My last day in Sydney, and I have lots to to do. I started the morning touring the Sydney observatory. It was built in 1858 to keep accurate time via the movement of the stars. Until the skyscrapers came, the observatory could be seen by all of Sydney, and was relied on to drop the ball at 1 pm everyday (think smaller, less glitzy version of Times Square NY's eve ball). Sailors would watch the ball drop and then set their clock by it, they called it "dead reckoning". With accurate time, compass, and navigational charts, sailors could get wherever they were going. Accurate time was extremely important, since five minutes error could set them off course by 80 miles.
Next I headed for the opera house. Yesterday I heard that they were selling last minute tickets of today's shows for $25. Sales start at 12:30, and I was told to get there early. It was a good thing I did, as I got a lot of misdirection before I ended up in the right place. I chose to see the matinee (2pm) showing of Blaze, which was being shown in the big theatre. I had a choice of being up front on the side with some blockage, or fifth row in the balcony. I chose the balcony.
While I waited do for the show to start, I walked around the quay. The quay is the main harbor, with views of the opera house and the Sydney bridge (when HUGE cruise shops aren't in front of it ). There are tons of restaurants, and many people doing shows for money. I saw singers, aboriginals playing the didgerido, and a unicyclist juggling bowling pins (one on fire).
The show was not what I expected, although I had few expectations since I had only seen advertising on a poster. i was expecting a musical with at least ammo light story. Nope, just contemporary music and great urban dancing. In the middle of the show they has an easy dance based on the DJ's favorite food, and had the audience learn it, turning our into a competition between the right and left side I'd the theatre. They drew the audience to dance with them again at the end. For the encore, they had a few young boys from the front row come and dance with them. I'm not sure if it was planned or not, but I saw several excited parents with their cameras, while their sons jumped up and down on stage.
It was an enjoyable show, but some older patrons might struggle with the contemporary music of Lady Gaga, Kanye West, etc. It was hilarious to hear the WII tune, seven dwarfs' "heigh-ho", and other unexpected tunes in the middle of the hip-hop.
After the show I met Brett and Heather, my boss' son, daughter-in-law, and their new baby, Sienna. After a great meal at a Japanese restaurant, I left for my final tourist stop this trip: a night show at the observatory. Unfortunately it was cloudy, so were didn't get to use their really big telescopes to see the night sky. But we did get to see some movies, here a talk about the planets (including a good explanation as to why Pluto was declassified from a planet; most of what I have heard before sounded more political than anything else.), and a planetarium show of the southern hemisphere. I'll admit I had a hard time staying awake in the dark that late at night, and I missed some of the planetarium show -which was what I moody looked forward tip once the telescopes were ruled out.
Final Random Thought of the Day: Why do we call bathrooms "bathrooms"? There is seldom a bath in it. Aussies call them toilets. That makes much more sense to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment