SYDNEY

I must say that Sydney is an exceptionally beautiful city. For me, I find the architecture very well thought out. It appears that as buildings have been added to the downtown area, an effort has been made to ensure both a contrast as well as a blend so that there is this eclectic mix of architectural styles that all fits together beautifully. I found the city to have very much the same vibe that Vancouver has, but without the mountains. We spent the day starting out at Circular Quay and the Opera House and walked about 5 km around the sea wall to Darling Harbor, stopped in at shops along the way to scout out stuff (it was 10 B'Tevet so we didn't eat or drink anything) and do a real city soak-in. We also bought some stuff as well as a new hat for me because my current hat was already stinky and crumpled and my wife insisted on a new one. The whole harbor area is dominated by Sydney's two iconic symbols: The Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. They are both located at Circular Quay which is where the ferries dock when they arrive to the downtown area. There is also a rail station there and also a berth for a cruise ship. As can be expected, there are a million tourist shops selling trinkets and souvenirs and whatnots, and this place too is crowded with a million tourists speaking a babble of languages. Darling Harbor, is smaller and serves water taxis, ferries, private small cruise craft, and is also home to an IMAX theater, tourist information, lots of restaurants and coffee shops, playgrounds, a public water park, a Chinese Garden, a market and an exhibition center. It's beautifully

The view from the cousin's house 

landscaped and a pleasure to walk through. At the end of the day we took a ferry from Darling Harbor to Circular Quay and then a fast ferry from there to Rose Bay and from there to our lodgings.

The next morning my wife and I had a very early start. We left the house at 8 and parked near the underground station and took a train into town to Sydney's central station. There we checked out the trains to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, a distance of 2 1/2 hours travel. Once we arrived there, we caught the hop-on-hop-off bus to see the sites and the sights of this beautiful area, with great canyons, mountains, rain forests, walking trails, waterfalls and so on. We did the required tourist things, like ride the Skyway, took the steepest railcar in the world to the bottom of the valley, and then after hiking around for about an hour we took the Cable Car back up to the top. Then it was off to another two sites on the hop-on-hop-off bus, another rain forest hike to the top of a waterfall and back to the bus, and then rather than go back to Katoomba on the last bus, we got off at a village called Leura, and walked through hoping to find an open store, but seeing that it was Sunday and after 5 p.m. everything was closed. That being the case, we decided to take the 5:25 train back to Sydney. This one was an express train and took only 2 hours to get back. The city too was all shut down for all means and purposes, so we took the train back to the 'burbs, stopped at a supermarket to do some shopping and then headed home.

The Blue Mountains are blue indeed