engaging artworks I saw there.
August 15, 2008
My main destination today was another venue for the Biennale: the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This art gallery was in a grand Neoclassical building just outside the Royal Botanic Gardens. The collection of artwork was a range of Australian artists (19th century to present day), Aboriginal artists (present day), Torres Strait Islander artists (present day), and European artists (15th century to present day).
The front of the building was graffitied in clever ways, befitting the art festival. Particularly cute was the flying boomerang announcing that “I will be back”!
After the art gallery, I wandered through the central business district through to Chinatown where I had a really spicy korean kimchee and tofu soup for lunch. Yum!
From there, I went to Paddy’s Markets to look around for a didgeridoo. I shopped around for a while before picking up a really pretty one. I’ve tried to play it a bit since getting it, but not when I was still in Australia. The shop vendor packed my didgeridoo with bubble wrap for the big plane ride(s) home, and I wanted to leave it on since he really struggled to get it on. I’m not very good at playing it yet, though. I think I need to learn how to correctly do circular breathing (breathing out through the mouth and in through the nose at the same time) before I can make any musical breakthroughs. The vendor who sold me the didgeridoo also gave me a small book that explains how to do it. Wish me luck!
There was lots of food available to sell at the market, too. I was reminded of how used I had gotten to the Aussies using different words for things. Check out the “capsicums!”
Yeah, capsicum is just pepper. Crazy Aussies.
While the mornings and evenings were chilly in Sydney (it was early spring there), the afternoons were warm and delightful (around 16 degrees). However, just like the Melbournians, the Sydneysiders were bundled up against the weather. Since it really wasn’t that cold in the afternoon, I made the conclusion that the Australians just like to play dress up during their “winter.”
That night I went for dinner and drinks with Ann, the Australian girl that I had met on my last day in Tonga. She lived nearby and she took me around Newtown to get a look around the cool neighbourhood (reminds me of The Annex in Toronto). We went to a bookstore that was packed to packed to the rafters with a bizarre and eclectic selection of second-hand books. If you needed a nook about Criminal Law of Queensland, photography, or the Secret World of the Irish Male (maybe I should have picked this up for Patrick, but I didn’t think about it at the time), then this is the place. The books were sorted haphazardly and only by exhaustive searches and literally poring through the stacks could you find anything.
Ann bought a book about how to use artistic words to be able to quickly make it appear that you were the master of any subject. I hope she uses the book to good effect!
After a couple beers and a really nice dinner at a West African restaurant, we made plans to meet up again before I left again. She also said that her sister was visiting Australia for a year in a few months and Ann wanted to buy an old van and drive around Australia. If they end up doing it, and I’m back in Australia in a few months, maybe I should join them! Wouldn’t that be a great way to see a country?
That’s Ann and I. GO SIDEBURN POWER!
Here is a photograph of the African restaurant with a great full moon behind it.
August 16, 2008
After checking out the little weekend market set up in Kings Cross, I walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens again to see a tour of the world famous Sydney Opera House. If you read my blog many many months ago, you might have seen pictures of the opera house from outside. Now you can see some pictures from inside!
Since I took a tour early in the morning (because it was cheaper!) one of the concert halls was vacant of any workers or sets so I was allowed to take pictures inside it.
If there was anyone working there or any sets or props, then they would not have allowed me to take a picture (and most tour guides are too zealous in enforcing annoying rules like this, from my experience). I got to see inside the main opera hall itself, but I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures from inside of it since people were working on the sets for the performance of Othello that afternoon. Oh well, the concert hall was pretty, wasn’t it?
The walk continued from there. I wanted to take a tour of the nearby Government House, but it was closed for an official government function. I would have to return the next day.
Walk walk walk. Next stop: St. Mary’s Cathedral. It was a grand neogothic structure beside tree-filled Hyde Park. I had stopped in briefly the day before around lunch since I wanted to take pictures. They were in the middle of a mass and the church was absolutely packed with people taking breaks during their busy lunch hours to attend mass. There was a mass today, too, but I arrived much closer to the beginning, so I waited for the mass to finish before taking pictures. Since it was the weekend, there were far fewer people there.
Walkity walkity walk. More walking. Next stop was Chinatown for lunch followed by a snack and hot chocolate at the delicious Lindt Cafe beside Darling Harbour. It was my third time visiting the same cafe. I had made sure to stop in there at least once in each of my visits to Sydney.
I had not really explored Darling Harbour very much though -- usually I had just passed through here on my way to somewhere else (or specifically to the yummy Lindt cafe). This time I walked around a bit more to see people meditating, children playing, and tourists touring (just like me!)
There was more walking to do, though. Oh yes, it was a big walking day! I wanted to return to Newtown since I had enjoyed it much the night before. I hoped to check out some second-hand or vintage clothing shops. After walking like an hour and a half to get there, however, I saw an arty movie house and watched the movie “Persepolis” instead. It’s a French animated movie about the life of a Iranian girl that lives through the 1979 revolution and then moves to Europe to get away from the increasingly oppressive theocratic government. Excellent movie!
I had one more destination planned on my big walk. I walked from Newtown to Glebe (maybe about 45 minutes to the north, past a big university and Victoria Park). I had passed through Glebe back in March and discovered a Polish restaurant. The restaurant was only open for dinner, so was closed when I discovered it the first time. This time, I came during dinner time so I could feast.
Alas, it was not to be. When I got there, the restaurant was indeed open. However, all of the seats were booked that night and there was no space for little old me. I made reservations for Monday night.
The walk was not for nought, though. Walking past that big park, I got a lot of really beautiful photographs of trees, the full moon, and lots of clouds.
My big walk was wearing down on me, though. From Glebe, I hoofed it over to Central Station so I could take a train back to Kings Cross. I checked it out the next day and apparently I had walked over 20 km today... all on hard pavement! Good work, me!
In Central Station, I took this picture. It amuses me, so I’ll share it with you here.
Translation for the non-Aussies:
“Hungry Jack’s” means “Burger King”
“Brekky” means “Breakfast”
“6am” means “way too early, suckas!”
August 17, 2008
I headed over to Government House early on to catch one of the free tours. The stately mansion in the Royal Botanic Garden is the official residence of the Governor of New South Wales. The current governor, however, still lives in her own residence in Sydney. The house was very ornate inside, but, of course, no one would let me take pictures. Bastards.
The afternoon would be an interesting one! When I was in Cairns at the beginning of July, I had met a couple people from Sydney who shared my love of board games: Angus and Bendeguz. We had made plans to meet up again during my final pass through Sydney for some board gaming action. Bendeguz had created his own modified rules and map for the World War II war game Axis and Allies. Angus couldn’t make it, but Bendeguz rounded up three more of his friends and we met up to play.
We randomly drew countries. I was Germany. Bendeguz was Japan. We were teamed up against the three other guys playing the UK, the USSR, and the USA. It took many, many hours, but after a lot of candy, soda pop and pizza, Germany and Japan crushed the communist Russian forces and the German tanks rolled across Moscow and ground it into dust before the British and Americans could get their collective acts together and successfully use their naval superiority to launch a successful invasion of Western Europe!
Yay! We win!
Bendeguz gave me a ride back in his cool old VW Beetle. As we lurched through the busy nighttime streets of the Sydney CBD, we made plans to meet up again on Tuesday to see some amateur theatre.
August 18, 2008
Today was a quiet day. I mostly hung around the hostel, even though I didn’t enjoy the place much. Most of the people there were staying there long term, drank a lot at night, and smoked a lot of cigarettes and marijuana at any time of day. It was a pretty stinky place to hang out, and I generally avoided it. The past few days were pretty busy, though, so it was nice to chill out.
At night, I walked back to Glebe for my appointed meal at the “Na Zdrowie” Polish restaurant. “Na Zdrowie” is a very useful phrase in Polish. It means, literally “To Your Health.” You can say it after someone sneezes or when making a toast.
When I arrived at the restaurant, I asked the waiter, “Please tell me that you have Polish beers!” The restaurant did not stock any, but he recommended an excellent nearby bottle shop where they supplied Zywiec and Warka beers. They also stocked some Leffe Radieuse ales that I picked up for later. They also, surprisingly carried my favourite liquor in the world, the magnificent Licor 42 from Spain. I wanted to buy it, but there wasn’t enough time left for me to consume it while I was still in Australia and I knew the Americans would probably take it away from me when I flew through Los Angeles in two days. My backpack was too full for me to pack the big bottle into, so I’m sure they would consider my carried-on hazelnut liquor to be a dangerous weapon and would confiscate it so they could drink it themselves. Bastards. I lamented my poor fortune to the shopkeeper and he gave me a free single-serving bottle of Licor 42 to tide me over. What a nice guy!
(subliminal message: LCBO SUX)
Oh yeah, dinner was awesome. It was an expensive meal since I went all out... barley soup (zurek), mixed pierogie in tomato and roasted red capsicum (PEPPER!) sauce, and a proper piece of Polish cheesecake (sernik) for desert. I had to pay some corkage fees for my beers, but I don’t care. That was good food, suckas.
August 19, 2008
MY LAST DAY IN AUSTRALIA
It was really here. It was really hard to believe. My big trip was getting really close to the end. Emotions were mixed up in my head. Its hard to describe how I really felt that crisp spring day in Sydney. I won’t fuss over such weirdness now. Now its like two weeks later, and I can’t remember it all anyways.
I did a load of laundry in the morning before heading out for lunch with Ann on the Wooloomooloo waterfront near Kings Cross. I like that word: Wooloomooloo. It’s fun to say it. Try it.
We walked past Russell Crowe’s swanky waterfront condo and swish (and ‘spensive) restaurants before settling down at the less ‘spensive Wooloomooloo Hotel restaurant for risotto, chicken parma and beers.
That night Bendeguz and Rubin, both from the board game action on Sunday, met with me at the nearby SBW Stables Theatre to see an amateur theatrical production. I got a discount on my ticket price because I was under 30 years old. Curse my youthful good looks, heh heh heh. The show was called “Arabian Night” and was really cool. There were only five actors and very few props. The theatre was tiny and we sat in the front row, only feet away from the show. It was very engaging, engrossing and encompassing. The ending of the show was very memorable as a glass bottle fell from the ceiling, smashed on the floor of centre stage, and the lights went out.
After dinner we sat around at the nearby Oporto’s chicken place to drink hot chocolate and chat. It was a nice last night in Sydney. I’m glad that I’ve made friends here. I hope I can visit them again, someday.
--
Rob Sz
Toronto, Canada
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