Oprah Fest Day 1

I will be blogging this over the next couple of days so please have patience until I get to day 3. After all I spent most of my time in queues so you can just have a little bit of patience. LOL

Landed in Sydney around lunch time on Sunday. The weather was just beautiful. We checked into our hotel - the Park Regis and went straight to the Opera house to get out tickets. Yes we walked down. We stood in line for a good hour until we finally got our hands on that golden ticket; well actually it was standard white and black writing but it was worth gold.

My work colleague Corinne. If it wasn't for her sending an email with a link to register then neither of us would have been here. We had so much fun. It was her first time in Sydney. If you look carefully you can see that the queue spans the length of the Opera House. We ended up halfway round the top end of it. Apparently pretty much all 12,000 people turned up Sunday to get their tickets. Hardly anyone was there on Monday when we went passed on the Ferry.

The stage area.
In the queue. Pretty much half way there. The sun was so hot and burning yet pale, little ol' me didn't get burnt!

With tickets in hand we decided to go walking (suckers for punishment). From Circular Quey we walked to the Rocks. We had heard there were markets there and headed towards where someone had pointed them out. Nope wrong area of the Rocks. Corinne had wanted to do a walk along the bridge so we ended up at one of the pylons of the bridge realising that we would probably have to walk about a Km away to get to where pedestrians could get onto it. Instead we sat and looked out over the Harbour, watched the Ferris Wheel at Luna Park go round and round on the other side; and marvelled about how ugly the bridge is up so close.

Eventually we decided to head back the way we came. We were pretty much back at Circular Quey when we saw a sign that said the markets at the Rocks were also moonlight Markets from Friday to Sunday. We about faced and went back (we had found out where they were but thought they would be closed), only to see them packing up all the tables - so much for moonlight!

We then decided to go with our original plan and head to Luna Park. It was open at night according to the web site. We paid $10.60 each for the round trip Ferry ticket. Got to Luna Park full of excitement, walked in ... and it was closed. Apparently it's only open late on Friday and Saturday, so we walked back to the Ferry and waited 30 minutes for the next one and decided to go to Darling Harbour. Thankfully it was open!

Self taken photo of Corinne and I with the Opera house behind us. We decided after standing in the sun for so long that we desperately needed hats.

At least we have a photo at the mouth to Luna Park. Corinne has me on her camera so I am waiting to get that one.

View from Luna Park Ferry

We had eaten dinner at Circular Quey so we ate desert at Darling Harbour. We went to the Lindt Cafe ... mmm certainly had more than my 60g of chocolate for the month. I shared 3 scoops of the most delicious ice cream with Corinne. Near the Cafe was this water fountain. I loved it.

On the other side of Darling Harbour near the shopping centre is this huge Xmas tree. If you look close enough you will see the Kangaroos that spiral it to the top like tinsel. You can see them better at the bottom.

This became a typical scene with both of us. Here we are looking for the Monorail to get back to the hotel. Instead we ended up inside the Darling Harbour shopping mall, getting lost in there while we perused the shops. LOL

Yes we did finally make it safely to the Monorail and hopped on. When we got back we looked at the map on the street to find out which direction to go to get back to our hotel. My excuse is that the map was upside down. Seriously! Doesn't it make sense that if the map is positioned so that the top of the map faces one end of the road and that the bottom faces another, that therefore if your hotel is situated on the bottom of the map then you would go the way of the street that the map position indicates. Obviously there is no logic in that and we ended up a block out of our way.

Anyway we had a great day and we learnt:

1. Sydney has no trash bins
2. maps are upside down
3. Never believe times written on the Internet or on signs posted around the place
4. Corinne learnt the true meaning of "spot the Aussie" and also how to jaywalk :)