Christmas upside down
It’s hard to get in the Christmas mindframe when Santa is wearing shorts and Mrs Santa is garbed in a teeny red strapless number, but folks here soldier on with traditional carols and decorations. Snow is a big feature in shop windows and many towns have carol-by-candlelight events, though they’ll have to wait till late at night for dark. We’re just now celebrating the summer solstice here and I figure I’ve had the best of both worlds, with two summer solstices this year!
We are invited to a friend’s for Christmas day dinner, and the menu is truly frightening: lobster, prawns, oysters to begin, then salad, turkey, and ham, and of course, desserts. There will be swimming at the beach too. What a great celebration!
The sun’s in the wrong place
For someone from the west coast of the US, directions down here are confounding. The sun rises in an unexpected quarter and the ocean seems to have moved around. The other day, I walked almost a mile in the wrong direction before I realized my mistake, but the three people I asked for directions (all natives, by the accents), seemed just as muddled as I was. I didn’t realize how subtle and deeply inbedded is the sense of direction, but I could have checked in with the salmon. They get it.
Zoo with a view
One of Sydney’s must-see places is the Taronga Zoo, and with Funday Sunday discounts on Sydney’s buses, trains and ferries, we decided to make a day of it. Dan had researched the best bus route to take, and a good thing he did; we never would have figured it out otherwise. Sydney’s a sprawling city, but sadly, of the top 20 world cities, it ranks 20th in efficient public transport. Of course, if you look at the city from above, you can see how all the bays, lagoons, inlets, rivers and peninsulas make a huge challenge for transport design. The zoo is across the harbour from the opera hous
e, spilling down a cliff. We came from the north, so we began at the top end; ferries come from Circular Quay and deposit visitors bay-side also. Since my first visit more than 10 years ago, the zoo has updated many exhibits and put more emphasis on environmental issues, as have most of the world’s leading zoos. It feels more like the San Francisco Zoo th
an the San Diego Zoo. Keeper talks at Taronga are excellent, informative yet casual. The kids really liked the spider talk and the keeper was very patient with them. My personal fave is the Keene house, a model of sound environmental house design for the Australian climate: the wide verandahs and airy interior capture the breezes and protect windows from direct sun. As we wandered around the zoo, surprise views across the harbour to the Sydney bridge and opera house delighted us. We learned baby platypi are called “puggles”, managed a glimpse of the endangered red panda, enjoyed the seal show, and envied the giraffes’ view of the harbour. It’s a great zoo, not to be missed.
It’s hard to get in the Christmas mindframe when Santa is wearing shorts and Mrs Santa is garbed in a teeny red strapless number, but folks here soldier on with traditional carols and decorations. Snow is a big feature in shop windows and many towns have carol-by-candlelight events, though they’ll have to wait till late at night for dark. We’re just now celebrating the summer solstice here and I figure I’ve had the best of both worlds, with two summer solstices this year!
We are invited to a friend’s for Christmas day dinner, and the menu is truly frightening: lobster, prawns, oysters to begin, then salad, turkey, and ham, and of course, desserts. There will be swimming at the beach too. What a great celebration!
The sun’s in the wrong place
For someone from the west coast of the US, directions down here are confounding. The sun rises in an unexpected quarter and the ocean seems to have moved around. The other day, I walked almost a mile in the wrong direction before I realized my mistake, but the three people I asked for directions (all natives, by the accents), seemed just as muddled as I was. I didn’t realize how subtle and deeply inbedded is the sense of direction, but I could have checked in with the salmon. They get it.
Zoo with a view
One of Sydney’s must-see places is the Taronga Zoo, and with Funday Sunday discounts on Sydney’s buses, trains and ferries, we decided to make a day of it. Dan had researched the best bus route to take, and a good thing he did; we never would have figured it out otherwise. Sydney’s a sprawling city, but sadly, of the top 20 world cities, it ranks 20th in efficient public transport. Of course, if you look at the city from above, you can see how all the bays, lagoons, inlets, rivers and peninsulas make a huge challenge for transport design. The zoo is across the harbour from the opera hous
e, spilling down a cliff. We came from the north, so we began at the top end; ferries come from Circular Quay and deposit visitors bay-side also. Since my first visit more than 10 years ago, the zoo has updated many exhibits and put more emphasis on environmental issues, as have most of the world’s leading zoos. It feels more like the San Francisco Zoo th
an the San Diego Zoo. Keeper talks at Taronga are excellent, informative yet casual. The kids really liked the spider talk and the keeper was very patient with them. My personal fave is the Keene house, a model of sound environmental house design for the Australian climate: the wide verandahs and airy interior capture the breezes and protect windows from direct sun. As we wandered around the zoo, surprise views across the harbour to the Sydney bridge and opera house delighted us. We learned baby platypi are called “puggles”, managed a glimpse of the endangered red panda, enjoyed the seal show, and envied the giraffes’ view of the harbour. It’s a great zoo, not to be missed.##30##
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