Thursday February 9. Rain predicted. 22 C. Rain in torrents, briefly then in torrents, briefly, later.
We are finally, in the Land of OZ, where all things are bright and beautiful. Or supposed to be. Everything mechanical works here, the people speak a modified version of English and there is a wide selection of quality food and they have beautiful paper money, rivalling Canadian Currency.
When you think of Australia you usually thing of burning heat, lovely beaches with handsome life guards and pounding surf. That is all a myth now, after climate change. Sydney is now a very big city, just like any city from Los Angeles to Moscow. Sorry to report this to you folks.
This morning we all paraded through a very strict immigration process this morning. Sniffer dogs were on the ship walking down the corridor, Fellette saw I did not. All passengers had to get off the ship and go through, immigration and submit their sworn word that we were not convicts etc., etc. Nobody could get back on the ship until everybody had either gone off on a shuttle to town or sat in the terminal after being cleared until EVERBODY had been cleared. That was what they called Count Zero. I think this over-the-top business of scrutinizing who gets into their country goes back to the days when Britain held its surplus convicts on ships on the Thames River in London. Some bright sport then decided to ship the whole lot to Australia in those ships. They now seem to think that cruise ships are still bringing in convicts!
We four, after convincing those pretty immigration inspectors that we were not convicts, took a shuttle bus closer to the beating heart of Sydney. A 20 minute ride and we were dropped off in what is Another Big City, [ABC].
We walked, and walked and walked: destination Chinatown. There we found an Australian Version of a Chinatown. A bright spot today was when Jim did locate a very nice department store, in Chinatown, [?] where we were able to get a few clothing necessities. We then started the way back to where we started, stopping a few times so my feet and legs could get a break. Too early to eat in Chinatown so we pushed on.
Eventually we had to stop and eat for fear of dropping from hunger. Jim located a place that served us a small steak and chips with a large enough glass of beer or wine for A$ 19.00. There we went up a floor and sat overlooking a lovely inland harbour while we ate lunch and watched the rain start as the somewhat dismayed seniors paraded below looking for something to do on a bright and sunny day in Vancouver on a February day. Wait, no, this is Sydney, Australia isn’t it! The younger sets of Australians kept jogging and running along the quay still believing that it was sunny out.
Jim and Gail departed in search of the sun while Fellette and I searched out the shuttle and went back to the ship. There, I took my shoes and socks off and slept for two hours. Fellette mentioned that when I was sleeping the skies opened and we had a tropical monsoon. That was our first day in Sydney folks.
Another Day In Paradise…
Pause, in search of food.
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