February 26th We sailed into Sydney Harbor. Unlike our last cruise, our balcony is not facing the Opera House but the passenger terminal. The sail-in was beautiful as the Pacific Princess choir sang Waltzing Matilda and The Australia song, a nice touch. There was a light drizzle but it turned into a beautiful day.
We left the ship at 9:00am and headed to the Opera house to pick up tickets for a performance tonight at 5:00pm. Then we decided to go to the weekend market at the Rocks, but we made a wrong turn and ended up at the Pitt Street Mall. Before getting there we went in to the this old building dated 1881 called “The Strand” and once inside it was as if we were walking into the Old Arcade in Cleveland. See photo below.
In the basement we found an electronic store and were able to buy a converter for the beard trimmer. Luckily we found a very pleasant employee who helped us buy the right converter. We then continued south and visited the Queen Victoria Building. It has over 160 cafes, restaurants and boutiques. Then we walked to the Town Hall, a very impressive building. Sydney is filled with beautiful old buildings intermixed with the new.
We had walked so far we decided to continue to Chinatown as we were never there. The walk was much further than we originally thought, and mostly uphill. It was lunch time and Betty picked a restaurant called the “Golden Harbour.”
We sat down and every 2 minutes a server walked up and asked if we wanted this or that. It was difficult to understand the waiter, he barely spoke English, and then with an Australian accent. Luckily the couple sitting next to us explained it was Dim Sum. Before I knew it we have all this food on our table, Gee Geen dumplings, green tea unfiltered, pork stuffed buns, egg rolls, barbeque pork pieces. Every time you order something they stamp this paper with a code, we had no clue on what this was costing us. Everything was excellent, if we were here longer we would return for Dim Sum. The bill was only $40.00 with tip. We then decided to go to Paddy’s market, the oldest community market in Sydney, a very large market carrying everything imaginable. (Mostly junk.) We headed back to the ship, we thought it would be mostly downhill but it wasn’t. Along the way we stopped at a bar called Cheers. I had a nice cold beer Coopers, only one since a pint cost $8.50. We got to catch the end of the East/West basketball and it was good to see LeBron James lose.
When we left Betty spotted a barber shop offering haircuts for $10.00 and begged me to get a haircut. Well I finally gave in and got a one. The shop had 12 chairs and 10 were full. I didn’t have to wait, it was the fastest haircut I ever got. It probably took him 10 minutes and he did a good job too. Amazing that a haircut is cheaper than a beer, although I would rather have a beer. We finally got near the ship but decided to go to the street market as it is only open on Sunday.
Back at the ship we dressed up to go to the Sydney Opera House for a performance of Greatest Opera Hits on a Sunday Afternoon. The artists were Jane Parkin, Jacqueline Dark, David Corcoran and Andrew Moran. All had excellent voices and they performed 16 hits including The Flower Song from Carmen, Avant de Quitter from Faust and Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific. The performance was very interesting and enjoyable and a great experience.
After the Opera we strolled along the harbor back to the ship. I finally got to enjoy a cigar I purchased in Nicaragua. It was amazing how many people were out enjoying the evening, all the restaurants and bars were full. It is expensive here. Beer prices vary from $8.00 to 15.00 for a pint and meals prices are very high.
