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We hopped on a ferry at around noon. The trip to Manly took about 45 minutes. En route, I snapped away with a
congregation of other tourists, elbowing and pushing (I exaggerate) to get the best angle of
the sights. The CBD and North Sydney
were gorgeous from the water. Between the
numerous click-click-clicks, I slipped sliver upon sliver of delicious biltong into my mouth. We'd found this South African delight at a
market between Moët guzzler and quay.
Alighting at the other
end, Matt was waiting for us and guided us to Manly Beach. We stopped to oooh and aaah for a while, then
continued walking to Shelly Beach, where we'd lunch at The Boathouse. Along pedestrian Marine Parade, I spotted this mask in the rock face. (It was in the end only
my imagination - as we got closer the mask morphed into something other.)
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It was a joyous reunion.
Matt had settled well, both in his new abode and also in his life. When I'd lived in London,
we'd both been party animals, and I had wondered if I'd find the same beast, but he'd calmed and was living a full,
healthy life. He looked as good as ever,
though (as with all of us) silver strands were triumphantly colonising his polar north. Within the hour, Sarah
joined us. She too had blossomed and
bloomed. She was as trim and ravishing
as I remembered her, teeming with joie de vivre. Our
exchange was animated, full of anecdotes and more serious fill-me-ins. We reminisced, laughed, ate and drank. My meal of kale and salmon salad seemed to
keep sprouting the more I ate, and I eventually surrendered before my plate was empty. At one point I let slip that we'd
brought a young Taiwanese man with us.
Matt, who knows I'm gay and might have
realised that Lourens is too, nearly choked on his lime & soda. Images of torture
chambers and leather flooded his overextended imagination (he intimated), and I couldn't contain my
own amusement at how wrongly he'd read my words. The misunderstanding was, of
course, intentional and designed to spawn horrified disbelief.
After lunch, we ambled
back along Marine Parade in the direction of the ferry terminal. We popped into a different restaurant where
we continued to enjoy the reunion. Here,
we joined a group of Sarah's friends.
They regaled us with stories about the city in general and about Manly
in particular. Here I learned for the first time how it works if one buys tickets to
the Australian Open. A ticket holder is
granted access only to the game they've booked, of course. However, earlier games on the same court
might go on way longer than anticipated.
Therefore, ticket holders have to show up when their game is scheduled
to start and wait until it actually
starts. I am SO glad that my
interest lies in the theatre, where performances are always punctual.
One member of the group this
afternoon pointed out how unpleasant certain parts of Sydney had become due to
the influx of undesirables - i.e. people who are not white. Lourens and I discussed this later
on our return ferry, and it is exactly this racism that had turned me off
Australia as a possible abode when I'd visited in
2007. (Part of the
reason for that visit had in fact been to get a sense of the place, as I'd been
looking into emigrating.) South
Africans were forced to grapple hard with our conditioned opinions on the
matter, and few of my compatriots entertain such sentiments, or if they do,
they'd never dream of verbalising them. In Australia, however, I've found that the
penny has yet to drop.
Later, we boarded a
ferry back across the river mouth. I discovered that the ride had been free in both directions. When we'd bought the Opal cards in the
morning, the clerk had said something about that, but I'd not paid enough attention.
Anyway, other than the ride from the airport, this was the costliest trip
during our five days here, and free was certainly welcome. We got back to Mandelbaum House late. The sky remained illuminated until after
8PM. Dinner consisted of last night's
supermarket purchases. James returned
from his day at church. He'd also made
calls and met with people about work and accommodation. I was very impressed
with how quickly he jumped up and got organised. I was growing to like
the youngster. He was energetic and
confident. He was funny and cute. Lourens kept correcting his English (because James had asked for that), and James kept
inviting Lourens to church.
On Monday morning,
James again elected to go off by himself.
Lourens and I returned to the city
after another merry breakfast at Bobby's.
I was now struck by how narrow the pavements were. Within shops, the aisles too were not
designed for people with my waist. I would not have expected this in a country where space is of no
consequence. There was even a cubicle in
a public toilet that was half the width of all others! Back on the street, at traffic lights, the time given for pedestrians to cross would put an Olympic medalist through his paces.
Sydney is not at all
cheap. Everyday restaurants here list
prices on a par with fine eateries in Taiwan.
Lourens asserted that the Hop-On-Hop-Off Sightseeing Bus here cost at
least double what it did in Munich. We
went by other attractions, notably Madame Tussauds and the Sydney Aquarium; tickets
cost four times as much as those to the National Gallery in Reykjavik, and five
times as much as those to the Hermitage in St Petersburg. (I found later, while
writing this travelogue, that buying the tickets online in advance would have
been cheaper by half - damn!) It was no bother, though, as walking about was interesting, and
there was already enough to see in the open-air museum that was the city
itself.
Today we had cool weather
again. We wandered about the city, this
time stopping in at the Sydney Tower Eye, up which I thought we should go. (A small travel publication had been left on the bookshelf in my
room. Within it were discount vouchers
to various restaurants and attractions, one of which was this viewing deck.) As we queued to pay, I saw a picture of the skywalk.
The viewing deck was not glassed in.
Visitors were protected by a mere railing. There was simply no way on God's green planet
that I'd be able to stand that, and Lourens appeared relieved when I said forget it!
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We drifted across Hyde
Park to St Mary's Cathedral. Then we
moseyed back through the CBD to Darling Harbour, stopping on the way for a cup
of coffee. As we drank, the building
shook, probably because of trains running beneath. At the harbour, we
considered taking a Captain Cook cruise but discovered that the route mimicked
the one we had taken to Manly yesterday.
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In the early afternoon, our bellies started to grumble. Lourens suggested we return to King Street,
but I was eager to find a place in town. Shortly I realised that he was
right - the variety and abundance of choices in Newtown was not replicated
here. We stopped in at a Coles
Supermarket to replenish our supplies at home, dropped those in our student
digs, and scurried off like cockroaches in a dark kitchen. Once there, we agreed to try something Middle
Eastern, and the first cafeteria we came across offered kebabs. In Cape Town we call
them schwarmas - beef, lamb or chicken cooked on a rotisserie, then ladled onto a tortilla with dollops of fresh salad, sour cream and sauce, and finally
rolled into a succulent, mouth-watering celebration for the taste buds. What a treat!
(After reading my blog, George had this to add, which I've decided to include here: KEBAB IS TURKISH,
SCHARMA IS ARABIC AND YIROS IS GREEK, ALL FOR THE SAME PRODUCT...THERE
CAN BE SLIGHT DIFFERENCES IN CONTENTS BUT ALL MUCH THE SAME...EACH OF THE 3
CULTURES CLAIM THE PRODUCT BUT I SUSPECT TURKEY MAY HAVE THE BEST CLAIM AS THE
OTTOMANS RULED THE ARAB WORLD AND GREECE FOR SOME CENTURIES.)
As we ate, Lourens got
news from Taiwan. While we enjoyed
acceptable temperatures (though I sweated
anyway), Taichung's dropped below zero.
This has never happened in the 15 years I've lived there, and I was slightly sad to be missing the novelty in a city that routinely
causes my sweat glands to flow like opened sluice gates of a great dam. Snowflakes fell in some parts of the city,
and poor Tonya later texted that she was turning to ice. She has a key to my apartment and I told her to hurry off and get my heater, which she eventually
did.
Returning to our room, I was drawn in by the allure of the suburbs. The streets were neat, the houses minimally
secured. The mood was quiet and
idyllic. Oddly, this is something I have become so unaccustomed to, and I'm not sure I could live like that
again. In Taiwanese cities,
everything is within easy reach, whereas here everything is more spread out. In Taichung the bustle
only dies down around midnight and starts up again before sunrise. Here the evenings were sleepy. Once home, we showered and dressed
neatly. Tonight we were going to the
opera. On the program was Puccini's La
Boheme, and I could hardly wait. Ready, we returned to the station and rode
the train all the way to Circular Quay, the stop nearest the opera house.
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A lover of theater,
opera, dance and 'the symphony' (as novices refer to it), my presence here on
the steps of arguably the most famous opera house on the planet was almost
spiritual. I might have gone down on my knees, burned incense, wrapped
violin strings around my head and plucked at a kalimba as I chanted praises to the gods of melody, harmony, rhythm and
timbre. I might have performed an
austere ritual, while throat singing, in honour of the deities of set-design,
verse and motion. I might have lit candles beneath the effigies of ART's great messiahs. ..... Alright
.... back to earth .... You
get the picture....
The complex houses six
indoor venues with a total of 5,738 seats.
Together they host over 1,500 performances each year, attended by 1,2
million patrons. Performances are
presented by many different outfits, including four resident companies: Opera
Australia, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Symphony
Orchestra. In addition to the theatres, there is a recording studio and an
outdoor forecourt. Today, as we waited
for our opera to commence, a stage was being erected on this forecourt for
Australia Day festivities tomorrow. The
expansive stairs ascending to the box office double as seating for outdoor
events.
Occupying the whole of
Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, the venue was designed by a Dane, Jørn Utzon,
and construction began in 1958. It was only completed in 1973, and became a UNESCO World Heritage
Site in 2007. Work on the structure was beset
with problems, delays and budget overruns.
Utzon initially oversaw construction, but after disagreements and design
changes, he eventually resigned before completion. When funding became an issue, the New South
Wales government initiated a lottery in 1960 to gather additional backing. This lottery was won by Bazil Thorne, who
took home £100,000. The winner's
identity was published in the media.
Subsequently, Bazil's eight-year-old son, Graeme, was abducted in
Australia's first kidnapping for ransom.
A month and a half later, his body was found wrapped in a blue tartan
rug.
Gosh, the text in the
previous paragraphs plummeted from the glitter of heaven into the doldrums of
hell. I am reeling from the
shock as I type because I only just read about
this myself. I need a break.....
.... Right .... I've dried my tears .... I almost feel guilty
continuing my blissful account after that ... Back to 25 January 2016 ...
Entering the Joan
Sutherland Theatre, I was disappointed with
my seat selection. When I'd booked, the website did mention that there was a partial view
of the stage. It didn't, however, clarify that a full half of the stage was out
of sight. From my seat, you could draw a
line from the front right corner of the stage to its back left corner. I could see in front of
this line, but not behind. Most of the
important action took place front centre, and so the visual spectacle was not
entirely lost. My enjoyment was,
nevertheless, diminished. Another
annoyance was that the LED with English translation was not visible from our
seats. I insisted Lourens sit
in the better seat, since it was I who'd book them and
also because it was his first ever opera.
Still, he too could not see the LED.
I tried during the interval to get different seats, but the clerk
at the box office was unable or unwilling to
assist.
Fortunately, Puccini is
a composer whose operas I can enjoy for their
musicality alone, and I often do in my
home. I received for my birthday
last year a complete set of his operas on CD.
I can usually identify his style every time one of his tracks
plays. (I have my
vast collection of classical music stored digitally on my computer - so that I
never have to touch the CDs I've purchased - and I listen to it whenever I am
home. I have it set on random, and apart
from Puccini, I can also always pick out Wagner. I am less successful at distinguishing
Beethoven from Schumann or Mozart from Haydn.) Therefore, despite my semi-blindness, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.
What I did see was indeed a spectacle.
The set was well designed, the costumes brightly colorful. I was quite shocked
though at the pedestrian character of the audience. Surely everyone knows that applause during an
opera is reserved for when the curtain falls at the end of an act, and not
willy-nilly while the orchestra seamlessly leads the performance from Aria to
Recitative to Chorus and back to Aria.
Philistines!
Notwithstanding these
aggravations, I exited the theatre abuzz and fulfilled. Lourens also utterly enjoyed the show. We were surprised to find that the trains
were still running and that the taxi ride we had anticipated was not necessary. We returned to Redfern and Mandelbaum. James arrived back shortly after with lots of
news about his day of success getting offers of employment and accommodation.
