Diane

Our first excursion was today but it underwhelmed. It was exactly as listed/described but didn’t live up to my expectations. It was a 2 hour bus ride, followed by a canopy walk, a visit to a local shopping area, lunch, wine tasting and a 2 hour bus ride back.

It didn’t start out too well, when we were told we couldn’t take our water bottles on the excursion as we were getting ready to board the bus. Folks had to take their water bottles back to their rooms and then had to rush back to the bus so we could start on time.

The tour guide has her own business of providing food and wine tours- which she mentioned a couple of times during the bus ride. She also pointed out many restaurants and wineries that we weren’t going to but that she said she went to on her tours. The only history or interesting fact she told us about was the flood that flooded out a famous restaurant!

I did really enjoy the canopy walk but wasn’t impressed with the lunch provided or the 1 hour shopping stop. The wine tasting was strange too…there was very limited seating at the winery and there wasn’t room for all of us at the ‘bar’. There were two servers- one that was trying to tell us about the wine but we couldn’t hear. The other looked mad & surly and answered my question about what wine was being pour by saying “I don’t know- the guy over there is taking about it now”. Then I thought it would be fun to buy a bottle of port but the signs said you could only purchase port if you bought 3 liters. So I didn’t buy any.

Today was a sea day and we didn’t do much of anything other than eat, explore the ship and unpack.

We were super happy to see Ludmilla was the General Manager (GM) on the ship. We really enjoyed having her as the GM on our long cruise last year.

I also enjoyed the SuperBowl party- it was at 9am because of the time change so I didn’t have beer but some other passengers did. It was Seattle Sea Hawks verses New England Patriots. Seattle won- they scored 12 points in the first three quarters without scoring a touchdown. By the end of the game they had the record for the most field goals(5) in a SuperBowl.

I also enjoyed the text message from Tibor showing the delicious girl scout cookies he and Eric purchased. I sure hope there are some left when I get home.

In the evening we enjoyed the Captain’s Cocktail Party and took our glass of champagne to dinner with us.

I checked out of the hotel at 11 am (an hour later than the normal checkout time). Today was the first day it rained while I’ve been in Sydney. It’s been drizzling all morning and ended up drizzling until shortly before we left Sydney.

I took a taxi to the Oversees Passengers Terminal back in Circular Quay (where I’ve been a number of times while in Sydney). It was quick and easy to drop off my luggage at the terminal. I dropped it off since it will be a couple of hours before I can board the ship and it was way too heavy to carry and move around. The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia was a few steps away so I went back to spend more time at the “Data, Dreams, Art and AI” exhibit. Jennifer joined me shortly after I got to the exhibit. We spent about an hour and then went back to the cruise terminal to check in to our cruise.

Some thought provoking questions from signs in the “Data, Dreams, Art and AI” exhibit:

• Artificial intelligence is physical. It runs on data centers, electricity, water for cooling and minerals mined from the ground. Training large AI models and generating media at scale consumes significant resources. Devices also have life cycles of extraction, manufacture and disposal. Who bears the environmental risks, and who benefits from the convenience?
• Thinking about AI ecologically means tracing connections – between server farms and rivers, batteries and mines, code, workers and climate. How might we design and use these systems differently if the energy and materials they use were more visible? What counts as a meaningful image or output when each has an environmental footprint?
• Chemical Garden<a piece of art> is based on the emergence of plant-like forms out of inorganic chemicals: metal salts. These metals – the same ones that are currently used to produce computers, the industrial extraction of which causes entire ecosystems to collapse – were the elements that were necessary for the inception of life on Earth…. The fact that these plant-like forms emerge from the interactions of molecules of these otherwise destructive metals displays the complexity of processes in the world and the blurring of the boundary between life and non-life, between real and synthetic, natural and artificial.

Boarding the Oceania Riviera ship was quick but did involve some walking back and forth between and through the stations(verify passport, check in, security and drop off the passport, walk up the gangway). They were setup to have lots of people but there weren’t too many when we went through.

We helped ourselves to the welcome champagne and then found a spot to have a bite to eat.

Our room was ready shortly thereafter and all our luggage arrived. We didn’t unpack yet as they need to change the bed- it was setup as one big bed but we want two twin beds.

We explored the ship and entered the spa raffle but didn’t win and then had dinner at Jacques, a specialty dining room that isn’t normally available on the night passengers embark. The ship left port about 8pm while we were having dinner.

After dinner it was time for bed- we’ll unpack tomorrow!

I had my usual breakfast of fried egg on toast a the cafe next to my hotel. The hotel uses the cafe to provide breakfast for the hotel guests. It’s a typical sidewalk cafe where some of the tables are inside the building and some are on the sidewalk just in front of the building.

In the afternoon, I walked to the Queen Victoria Building(QVB) where I met Jennifer for High Tea- it was lovely and so nice to see Jennifer. QVB is a beautiful old building with stain glass windows, arches, interesting tile work and lots of fancy shops. It’s such a fancy building it has a ‘Ladies Powder Room’ instead of toilets or restrooms!

After tea Jennifer went back to her hotel to rest a bit since she just arrived in Sydney and I walked back to my hotel to rest before the opera.

I have tickets for the Turandot opera at the Sydney Opera House. I really wanted to go to an opera at the Sydney opera house but was worried I wouldn’t like it and gave myself permission to leave at intermission if I didn’t like it. The only other opera I went to was when the kids were young. I was trying to get us all some more culture but it didn’t work to plan. I talked to the kids about what an opera was and how to behave during one. We dressed up and went to San Francisco to see the opera. Everyone was very well behaved. They were surprised when I said we were leaving after intermission because I wasn’t enjoying the opera. We did not have very good seats and the stage was far away, it was hard to even see the performers. I could not understand the lyrics and the sign with the English translation was so far away I couldn’t read it either. I did have to convince the kids that they had done nothing wrong.

This opera was amazing and I stayed for the entire opera. The couple next to me go to the opera frequently and they said it was the best they’ve seen. Even though I had purchased a cheaper ticket, I had a very good seat and could hear the music and see the performance well too. Plus I could read the screen where it had the English translation of the lyrics. It was like a romance novel set to music and I wasn’t the only one in the theater that was crying and sniffling.

As an aside, I must be having fun because I missed a few days on my Solitaire game and now my over 200 day win streak is at 1.

I had planned to go into the Blue Mountains today but wasn’t able to get tickets so instead toured more of Sydney.

Slept in, had breakfast and then went to the nearby Big Bus stop. When it arrived, I hopped on and rode it for a couple of stops to get to a stop to transfer to the blue line since I wanted to take the blue line today. Had to wait about 30 minutes for a blue-line bus to arrive. It’s a good thing I purchased the 48 hour pass and that it was good for 48 actual hours- rather than 2 days. I had about 2 hours available when I got onto the red-line bus, after waiting 30 minutes at the blue-line transfer stop I got onto a blue-line bus. The route took us back to the start where I had to get onto another blue line bus- by that time I had 30 minutes left on the ticket! Whew.

The blue-line route went past Bondi Beach. I thought I might be able to see penguins on the beach but not a chance- it’s very hot 85+ degrees during the day and the beach was full of people. No self-respecting penguin would be out and about then.

There is significant English influence in the names- Liverpool, Paddington, Queen Elizabeth Building, Kings Cross….

The bus tours have a sound system and a prerecorded talk that matches the route. At a couple of points, it warned of low hanging branches and by golly I had to duck to avoid some! I did certainly enjoy the shade under the trees as the sun is burning hot. I purchased a sun hat and am using the wonderful sunscreen(Super Goop) Monica got me to protect against the powerful sunlight.

Saw many zero emission busses on the streets and a cricket field that was built in the 1800’s. And learned that “Lifeguarding originated in 1907 with the founding of the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club, the world’s first surf lifesaving club, created to address rising drownings as daytime ocean swimming became popular.” Up until the 1960’s women could be fined for showing too much skin while at the beach. Then came the advent of the bikini and so many women were wearing them that the beach inspectors stopped fining them.

Got off the bus at the Australia Museum. It was free to enter and I really enjoyed the amazing pictures in the “2025 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer” exhibit. I would have bought the picture book but it was heavy and I couldn’t imagine carrying it around until I got home.

Then I went to the bird exhibit which I really enjoyed but I suspect it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste. The exhibit was of real Australian birds- they were stuffed and mounted. I liked to see the actual colors, sizes and features of the birds.

On the way to the bird exhibit I ran across a Moai. It was a little flash of the past- we saw many, many Moai a few weeks ago when we were on Easter Island. This one was not a relic but was carved by a master Moai carver especially for the Australia Museum.

I had lunch at the Bistro Gadi on the 4th floor of the museum. It had a view of Hyde Park, St Mary’s Cathedral and Woolloomooloo Bay. I tried to get reduced serving sizes for my meal but wasn’t successful and ended up leaving food.

The tours I’ve gone on give an indigenous welcome and offer respect to the elders. The museums have placards offering an indigenous welcome and respect to the elders. Many place names are also indigenous.

After lunch I walked back to my hotel for a shower and rest before taking the train back to Circular Quay for my 5:30pm dinner cruise. Got there in just in time to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia “Data, Dreams, Art and AI” exhibit 45 minutes before it closed at 5pm. The most thought provoking entry was the one that talked about the rare minerals used to build computers. They are also the minerals that gave rise to the microbes that are the basis of life. Really made me wonder about Artificial Intelligence and the blurring of the boundaries between human life and other life and intelligence.

The Sydney Opera House was the focus for today. The saying is “a building that was a work of art used to showcase performances of art”.

I had hoped to take the Big Bus to the Sydney Opera House but after waiting 40 minutes at the bus stop, I walked back to the train station and took the trains. See note from yesterday about the difficulty of figuring out the bus schedules.

Good thing I left a bit early for the tour- the trains & stations to the Sydney Opera House are not quite the same as the trains & stations from the Sydney Opera house and it took me a bit to figure that out.

I took the Sydney Opera House tour- what an amazing piece of architecture. It had a sad/reconciled aspect for the architect. The original designer, the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, was forced off the project by a change in government even though he had support from the local citizens. He never returned to Australia and never saw the completed Sydney Opera House in person.

Years later and after the Sydney Opera House was finished, the Australian government reached out to Jørn to see if he would be willing to return to oversee renovations and repair. He declined, partly because of his age- he was over 80 years old- but his son was willing and took over the renovation & repair projects.

Jørn was alive when the Sydney Opera House became a World Heritage Site- the youngest site ever selected.

Odd fact- there are over a million tiles covering the ‘sails’ on the Sydney Opera House and every 5 years they are individually inspected to verify they are not cracked and are still affixed.

The ticket I purchased included lunch so I ate at the Midden by Mark Olive (Indigenous Australian dining) at the Opera House. It had views of the bay and the food was delicious but it must have been a very modern take on indigenous food.

After the tour and lunch, I took the train back to the hotel to rest, shower and get ready for the evening performance of “GATSBY
At The Green Light” in the Studio theater in the Sydney Opera House.

It was an amazing show- I did not realized human bodies could move like that. Per the show’s advertisement: “Find your seat at the low-lit speakeasy called The Green Light. Inside, 1920s glitz meets 2020s energy as talented performers wow you with every move. Expect aerial displays, an electric soundtrack, awe-inspiring vocals and choreography that shimmers with desire.” And there was a warning about the performance: “Production may contain haze, strobe light effects, smoke, fire, coarse language, partial nudity, adult content and themes”.

The plane arrived at Sydney about 40 minutes early, so the gate wasn’t quite ready for us. We waited about 30 minutes for our gate- so didn’t really arrive early. The exit thru customs and immigration was nice and quick. The signs to the taxi stand were easy to follow and I quickly found the taxi line and hoped in a taxi for the 35+ minute ride to the Kirketon hotel.

It was too early to get into my room so I stored my bags in their office and off I went to start exploring Sydney. The hotel had a nice tourist map of the city and the staff showed me where to find a nice cafe for breakfast/lunch and where to find the nearest Big Bus Hop On/Hop Off bus stop.

Found a fun cafe in the recommended area about 1/2 mile from the hotel and enjoyed a big breakfast/lunch while figuring out my plan for the day. After eating I walked bit further and got onto the Big Bus.

I had purchased a Big Bus Hop On/Hop Off ticket while in the US. It used to be called the Hop On/Hop Off buses but it’s new name is Big Bus. You can still get on at any of their stops and get off at any of their stops. They have two routes in Sydney- the red line and the blue line. It is super easy to use but it’s difficult to figure out the schedule and the times the buses arrive at any particular stop.

I forgot to check to see if the hotel had an elevator- it didn’t. I left one of my bags at the hotel storage room and the staff got the other, heavier bag, up to my room.

I rode the Big Bus red line around today for a few hours, took the afternoon harbour cruise and then went to the hotel to check-in, shower, and rest before going on the Big Bus Night tour. There are many different building designs, many are round(ish).

I kept seeing CBD and I thought it had something to do with marijuana but it’s really the “Central Business District”.

And found out that many English and Irish prisoners were sent to Australia because of overcrowded jails. About 20 percent of the current Australia population are descendants of those prisoners.

And about 20 percent of Australia’s entire population lives in Sydney.

Today I left for Sydney, Australia. Here’s how it went

• Drove from home to San Jose, California(SJC) airport about 1:30pm
• Quickly checked in and made it thru security
• Hung out in the San Jose airport lounge until it was time to board the plane
• Left San Jose, California(SJC) at 6:05pm- an hour later
• It’s supposed to be about an 1 hour 30 minute flight but the pilot put the “pedal to the metal” or whatever the saying is for airplanes and he made up over 30 minutes from our 1 hour delay!
• Arrived Los Angeles, California (LAX) about 7:05pm
• Spent the almost 4 hour layover in the Delta Lounge- it was huge and looked very new
• We flew over the entire Pacific Ocean to get to Sydney, Australia and crossed the international date line along the way and arrived ‘tomorrow’ at Sydney, Australia
• It’s supposed to be a 15 hour 10 minute flight to Sydney, Australia but we arrived about 40 minute early.
• My seatmate and I were very excited to discover the middle seat was not taken and we had all that extra space during the long flight.
• I managed to sleep a good bit on the flight- it was sporadic and broken up but still was helpful