Godley Head, Stargazing, and Easter treats

We've had a few nice experiences outside, trying to take advantage of the decent weather before winter sweeps in again. We went for a drive to the Godley Head area past Sumner on a beautiful, sunny day. There are some military buildings left over from World War II while the country was on the lookout for enemy ships or submarines. 

We also went to South New Brighton and walked for a bit on the beach. There were some horseback riders behind us which was cool to see. I have yet to go riding on the beach but have always wanted to.

For Easter, we went to a friend's family's house about 45 minutes north of the city. When it got dark out, he brought out his telescope and we looked at Jupiter and its moons, Orion, nebulae, stars, and star clusters which was a new and fun experience. It was a clear night so you could see the Milky Way pretty clearly too. 

At school, there was a Canterbury Historical Association lecture by Patrick Evans, who discussed the different receptions he has gotten from his history books vs historical fiction books. He had some interesting points about writing fiction and how even history is really a fiction from a specific perspective. We also heard from Abbas Nazari on being a child refugee who made it from Afghanistan to New Zealand and has been successful despite previous hardships. He played a clip from a video essay called "The End of the Line: The Refugee Crisis and the Fate of the West" which posed some challenging questions about the West blaming refugees for the loss of their way of life. I want to watch the rest of it now.

We couldn't resist going to Warehouse for some clearance Easter candy, and ever since last year, we have been waiting to get the chocolate Biggy Piggy (for sharing!), so we bought it this year - only $15! The other big one is for a friend.

Darling Harbor

On our last full day in Sydney, we checked out Darling Harbor and then went to the National Maritime Museum. It was quite affordable for the exhibit-only ticket (not the ships outside or the special exhibit): $3.50 for students. The museum had a lot of stuff -- odds and ends of ship things plus the military aspects. I especially liked the section on stories from ship passengers who arrived in Australia as kids. There was even a Big Brother Australia program to get young boys from Britain here to work on the farms. And the White Australia policy wasn’t officially over until the 1970s.

Next we went to see Jurassic World for the second time, but this time in the "world's biggest IMAX screen". The theater was very poorly organized and managed, with masses of people and no crowd control, and they started late. But we still enjoyed the IMAX experience!

We wandered through a small Chinatown and ended up eating at the mall food court. D got lemon chicken and rice and I got garlic beef and fried rice. Meals were very affordable, plus they came on sizzling platters! We got gelato and sat outside looking over the nighttime harbor, then walked home. The city is very walkable, although it is warm when the sun is out but gets chilly when it goes down like anywhere else, which makes it difficult to plan for what to wear.