Upon walking out of my hotel, I found a McDonalds, Burger King , KFC, and many other stores familiar to my home land. Walking a few more yards I found myself at Darling Harbor. I was looking for something to do. It is only noon here and if I take a nap now I will be up all night and the jet lag will beat me down. If, however, I can stay alert or at least vertical for the next 10 hours I will get a solid night's rest and be ready to go the next morning. In Darling Harbor that's easy to do. I thought the Sydney Aquarium would be a great place to spend a few hours. After I walked over there, I spied right across the way the National Maritime Museum.
Here I spent about 3 hours climbing over the gun ship R.A.N. Voyager, the submarine I forgot the name of, and the museum itself. I have a very hard time taking pictures inside a museum so there are none taken and none posted. I do recommend that if you are here take a moment to browse around the museum. The aquarium, I understand, is outstanding also, but I never made it in.
Here are 2 Panorama photos from the part of Darling Harbor where we are. The top daylight picture I took at the end of the pier by the lighthouse. You can see the lighthouse in the picture of the museum. If you go out the water to the left of the skyline, you will find the famous opera house and the Harbor Bridge. I am leaving that till later in the trip to explore. After spending some quality time in the museum, I wandered back into town to see if I could find the big Sydney Tower or whatever it is called. I stumbled into the shopping district and had no shortage of McDonalds, Nike, and other fashion labels I recognized but did not remember. I also happened along Hyde Park, one of the many nice green patches in Sydney. Later on I will post a few pictures from there. I have a panoramic of the park. There are quite a few pictures I will be posting after I return to the states because I don't have the resources to process all of them right now, I am also taking many rolls of film to be processed when I get home. I will, of course, let you know when they are ready.
Around 4:30 in the afternoon I made it back to the hotel and met up with my friend Nina. Nina and I knew each other in high school. After going our separate ways, we have remained in touch and stayed long distance friends. Nina landed in Melbourne several days before and was now ready to see some Sydney. At this time we are both a bit hungry and head off to find some food in Chinatown. With a rush of success, we happened upon the Friday night street fair in Chinatown. We had to walk up and down the street several times to determine exactly which one had just the right food for our famished appetites. We decided it was important to find the first cafe with an outside table. After dinner, Nina did some shopping and we canvassed the street a few more times before calling it a night. Tomorrow we begin our tour.
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