Sydney, Australia

Sydney is a GREAT city!!! Auckland was a great city! Wellington was a great city!

We've been in Sydney for the past few days, mostly walking around exploring the town. We saw one of the best views in the world at the best mall cafeteria i've ever been to at Bondi Junction. We walked down to Bondi beach which was awesome. We had great Dim Sum on the 5th floor of a building in Chinatown (lonely planet secret treasure). Went down to see the Sydney Opera House, I never actually knew there were really 2 buildings not just one. Did a coastal hike from Bondi to Coogee yesterday and spent some time there then walked back to Bondi Junction. Went to a theater owned by the hare-krishna's to see a movie. The seating was more like lounge chairs and bedding instead of theater chairs. Great sound system, etc. Went to Darling Harbour to do some exploration. Visited the area of Paddington for some markets and some coffee shop people gazing and reading.

We're staying in the Kings Cross area of Sydney, about a 15 minute walk to downtown and the heart of lots of action in the evenings. Our hotel, O'Mally's has air conditioning and is quite cozy. To get to our room in the evenings we walk through the door to the lady's bathroom, then open this gigantic, huge vault like door to climb the stairs to our room, its quite bat-cave-ish. Its also quite disconcerting to people in the pub when they see us pop out of this door, no kidding its about 6 inches thick of steel.

Finished The Lexus and the Olive Tree, I'll post review later.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Brisbane area of the country on a very early 7am flight.

I've been reading the local papers when I get a chance. Its very illuminating to get the perspective on what is happening in their own culture and how they choose to write about it, but its also illuminating to read about how they interpret things going on in America or other parts of the world. I should provide some examples in future postings.