Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Transit Pass Observations









Actually observations whilst using my Day Tripper (or is it City Hopper or perhaps Local Bopper) rail, ferry, and bus pass over the last few days here in Sydney.







1. The ferries here are alone worth coming to Sydney. The views are fantastic, the passengers are friendly, and the transportation--don't use that bad word here in Australia since that word when spoken by a judge got the first forced settlers to make the trip--it affords is very, uh, affordable. I started the day by taking the commuter train to Cronulla (pronounced by the conductor on the train as, "Crnya", funky beach resort town south of Sydney called and took a walk on the paved path with fantastic views of the very South Pacific.

2. The fast and fine dining here is a delight for the world traveler and especially the latose intolerant. Lots of Asian and fresh seafood choices, even if sometimes the fare of the fast Asian food shops are a bit obscure.

3. I discovered evidence that althought the toilets do flush in the proper (USA) direction, the entire continent of Australia is really upside down. Note the antenna below--actually above--the monorail. See, they couldn't fool me. No wonder I was so heavy headed after my 30 hour journey on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to get here. Of course, there was no Monday.

4. My dear friends Heinz and Ellen arrived yesterday morning successfully from Ithaca. Heinz is 84 years old and is recovering from a bout of diviculosis but made the trip I believe to sail again with me. They insisted on taking me out to dinner yesterday despite their having arrived from their 35 hours of travel. We had a delightful dinner in a downtown basement Chinese restaurant as the only patrons. The proprietor was unbelivably talkative and thus quite annoying (Heinz and I don't tolerate OTHER talkative people very well) and performed the most blantant up-selling I've ever experienced. We'd order a, "small portion of steamed rice" and he would say, "one deluxe fried rice coming up". Finally I got the idea to have him repeat the whole order and we edited it--as he continued to ask for our respective life stories, no doubt to distract from the task--until we agreed on the dinner selections. It was fun and wonderful to have such a "private" dinner. After a few hours of getting caught up, we sat at Circular Quay watching the fantastic Sydney harbo(u)r boat traffic and then Heinz and Ellen saw me off as I sailed away on the CQ to Darling Harbo(u)r ferry. All in all a fantastic day.

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