This morning we headed out to the Royal Botanical Gardens, a large preserve near the Opera House. It's full of local and exotic plants and various little critters. It also has a Chinese garden, food courts, fountains and many kilometers of walking/running trails. Seeing so many people running around the bay reminded us a little of Green Lake...if Green Lake were 5 times bigger. Sydneysiders (as they are apparently called) must be fitness nuts because everywhere we looked were professionals wearing tennis shoes walking on their lunch breaks, people jogging alone and in groups, doing situps on the grass, tricep extensions with their body weight on benches and 3 pairs of people practicing boxing.
We had a nice stroll around the gardens checking out birds, flowers and trees.
Then we walked through the Chinese gardens and looked up into some trees to see dozens upon dozens of large bats hanging upside down. And they weren't sleeping the day away. They were making lots of noise, and every few seconds one or two would leave their perch and swoop around before landing back in a tree and hanging again. Weird, but very cool.
Art Gallery of New South Wales
After leaving the Botanical Gardens we headed to the Art Museum of New South Wales, billed as being "Australia's premier museum for Australian, Aboriginal and European art." We primarily went there to check out a little Aboriginal art, since neither of us had ever seen it. Turns out we still haven't. At least not like we were expecting. Their Aboriginal gallery was filled with neat looking paintings made primarily of dots in bright colors...but all the paintings were from the year 2000 or later, and they were all from the same guy. Apparently Aboriginal Art means "my ancestors were Aboriginals, but now I live in the big city and make lots of money selling my aboriginal-looking paintings to big museums."
After a delicious lunch at a Chinatown food court (a concept we NEED in Seattle...at least we've never seen one at home), we headed to the Sydney Aquarium.
Sydney Aquarium
The Aquarium was very well done, with beautiful coral reef exhibits, a huge shark tank and, of course, a big saltwater crocodile. Incidentally, if we haven't mentioned yet, Australians seem to have a rather specific and dry kind of humor, which was on display here. You can view the crocodile from the front, behind glass. You can also go up a set of stairs and look down into the croc's habitat. You're about 10 feet up from the ground level there and there is no top to the exhibit, nothing at all to keep you from falling or jumping in with the big saltie. All there is a small sign on the ledge with an entertaining graphic and the warning "If the fall doesn't kill you, the croc will."
The coolest part though, was seeing the platypus, who was hidden our first time through. We went back in after we had seen everything else, and got a good look at her swimming around!
Cultural Note
Sydneysiders seem to love scarves. Seriously. REALLY love scarves. Everywhere we go on the street probably 80% of the women and 60% of the men are wearing scarves. When in Rome...Lynette, who arrived with one scarf in her suitcase, has purchased 1 more. Jenn, who brought none has purchased 3. We feel very included now.
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