Sydney by Bus Monday 2/25/08

With some facilities in our apartment it is easy to chop up some fruit to toss with yogurt and cereal this morning for breakfast. We have found a fellow in a convenient store/internet café across the street who will unplug one of his computers so we can plug ours in to get some work done online in exchange for a few dollars. Free wireless is so available in other parts of the world that we never thought it would be a problem here, and yet it is, free or not. This guy is reasonable and convenient so it will work for the rest of the week. That takes care of our morning.

We have an egg/bacon/muffin sandwich in the apartment for lunch and begin our search for the Hop-on, Hop-off Sydney bus tour. We are doing the double-decker but only find the stops for its competitor. We finally ask and are told that they share the stops so we were OK all along, and successfully score the senior rate when the bus arrives. We have done this in other cities and find it to be an easy way to get acquainted with the sights and neighborhoods in a new place and it’s about time that we get around to it. The first part of the tour covers ground we have already explored but we want to get to the transfer point for the "Bondi" bus.

Bondi (pronounced bond-eye) is arguably the most famous of Sydney’s beaches and beach communities. It is in a little curve of land that forms an enclosed bay that still has the concentrated waves straight from the Pacific. Pretty good for the surfers, swimmers and sunners, and also pretty good for John to find an ice cream cone while Mary behaves. Our next return bus is scheduled for 3:15 and at 3:15 we can see the bus parked a couple blocks away. There are quite a few people waiting and we pester a bus employee, who has made the mistake of being available, about the delay. He says the driver is on a "mandated break" and will be along in 5 or 10 minutes. We don’t ask about their mandated schedule. There is a definite difference between the Aussie idea of job performance and that which we are accustomed to in our part of the world, but when in Rome….

The bus tour introduces us to a few news things as we go past the cricket and footie stadiums, Fox movie studios, Royal Sydney Golf Club and plenty of schools, museums and churches. We have a better idea of the lay of the land so it is mission accomplished for this afternoon. The bus gets back to our neighborhood a little after 5:00 and we take a leisurely stroll along Darling Harbor back to our building.

Tonight is Chinese and our pick is The Golden Century, about a half mile away in Chinatown. We have a 7:30 reservation ("booking" to us Aussies) and it’s a good thing. The place is very large, two levels, and packed (on a Monday night) so the people who just walk in are told it will be as long as an hour for a table. The hostess/gatekeeper is small and surrounded by a throng of large bodies who she is managing in multiple languages. Mary has a nightmare of burger night at the Lodge.

We are among the ten percent Caucasians in the building and the menu and procedures are daunting for first-timers. The wait staff tries to speak English but they really don’t and our Chinese is a little weak so we go through a couple folks to ask some menu questions. The specialty is seafood and it is all swimming around you in tanks in the dining rooms. If you order a huge lobster, or three-pound fish or crab the size of a pillow, it is netted, put in a plastic bag, weighed, and brought to your table, still flopping or stretching, with a price tag like a meat counter for your approval. Then you order your beverages, soups, preferred sides and the whole thing is cooked up and presented family style to your table of eight. Unfortunately, we are a table of two and we really wimp out. We get a few egg rolls, scallops with asparagus and salt fish and chicken fried rice. Our understanding of the concept grew while we watched and learned and it would be fun to have another crack at it. Maybe in another life.

The streets are busy, as they always seem to be in the Chinese parts of town, as we walk back. The Academy Awards are scheduled for tape rerun tonight but apparently not on either of our two TV channels. We catch a documentary on the Mafia in America and get the award winners from the news.

Today's local headline: In our Sunday best, a bow to the dancing queens Sydney Morning Herald (The Queens passing in the harbor)