Category: Trip

Shop, shop, shop today. That’s what we did. Suffice to say money was spent and items purchased and there’s more stuff heading home tomorrow than we came with. Most of the spending was mum of course, and she had fun doing it 🙂

I found my way into a few of my favourite Sydney haunts and picked up an item here or there (mostly postcards), and even managed to find a few new shops I hadn’t seen before. It was a long and tiring day of running around the CBD, and by the time room service delivered a giant portion of fish and chips for dinner we both tucked in!

Afterwards I was exhausted and ready for a bath and flopping around… but then I thought maybe I should go see some more of Vivid. Next week I’m planning on seeing the best stuff down at the Quay, but I wanted to see what Darling Harbour had to offer so I braved the cold night air and headed out again after dinner.

I’m not sure if I saw everything down at the Harbour, but I saw a half-dozen or so installations and they were all quite fancy and pretty.

The photos hardly do them justice since they’re all animated, and many have sound elements as well or are even interactive.

The fountains in the central part of Darling Harbour are a real crowd pleaser and incorporate music and laser effects and the water jets shoot very high. There were hundreds of people watching these from all sides. I can’t imagine how busy this would be on a weekend!

I’m super knackered now. Good thing I’ve still got almost two weeks of vacation to relax!

We traveled to Sydney today, via a hired car. The trip was luxurious and delivered us right to our hotel.

We’re staying in the one just in front of the tower (in the above pic) and overlooking the park. Our rooms are quite fancy and have park views, and we’ll be very comfortable the two nights we’re staying.

First we stopped by the cathedral, where mum lit the traditional candle.

Outside I snapped this quick shot of what I think might be a statue of Gandalf…?

And then we got down to the purpose of our trip: shopping. Mum hasn’t been in Sydney for years and I’m here to navigate, help her shop and take care of the food situation. We filled several hours today easily, and I don’t doubt tomorrow will be nonstop as well!

Oh and the Vivid Festival has begun. It’s mostly at night since it’s light based, so I’ll be leaving it until I return to Sydney once again before I travel home. However today I stumbled upon one installation, the Rainbow Room, which is a mirrored room full of lights near Chinatown. A friendly girl shut me in (alone) long enough for me to snap a few trippy photos 🙂

Lazy day today, mostly taking care of some tasks to assist mum and preparing for our trip to Sydney tomorrow.

I found the time for a walk later in the day, to the antique shops near mums. There are fewer now than there used to be, but they’ve become somewhat extraordinary in terms of the weird ephemera they contain, such as a giant display of cassette albums in one of them.

And if prerecorded music isn’t your thing, they also had a load of blank cassettes!

If cassettes are too modern for you, the other store had a large collection of phonograph cylinders! These weren’t priced so I don’t even know if they are for sale, but it was amazing to see so many together.

The same store had this lovely display of uranium glass. It was illuminated with a black light, and phosphoresces due to the presence of uranium in the glass (which means it is slightly radioactive).

I considered buying one, but even the smaller pieces are expensive and would be difficult to transport.

I feel these stores hide treasures that I need to find. I’ll probably return when I have a little more time 🙂