Sydney No.2

Earlier this year Mom and I visited Sydney No. 1 in Canada, which was founded just a few years before Austraila’s Sydney was established in 1788. Despite its late start, this Sydney is astounding. We arrived early evening and Al gave us a quick tour of the local neighborhood on foot so that those of us who didn’t already have reservations could find a place for dinner. There was a festival going on and we saw people dressed in Chinese Dragon costumes, a pop-up street food market, children dancing in a park to live music at twilight.

Our group getting an orientation tour.

Robert and I decided to first go to the tents to see what kind of street food we could find. After a couple of freshly grilled skewers and some jostlement by the crowds, we went to a little alley full of small Asian eateries. We chose the Kowloon Cafe. The chicken curry was delicious, as was Robert’s coconut drink. His fried noodle dish looked more impressive than it tasted.

Pop-up street food market.

Kowloon Cafe on a Saturday night

The following morning we toured the Sydney Opera House and learned about its construction, which began in the mid 1970s and lasted 16 years. I have always thought of it as white, but it isn’t. It’s covered in tiles in various shades of off white and there’s a distinct geometric pattern than is obvious in photos from a distance. During the tour we discovered that tickets were still available for the symphony that afternoon and so we started to work to buy tickets on our phone.

After the Sydney Opera House tour, we had a tour of “The Rocks” district, where the earliest settlers built the hospital. This tour gave us a lot of the history of the place, especially early history. I was distracted through most of it because I was trying to buy symphony tickets and the darn credit card companies were protecting me from myself. Anyway, after our tour and finally securing tickets to the symphony, we had lunch with our tour group.

We had the rest of the day free to explore Sydney. The Rocks district was mobbed because the Sydney marathon going on that day finished right at the Opera House. Limping fit people were everywhere, eating and drinking up everything.

Finish line at the Sydney Marathon.

The symphony later in the day was every bit as spectacular as I hoped. Absolutely delightful. The first half was Dvorak’s Violin Concerto was performed beautifully by Karen Gomyo and the symphony astounded with Rachmoninov’s second symphony. Afterwards we went back to “The Rocks” and the mobs had cleared making it easy to find a table and a pint.

It was a real treat to listen to the Sydney symphony play Rachmaninov's second symphony.

Looking back at the opera house from The Rocks after the concert.

Another view from The Rocks.

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