First on the list was Madame Tussauds: the wax museum. Bro had visited the large one in London and was set on me seeing one. Although this one was small in comparison, it was still impressive and well done. The artistic work put into each one is amazing. Of course my absolute favourite is Mr Johnny Depp, who they should have dressed in the mighty sexy pirate outfit! My plan was to smuggle him out of there, but much to my dismay, there was a staff member observing in that area. Who let the cat out of the bag????
Shucks, just my luck....lol. Sorry Johnny, but we will always have the photos and memories! And who knows, perhaps we'll get lucky next time I'm in town...hehe.
It didn't take anywhere near as long as we had imagined to wander through and cruise the gift shop where we each bought a Tussauds mug. I also bought a Tussauds badge to pin onto my new Sydney cap.
Next we hit Sydney Aquarium in the adjoining building. Being country peeps, we had no idea why the lady at the entrance wanted us to hold certain poses as she took photos. A little heads up would have been fantastic for those new to the city way of things. My photos may have turned out a tad better if I knew what I posing for..... lol. I never imagined the aquarium would be so large. There's a reasonable amount of walking, which I quite enjoyed. I may have large legs, but they are always happy to keep on going!
Upon exiting I learnt what the photos were all about. I was rather bummed about not being able to purchase any kind of Sydney Aquarium badge for my hat to say "been there, done that". So I didn't think twice when approached about buying a small album that contained the photos of bro and I imposed onto a couple of different backgrounds. The album didn't come cheap at $35 for two or three photos, but for an extra $5 they give you a number of other ones as well. What the hell, what's another $5 when you're on a wonderful holiday! It's a little disappointing that they don't take a few more different poses once you agree to buy yours.
Once that was done, I chose to fork out a hefty price for a seafood and chips lunch. Or at least I thought it was rather steep, but I came to learn that with the higher prices came very large meals. They work out great if you have someone to share it with - cheap meals then.
I ordered some kind of seafood basket which contained a hoard of chips, 3 pieces of calamari, 1 piece of fish and I believe there was a prawn or two as well. Bro doesn't eat seafood, but there were so many chips that he was able to eat most of them for his lunch. A handful of chips and the seafood had me chockers.
The city is amazing for my appetite. I found I needed less food and only ate when I was actually hungry. I seem to eat too often, even when not hungry at all, out in the sticks. I think it's boredom.
We chose to eat out on the timber steps which lead down to a deck and follows the waters edge around Darling Harbour. The water smelt a little funky, but that was the least of our problems. Damn seagulls are everywhere and as soon as they see some sucker with food who is willing to risk their lunch by sitting outside, they all swarm in. You keep your food extremely close by if you want to practice that act!
Even after stopping for lunch, we had a good couple of hours before we wanted to enter the Sydney Tower Eye. I wanted to be up the top on sunset to capture the beautiful city views as darkness fell. By this stage, the chest cold bro had caught the friday before had really set in and he was in no mood to keep walking around waiting for 6:30pm. I was determined to get myself a replacement mobile as I hate being phone-less at the best of times, let alone in a strange city. JB Hi-Fi really weren't much help unless I wanted to pay out $30 to $40 for a secondhand one. Secondhand stuff is great and cheap for those who don't mind used stuff, but I have a thing about owning other peoples 'old news'. I simply can't do it.
I finally found a Telstra shop where I decided to fork out for a Next G phone that I'd be able to use once back home as well. Spending that high price ($575 - more expensive than other stores, but it's not easy to find such stores in a city you are unfamilar with, so you settle), couldn't have come at a worse time, but what can you do.....
We continued on to find Westfield mall when I came across these large spinning glass doors. Being from the sticks you never see fancy doors like that. My natural instinct was to try them out! Inside was just a desk with two men in suits - one of whom had this huge smile on his face as I asked where Westfield mall was. Turns out it was next door, but I got what I needed (cheap thrill) by using their fancy doors.
Sydney city isn't a place that's easy to find anything you actually want. There are plenty of stores that sell the type of clothing that most of us wouldn't be caught dead wearing and of course for some whacko reason they come with outrageous price tags. The Westfield mall, which is located under the Tower Eye, is full of little stores like that. When I hear mall, I imagine the types of malls we have in QLD - a range of useful shops to cater for most people. Here I was wandering around trying to find bro a chemist which did not exist in there. Eventually, he got so fed up with walking around (I think we all know how horrid we feel when full up with a standard cold, let alone a chest cold) that he decided he wanted to go home. We parted ways and after finding a chemist outside the mall and grabbing myself a drink, I decided to go up the tower to wait for sunset. I have to admit, being in the city on my own without a mobile was a little concerning (every mobile I've ever bought needed to be charged before using).
Before you can enter the top section of the tower, you must sit through a 5 to 10 minute 3D movie which shows you sights and wonders of Sydney. Once you exist, a guy takes a photo, just like they did at the aquarium. Only this time I was aware of what was going on and I had no intentions of purchasing the photo, so I opted out. The two guys ahead of me made spectacles of themselves and had me laughing. One commented on how they were going to get a laugh out of watching my pose and were very disappointed when I escaped the process.... hehe.
There were 5 of us in the elevator ride to the top. It's an extreme height up, but it only takes a couple of minutes to get there. On the journey up, you can watch people in one of the other elevators on a small screen, while another elevator watches you!
The 360 view from the top is fantastic. One direction you see ocean, ocean and more ocean. The other directions reveal city upon city - the camera was working overtime!
I decided to find a quiet spot to open my new mobile and found it had a smidge of battery life - score. It took me a bit to find out where the damn micro sim card was to be inserted, even with the help of reading the book ..... they made the instructions somewhat confusing. Once it was set up, I returned bro's call, who had decided to stay in the city after all.
Unfortunately, it was a rather cloudy afternoon in Sydney, so I wasn't able to capture the sunset I was hoping for. The best it got was the sun peeking through a small gap in the clouds, but it was still worth being there. I had hoped to score some awesome night photos with all the buildings lit up, but by the time 7:10pm came around, we were both tired and ready for home.
It was another ferry ride back to the apartment. The evening cruises are amazing when it's not too cold to stand out the front of the ferry.
Another totally fantastic day and I love my new Nokia Lumia 800!
There's quite a few photos below, but there are many more where they came from. For those who are interested in seeing more, I'm adding links at the bottom of the page.
Madame Marie Tussaud
Queen
Albert Einstein
Paul Hogan
Angelina Jolie - difficult standing next to someone so hot!
View of tourist attractions from Pyrmont bridge
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