Luna Park

We stayed in Sydney for another week because of a conference. It's a good city to hang out in, definitely, and easy to get around because of the good public transportation. We saw Star Wars again in IMAX (world's biggest screen, couldn't resist) and went to the Museum of Sydney's Lego exhibit which was cool. We hadn't heard of Luna Park before seeing it recreated in Lego and decided to check it out on a later day. It is an amusement park on the other side of the harbor that has gone through all kinds of struggles and shut downs before being opened again due to popular support. 

We went to an opal shop that had a little museum area with lots of beautiful opals that have been discovered in Australia to redeem the 'free gift' coupon in one of the tourism books in the hotel, and sure enough, they took one look at our age and backpacks and ignored us (besides one offhand comment about our backpacks), even though I was interested in buying something. Loss for them. The guy behind the counter was so clearly not wanting to help us and just pulled out the lapel pins and was done. I find it really frustrating how people judge others -- especially in these kinds of stores -- based on what they look like. That's why we young people like to shop online!! They'll all be out of business likely anyway, so they can go on being rude if they want. I still got something free out of the deal.

 

 

 

Taronga Zoo

With the conference over, it was time to visit Sydney's famous Taronga Zoo!

The easiest way to get there is to take the ferry from Circular Quay (pronounced key). It's only about 10 minutes and a nice ride on the water. There are some small savings if you purchase the zoo + ferry ticket at the ferry ticket counters instead of getting the tickets separately. There's also a zoo salesperson at the ferry terminal who has a little credit card machine with a mini-printer on their belt so you can buy your zoo pass there and get to take the zoo sky tram when you get to the zoo instead of having to take the bus over to the zoo ticket area. The zoo is built on a huge hill, so you arrive at the bottom and then take the sky tram or bus up to the top and work your way down. This means it has great views of the city! Highlights were the red pandas and lots of birds and the Free Flight Bird Show where different kinds of birds swooped in over the audience's heads and did tricks.  Everywhere we went there were birds making noises.

We treated ourselves to the restaurant we had passed by on our first day that had a huge line -- Pancakes on the Rocks. The menu had a ton of different pancake combinations. D got the jaffa orange chocolate pancakes and I got the chocolate berry pancakes. They weren't the most amazing things ever -- his didn't have orange flavoring inside but just some orange slices on the top -- but they were the most actually chocolate pancakes I've ever had. They also like putting ice cream or cream instead of whipped cream in Australia and New Zealand, and while ice cream always seems like a good idea, it wasn’t very good ice cream and so just ended up being quite heavy to accompany the rest of the sugary meal. As an appetizer, we ordered “pizza crust” which was the strangest tasting bread we’ve had. Basically bread with spices but no cheese so it seemed like it was missing something.

koala

giraffes get great views

Free flight bird show was really cool to watch.

cute little otter

different kinds of ducks

 

fishing cat

wombat munching down

wallaby and kangaroo

crocodile

red panda!

kookaburra

lorikeet

we called this "goat mountain"

In the evening, we saw Les Miserables at the Capitol Theatre. It was good. Every time I see it I’m in a different place in life and get something different out of it.