toured out

My tourguide ran out of tours to walk..... I have done them all! Now I can start looking around Sydney a little more and maybe explore some of the "hip" suburbs.... We'll see....

On Saturday I finally found the Sydney downtown shopping area. It wasn't all that impressive, considering Sydney is such a big City. But I was once again amazed that there are really, really old european looking buildings right next to extremely modern skyscrapers as well as really badly looking, not well taken care of buildings. I saw the town hall and I was a little shocked that the surounding area was not better taken care of. It is such a pretty building, but it was very dirty around it. I found an amazingly huge food court. I was glad that I had had my homemade sandwich before I walked in there. The variety of food one can get all over Sydney is amazing anyway, but it all seemed to have come together in one spot there. I was impressed. I also visited the Queen Victoria Buidling and the Strands. Those are two really old malls, and they look very european. They got really nice little shops, wooden walls, nice decoration, very, very cool! I have never seen such pretty malls! I have also found the Apple store. That was a different kind of impressive. It is about three or four stories high and got a glass front with the big apple on it. Looks really neat.

Later I walked all around the Rocks and found some really nice little narrow streets, that I have not see before when having been down there. So far I think that is my favorite part of the town. It is also the oldest part of the town...I saw the oldest hotel and Pub of Sydney (my tour guide once again was quite misleading, but I found it anyway - no it was not me misreading the map, it was the map giving wrong information!!!! I swear!)

I finished the day walking across the bridge to the the northern side of the harbour to watch the sunset. It was an amazingly beautiful sunset.... overlooking the habour, looking at the opera house and seeing the sun set behind the bridge....very, very nice!

On Sunday I visited Chinatown, which was surprisingly small! I would have expected something much bigger! It was not very impressive, but the chinese Garden of Friendship is one of the most peaceful places I have visited this trip. It was given to Sydney on the Bicentennial of Australia and designed by chinese landscapers keeping all kinds of chinese philosophies in mind. I really enjoyed walking around there. It was very peaceful and quiet, even though there were a lot of other people. Lateron I walked towards Darling Habour and that was so completely different. It reminded me of Diseny Wold in LA. It was very strange coming from the chinese garden and walking up to this playground like Place. I walked all the way to the fish marked. On my way I passed Star City - the Sydney Casino. Of course I had to get my ID checked.... Appearently I don't look like I am over 18 yet ;) Because I got stopped by security whereas others could just walk through.... It is a pretty big Casino.
At the fishmarked I had some fresh lobster. It was really good. I don't think I have ever seen so much fresh fish in one place. The variety of things one can get there is impressive. Oysters, Sushi, all kind of muscles, crabs, fish, octopus.....