Bars. Beethovan and Blackouts

So I finally made it to backpacker central - Sydney. On every street in the CBD there are backpackers hostels and lost looking gap year types. I am staying in the Kings Cross area which is is just south of the botanical gardens and about 10 minutes walk from circular quay and the Opera house. the area itself used to be a red light district (and still has that certain seedy feel) but is now really a travellers haven with some very cheap hostels - ok to stay at with a friend but I wouldn't come here on my own!
On my first day in Sydney I walked down to the Rocks area (just by the harbour bridge), explored the Circular Quay, harbour bridge and then went to teh Opera house and botanical gardens. The rocks used to be the Italian and Irish immigrants area and used to be full of mafia type gangs that ruled that area of the city. The place now has a covent garden feel to it with street markets on teh weekends and 'posh' alternative shops selling expensive tea, interesting books and boutique clothes shops. The whole area is in the shadow of the harbour bridge and the pylons rise out of the gardens - apparently the pylons (granite towers at each corner of hte bridge) were an after thought and don't really have a useful engineering function other than to make the bridge more pretty as the early commissioners of the bridge wanted something that would be a tourist attraction.

After lunch in the Rocks I climbed one of the pylons for Birdseye views of the city - although my original plan was to climb the bridge itself I decided that $170+ was too expensive for view that I could get for free! Once high up it is amazing to seee how much of the city is actually in contact with some form of water. the whole harbor area is huge and stretches for quite a way inland - i suspect some of the suburbs around the nothern edge of the harbour would be really quite nice (ther were definitely some huge houses!) It is also interesting to note from the vantage point how large the Sydney CBD is and how unlike the other Australian cities I've visited the city seems to have no real center - more lots of little 'villages' each with a different feel (More like some of hte big European cities). It is also the first Aussie city that its uncomfortable to walk round entirely on foot!

Onwards to Circular Quay which stretches from the bridge to the opera house - a stretch of nice restaurants and ice cream bars - dominated at eh moment by a huge cruise ship (Millennium) docked on the western edge and the opera house on the other side. This is where most of the Sydney ferries depart from and where most of the tourists seem to congregate while getting their bearings of the city. After the obligatory opera house steps photo and purchasing a ticket for a concert that evening we walked on through the botanical gardens and then up the main shopping streets back to the central station. The Botanical gardens are beautiful a really nice place to relax. It being a Saturday we also encountered 9 weddings in the grounds of hte garden - a little exhibitionist but a lovely spot... the gardens is also home to an area of trees filled with bats - no idea about the story behind this but its kinda cool.

After much fusing and swapping of tickets with fellow travellers I managed to secure myself a seat for the 'Beyond Beethoven' concert by the Sydney Symphony in teh main concert hall of the Opera house. Inside the opera house is actually quite nice although it has a very 70's -tastic feel to it (think stained pine and brown leather). The hall itself is just huge - and the acoustics weren't too bad. The program consisted of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1 with the piano solo played by Paul Lewis (who had a very Brendel feel to him and was very very good), then Haydens Symphony no 67 and Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The orchestra (except for a very out of tune brass section) were really very good so quite an enjoyable evening - although I wasn't able to convince Karen that a classical concert was a good way to spend the evening!

After my dose of culture I went to the Side bar to get a fix of a very different tpe of music! The Side bar is one of the big backpackers bars in Sydney - full of English and German backpackers (and Australian men who have heard that backpackers are easy prey!) i was amazed at how many people seem to spend their entire travelling time drinking away their nights and sleeping through the days only coming out when the money gets low and they need to find a job. Also amazed at how some girls packs obviously contained more shoes and dresses than anything else! Karens term 'Flashpacker' describes them very well...

The next day I caught the ferry to Manly and enjoyed the views of the harbour from the boat. Manly is quite a cute seaside suburb with a lovely surfing beach - the waves were too large for swimming but I quite enjoyed watching the surfers!

So now having covered Beethoven and bars I move onto blackouts! Yesterday afternoon while waiting for some photos to print (I am printing photos of my family and scenes to help with my teaching in Nepal - the bottle is ON the table etc etc) all the power went out - everything from hte Air con to the traffic lights outside. Curious I went outside and looked up and it appeared that the whole cities power had failed. After 15 mins of waiting i accepted defeat for the photos and started to walk home - actually quite perilous with no traffic lights working! 2 hours later the lights came back on. Amazing the Aussies didn't seem to mind and used the time to leave work early and go for a beer by candle light! (I wonder if the same attitude would hold if the whole of central London blacked out ?!?) It transpires that there was a fault in one cable coming into the city as that failed it took out the other 3 cables. Quite amusing that 1 day after earth hour when everyone was urged to turn off their lights for 1 hour a fault turns off the entire city for 2 hours!

Oh well today is my last day in Sydney - i am heading to Bondi and doing the bondi to Cudgee beach walk and then sorting out all the admin stuff for the next stage of my trip. I suspect i wont access the internet in Bangkok (where I go for 3 days) so my next update will come from Nepal...