This is What I'm Looking At

Thought I'd give you a peek at what I see when I take a walk around Sydney...depending on which route I take. Yes...I've walked so much here, I actually have several routes that I can choose from when stepping out. Wednesday afternoon, I chose my "Dawes Point" destination. I walk from our building through Circular Quay (where the ferry boat terminal is), passed the aboriginal who sits there every day making music on his digideroo (couldn't get the picture because he was on his smoke break), next to The Rocks, under the Harbour Bridge, around the peninsula (Dawes Point) and back. On my way, I get a pretty good view while walking under the Harbour Bridge.

On the other side of the Harbour, you can see an amusement park called Luna Park. At night when it's all lit up, the face at the entrance is lit up in a freakish way. I see these big eyes and mouth (which is what you walk through to get into the park) staring at me all the way from our balcony. Here's a closer look...

Coming from around the point on my way back, there's a great view of our next door neighbor, the Opera House.

Moving my head just to the right, you get a good look at Circular Quay. Of course, our apartment, the beloved Toaster is the first building you see on the left of the picture.

Today, after meeting Phil for lunch at Australian Square, a food court in a building close to his, I decided to take my "Into the City" route. Right at Australian Square was a group of army vehicles parked in an alley (not sure why they were there) but thought of my nephew, Sammy who's 5, loves anything to do with the military, and wants to fly jets off of a carrier in the Navy when he grows up. So, Sammy...this is for you.

And what do you know, as I was walking up George St., in this little alley was this space thing hanging between two buildings. I thought of Sammy's big brother, Jake who's 7, loves anything to do with space, and wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. So, Jake...this one's for you.

I kept walking up George St. until I came to the Queen Victoria Building or QVB as it's sometimes referred to. This building (which spans an entire city block!) was opened in 1892 (whipping out my trusty guidebook once again) as a produce market. Some older people we've gotten to know at our church here, say they can remember going there as kids when it was a farmer's market on the first floor and offices on the second floor where their parents paid their electric bills. Today it's the home to nearly 200 upscale stores. They also said that at Christmas there's a huge Christmas tree in the middle under the main dome that goes from floor to ceiling. I'm hoping that goes up before we leave to go back to Philly for Christmas.

See the statue in front of the building? The same people told us that the story goes that when the building was completed, they wanted to put a statue of Queen Victoria out in front of it, but there wasn't one in the whole country. So later, they found a statue of her from some city in India who wanted to get rid of theirs after India gained independence from Great Britain, bought it from the Indian city and finally put it out in front of the QVB. Better late than never, I guess.