sistawendy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistawendy) wrote2018-03-01 05:56 am
sistawendy) wrote2018-03-01 05:56 am
Sydney pics, part 1 of n
It's 0600 local time. I woke up around 0300. Moral: it's too warm for the duvet, and maybe I need some melatonin. As promised, pics of Sydney from yesterday and the day before, in more or less chronological order.
King Street, Newtown, a couple of blocks from where I'm staying.
The aforementioned bus stop posters, King St. & Enmore Rd. I gotta love how somebody, presumably trans, made neatly printed stickers and got every last one of those posters.
Let's put the street art together:
A little Aboriginal theme going there.
I think this piece is an allegory about gentrification, which judging from the stickers is a concern in the neighborhood. Yeah, I'm a contributor, dammit. Poo.
I may have mentioned that Australia's referendum on same-sex marriage recently passed. There are many, many signs in favor of it all over Newtown. This is probably the largest I've seen.
Gotta love the painted shadow.
Home away from home. I can't get over the wrought iron.
A few doors up the street.
Crazy vegetation, a few doors in the other direction.
This is one of several Aboriginal flags, painted or flying, that I saw. I had to get arty with the palm tree & the steeple. The wall behind it encloses...
...Camperdown Cemetery, because the Goths raised me right. It's a little neglected for extra spookiness. Even the newest graves I saw are from the 1920s. Some headstones had illegible verse, but even better was the info on how people died: a teenage boy drowned in Sydney Harbor, a sailor on a navy ship, etc.
The biggest damn magnolia I've ever laid eyes on, just inside the cemetery entrance.
Eucalyptus where it belongs - in Australia, not California - in the park surrounding the cemetery.
Sydney is so sunny that they have to put shade cloth over kids' play areas in parks. I'd never seen that before.
And finally, yours truly at Bondi Beach! Remember when iMacs came out, and one of their colors was Bondi Blue? The water really is a rare and beautiful electric, slightly greenish blue. I didn't walk on that sand, though, and let me tell you why.
Burner buddy V took several tries to convince me not to go into the water at the beach: the wind had blown in lots of seaweed, which probably also meant lots of men-of-war jelllyfish, or as locals call them, bluebottles. As a Florida girl I knew those are bad news. There were also gulls feeding nearby, which probably meant sharks nearby as well. V is a nurse and told me all about how big the bite mark was that she'd seen from a shark attack the other day. Sharks get within 20m of shore pretty regularly.
So what did we do instead? Sunbathe topless on big, flat rocks at a women-only area - popular with Muslim ladies, despite the boobs - and frolicking in the saltwater pool. Superbly relaxing, especially if you're a nurse who's seen multiple patients die in the last day or so. V had to warn me about the sea urchins that like to hang out at the edges of such pools; the one I was in was basically a natural tide pool with some extra walls added. Oh, and as we left, V made sure to put her sneakers on before she walked on the grass because of some damn plant that'll pierce your foot otherwise. Aussies are used to it and maybe even a touch defensive about it, but this place really is out to get all humans.
Came back to the apartment. Had OK dinner at the sliding-scale vegan place, Lentil As Anything. Walked up & down King St. Tried the vegan gelato that V recommended (Gelato Blue) and was surprised to find that it kicked butt. (The Tickler, who can't do dairy, has been informed.) Managed to stay awake past 2100 hours.
King Street, Newtown, a couple of blocks from where I'm staying.
The aforementioned bus stop posters, King St. & Enmore Rd. I gotta love how somebody, presumably trans, made neatly printed stickers and got every last one of those posters.
Let's put the street art together:
A little Aboriginal theme going there.
I think this piece is an allegory about gentrification, which judging from the stickers is a concern in the neighborhood. Yeah, I'm a contributor, dammit. Poo.
I may have mentioned that Australia's referendum on same-sex marriage recently passed. There are many, many signs in favor of it all over Newtown. This is probably the largest I've seen.
Gotta love the painted shadow.
Home away from home. I can't get over the wrought iron.
A few doors up the street.
Crazy vegetation, a few doors in the other direction.
This is one of several Aboriginal flags, painted or flying, that I saw. I had to get arty with the palm tree & the steeple. The wall behind it encloses...
...Camperdown Cemetery, because the Goths raised me right. It's a little neglected for extra spookiness. Even the newest graves I saw are from the 1920s. Some headstones had illegible verse, but even better was the info on how people died: a teenage boy drowned in Sydney Harbor, a sailor on a navy ship, etc.
The biggest damn magnolia I've ever laid eyes on, just inside the cemetery entrance.
Eucalyptus where it belongs - in Australia, not California - in the park surrounding the cemetery.
Sydney is so sunny that they have to put shade cloth over kids' play areas in parks. I'd never seen that before.
And finally, yours truly at Bondi Beach! Remember when iMacs came out, and one of their colors was Bondi Blue? The water really is a rare and beautiful electric, slightly greenish blue. I didn't walk on that sand, though, and let me tell you why.
Burner buddy V took several tries to convince me not to go into the water at the beach: the wind had blown in lots of seaweed, which probably also meant lots of men-of-war jelllyfish, or as locals call them, bluebottles. As a Florida girl I knew those are bad news. There were also gulls feeding nearby, which probably meant sharks nearby as well. V is a nurse and told me all about how big the bite mark was that she'd seen from a shark attack the other day. Sharks get within 20m of shore pretty regularly.
So what did we do instead? Sunbathe topless on big, flat rocks at a women-only area - popular with Muslim ladies, despite the boobs - and frolicking in the saltwater pool. Superbly relaxing, especially if you're a nurse who's seen multiple patients die in the last day or so. V had to warn me about the sea urchins that like to hang out at the edges of such pools; the one I was in was basically a natural tide pool with some extra walls added. Oh, and as we left, V made sure to put her sneakers on before she walked on the grass because of some damn plant that'll pierce your foot otherwise. Aussies are used to it and maybe even a touch defensive about it, but this place really is out to get all humans.
Came back to the apartment. Had OK dinner at the sliding-scale vegan place, Lentil As Anything. Walked up & down King St. Tried the vegan gelato that V recommended (Gelato Blue) and was surprised to find that it kicked butt. (The Tickler, who can't do dairy, has been informed.) Managed to stay awake past 2100 hours.
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I'm glad you're having fun!
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As long as you’re in a city and you stay out of the ocean, it isn’t that dangerous. Good heavens, now I sound like an Australian.
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That would be the spinifex.
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It looks like your trip is off to a great start.
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