At the kids school, each sports team season culminates with a trip to play 5 other American schools in SE Asia. This year, the schools changed a 35 year tradition of boys varsity softball to baseball and our school decided we weren't skilled enough to participate this year, so the Boy missed out on his senior year tournament. They played some games and weren't as awful as I thought, but still were not allowed to go. The school has an assembly the week the teams are to travel where the high school can cheer them on, and the teams prepare a highlight video to promote their squad. I don't see many of them, but they are reported to be relatively generic. The baseball team had to petition to be included in the assembly even though they weren't travelling and created the below video. While there are a few subtle inside jokes, mainly about their displeasure about being left at home, this thing is not only funny, but check out the production. This is as good as any of those drug adds you'll ever see.
The trip to Sydney from Taipei had us flying 1.5 hours to HKG, then 9 hours to Sydney. There was a direct TPE-SYD, but the cost this way was markedly cheaper. We had a small snafu at the Taipei airport as you have to have an Australian visa in the airlines system before they issue you a boarding pass. All were fine except mine. It's no secret that Betty turns in to a ball of tension at the airport...hard as it may be, the kids and I have learned to keep quiet and do as she says. The back and forth with the airline agents takes a few minutes and it turns out that my passport number had two numbers transposed, so Tension Ball realizes she is the one that goofed and kinda settles down. I said that we learned to keep our mouths shut at airports around her, but I really can't and say, "well, she's not that great a secretary, but looks good in a striped shirt." I get away with one there, but the Boy starts singing the SpongeBob Squarepants Striped Sweater song, which remains in my brain for the next 24 hours.
Other than that, it was an uneventful trip, but did learn one thing. On the escalators at airports, they have these metal posts at the entry/exit so people don't try to force their luggage carts onto the steps. I now understand why they call this a "choke" point cause of the morons that get off the escalator and stand right between the posts while they try to figure out where the hell they are and proceed to block the rest of humanity. I simply want to effin' choke them.
We arrived Sydney about 8am and had three nights there. Our hotel was in Circular Quay which is about a 10 minute walk to the Opera House. Being kinda beat from the red eye, our plan was to tour the Opera House and play the day by ear.
It is as picturesque as you can imagine. Framed by Sydney Harbour and the Bridge (which they call 'The Coat Hanger')
I get that it is the native instrument and have respect, but after a few short seconds, it is an assault to the ears much in the same vein as the accordion or bag pipes. If your hipster kid ever wants to strap his lips to one, just tell him didgeri-don't
Before our tour of the building started, we're listening to the guide and there is another party in our group that has a tour leader. Our Opera guide is talking and the other groups guide, who is comically Chinese, is talking over him explaining the audio headphones to her party. Our Opera guide stops, and says to the Chinese guide, "Can you control yourself?". No "please", just basically shut the lady down. We laughed and laughed and it became an instant mantra for the rest of our visit
After the tour, we walked through the elegantly manicured Botanical Gardens. Such a great public space and the local population uses it for rest and exercise. My impression of the Aussies was that they have come a long way with regards to exercise since 1983. I mentioned this to some others and they disagreed noting at how lazy and fat they thought the Aussies were. The highlight of the botanical gardens was the tree that was filled with birds that could be coaxed onto your arm. We didn't have any bread, so I took out an Altoid and held it out. Got one to land on me, but he didn't seem amused at my offering and chewed on my thumb instead.
After the Garden, the rest of the gang went back for a rest, but I had researched a used record store not too far from the hotel and set off to find it. On the way, there were 1000's of Chinese out to welcome/protest the Premier of China . Most of them seemed quite happy about his visit
But the Tibetans/Falun Gong types, who were relegated around the corner, were (quietly) not so thrilled..
This was supposed to be some quiet "me" time doing something I love (combing through used CD's), and I get surrounded by more Chinese. Add to the "Control Yourself" lady and this trip was shaping up on day one to be like China South.
While the kiddies didn't join us for the show, we all went to dinner beforehand at a lovely place where we could see both the bridge and Opera House from our outside table. I get this was prime real estate, but dinner wasn't cheap. I could say this about every meal (and almost every activity) we had, but Australia is expensive. I am not going to harp on it, but say this to any potential traveler...Australia is an expensive place to visit. No one mentioned this to us and hadn't read it anywhere, but you have heard it now and have been forewarned. I don't think there is a way to avoid it as a tourist. One guy told us that the laws to pay employees are so strict, that wages are high, which makes prices for services rise accordingly. A lot of politics to unpack there, but the people seemed damn happy overall.
After dinner, we split up and Betty and I took a sunset walk to the Opera House to see the show. It was billed as pop/folk artist Kate Miller-Heidke playing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Not a huge Symphony fan and was skeptical, but it wasn't awful. Her songs were geared towards the younger girl set, but funny overall...
And poignant in spots.
We related the show to the kids next day and the Boy later referred to the show by the Child Abuse Lady. The venue was lovely and sound good. Going to a show there is pretty much a must.
Next day, we decided to do the hop on/off bus as it went all over and was a good way to take in the city. We got off at King's Cross to walk that strip. That area was the historic red light/drug center...excuse me, centre...of Sydney and I remember it so when we visited in '83. Now, while there are some tourist remnants of the strip clubs, it has gentrified and is now full of artisinal cheese stores and a weekend market filled with millennial hipsters (complete with homeless guy beards and ear spacers). We watched one admonish another for their dog shitting and not picking it up.
We then got off in the Paddington neighborhood to wander for a bit. Such a lovely old part of town complete with kitchy street art.
Had been noticing upon arrival that Aussies were devoted to coffee. Shops everywhere and the coffee cup carrying locals rival in numbers those of Seattle. I recalled it being a tea driven culture in '83 and this change was very welcome. As the seasons are flipped, I spent the second half of my senior year of high school and what would have been first semester freshman year of college there and went to a school called Frankston Technical College. It wasn't a standard high school but a mix of high school aged kids with a healthy dose of older dropouts trying to get their high school degree. I fell in with the later crowd and they took great care of me. One of the things they did was introduce me to coffee and had my first coffee drink ever at the shop across the street from school...a double cappuccino with a dash of cinnamon, which is still my go-to drink. Have been an addict ever since. What I also noticed was that they spilled coffee on themselves as the amount of people walking around with coffee stains on their shirts and blouses was striking.
As we were about done with Paddington, we started to get hungry and I saw a pie shop near the bus stop. If you know anything about Australia, you know that meat pies and sausage rolls are standard tucker. I ate a ton of them then, and ever since we decided to go here on vacation, my mouth was watering. We grabbed a few so everyone could try them out and they were well received by all. I had also grabbed a coffee (double cappuccino with a dash of cinnamon naturally) and as we're waking down the street, Paul hands me a pie to eat. I immediately proceed to take a bite and spill coffee all over my shirt. Shit. The stains on the local population totally made sense.
A neat thing about the Sydney hop on/off bus is that there are two routes, but you can transfer and see it all. We climbed onto the one that goes to Bondi. I really wanted to go there cause not only is it the iconic Sydney surf beach, but it is where I stayed during my previous time 34 years ago.
One of my older friends at school invited me to join him during Spring break for a drive up to Sydney. His name was Martin and he had shockingly red hair which made everyone call him Bluey for some reason I was never able to discern. He had a VW bus and we had a blast driving up and down the coast...he had a buddy with an apartment a block off of Bondi and we surfed and drank schooners at the Bondi Beach hotel. Classic. The beach and environs looked very similar with the exception of the Bondi Hotel, which had become decidedly upscale.
I will talk about beer later, but getting booze has changed a lot since the good ol' days. Then, the only place that served alcohol was at a "hotel". They called them that but was never sure if you could actually rent a room. If you went to a restaurant, they were all BYO. And there was no sales on Sunday, so you had to go to the bottle shop attached to the hotel and get your booze on Saturday. I recall many a Sunday where we would go in search of friends that had enough foresight to buy in advance. Now, there are liquor stores all about and there was alcohol served in every restaurant. I tried to relate this to some younger locals and they looked at me in the same 'what are you talking about old man' way that my kids do.
This did remind me of those school days and I got to share some recollections with the family. As my friends were older, for lunch, we would go across the highway to the local Frankston Hotel for lunch. They had a kitchen that sold "counter teas" and I would get the schnitzel almost every day. Dedicated readers of this diary will know my affinity for schnitzel and here is where it originated. I still remember it as being great but guess that it really wasn't. Not only would my friends and I go, but many of the teachers were of similar age and they'd come with us and we would have lunch and a beer (or two). They were initially apprehensive about drinking with the young Yank, but we quickly developed a rapport. One day, as we were walking (stumbling?) back to school for afternoon classes, my English teacher runs up to Bluey and I and says a dog was hit by a car and can we help. We lift the big Lab into the back of Bluey's VW van with the bleeding dog on the English teacher and my lap in the back seat, and the dog proceeds to lose control of his bowels all over us. The happy ending was that the dog survived. The other thing I remember about the English teacher was the day we were learning about poetry and she brought in the first Dire Straits album and we dissected the lyrics to 'In The Gallery".
Anyhoo...at Bondi, we climbed into our beach costumes and Paul and I went to play in the surf for a bit, just to say we did. We saw a ton of Sydney and it is just as charming and beautiful as you would imagine.
Last day in Sydney was the best weather wise, so we packed our beach costumes (can you tell I love calling them costumes) and headed off on the local ferry network to Manly Beach. It was a lovely day, the first in some time apparently, and as it was a Sunday, half of Sydney was out to enjoy it. We rented umbrellas and chairs (from two Latino guys who were were from Chile and Argentina), ate (quite good) burritos on the beach and had the quintessential Sydney beach day.
On the ferry ride home, we sat next to a couple of typical Australian girls. My memories of Aussie girls were fond. As a 17/18 year old Yank, they were really interested in me at the time. They thought I had a cool accent and laughed at my underpants. In those days, I wore boxer shorts, which were absolutely hilarious to the Aussies that wore bikini/speedo types exclusively. I remember the first time they noticed was when I was at the chalkboard and they could see the outline of my boxers in my pants. Seems stupid, but if you're having a fun conversation about underwear with a girl, you're doing good. Anyhoo, it was the peak of having girls interested in me and was great, so in my mind, they were all gorgeous Sheilas. Am talking to a buddy recently who travels there for work and mention how cute Australian girls are and he could not disagree more. I recall this conversation as I'm sitting next to these two girls on the ferry who remind me of a lot of the girls from back in the past and also The Captain's Wife from Mad Max 2. She was the woman that the gyro copter guy had a thing for?
The same cute pudgy face and bizarre head buns. Looks are a matter of taste and will leave it there.
That's it for now. Next stop is Uluru and hope to post soon.
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