Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Night time

Did you know that Ugg boots were "created" in Australia? Well, I do now. And dear God, it's like a point of national pride that every third woman wears them. I think they must all get notices via email - "Today is the day you have to wear your Uggs. Don't bitch to us about it. It's just the way things are. Now go and put on the damn boots."

The second day in Sydney was much better than the first. Part of it, I'm sure, was simply getting our clocks synched on local time. We managed to stay awake the entire day and there was none of the mental scuminess that comes with travelling for long periods of time.

Today we also did one of the hop-on/hop-off tours. Part of me always feels bad taking a tour...like I should be an intrepid explorer of a new city, trying to find neat stuff and not just going to tourist traps. But we learned something when we went to San Francisco back in '06. Our last day there we did a tour and we wished we'd done it the first day. A good tour gives you a nice feel for the city, an idea of the distances between different locations, and whether or not some of the cool places to go, according to travel guides, are worth the time.

For example, a lot talk about how good Bondi Beach is. And I'm sure it is. I'm just not sure that July, smack in the middle of Australian winter, is the time to do it. There were people in the water all right, but they were all wearing wet suits.

However, we will go back to the Opera House, the Aquarium and several other spots when we return to Sydney next month.

Other than that, not much else to report. It remains pretty frigid with plenty of people bundled up to deal with the chill. Even people from Sydney appear to be pretty pissed off with the temperatures. Hopefully, it's just temporary and it'll be warmer next month when we return. We also found a very cool puppet store that we want to return to.

We're also dealing with the shocking return of night. It gets dark around 5:30 and after months of near constant daylight, it's a bit weird to deal with.

And finally, because you asked and because I'm writing from an internet cafe whose computers have slots for plugging in SD cards, some pictures from the day. We're off to Cairns tomorrow, so I'll try and write more from there then.




4 comments:

Karin said...

You know what UGG stands for don't you? UGG-LY!
LOL
Have a great time!

Jordan~Stephanie said...

Probably your newest two fans . . .

Just finished the archives. Hooked.

Aida said...

i remembered passing that puppet store when i was there..lol cool stuff. i am pretty sure you know already but i think every weekend, there is a crafts market in at "the rocks" which is about 10 minutes walk from the opera house, lots of neat stuff, some great cheap finds, some not so cheap and there was an aboriginal group that plays on circular quay every weekend which was pretty cool, but then again maybe not in winter.

have fun in cairns!

towniebastard said...

I think the plan is to hit that market on our last day in Sydney and stock up on souvenirs. We'll see. And I think we'll get a puppet, but not sure if we'll be getting the $300 one we fell in love with.