WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. This is a journal blog, an explore-blog, a bit of this and that blog. Sharing where the mood takes me. Perhaps it will take you too.

Menologue; The OZ Venture

On Saturday 14th November, it was onto the train again, this time down into Sydney city itself. There was a King Parrot at Mt Colah station to see us off.

...can't see him? Don't fret, more will appear.

Eric came with me again on this journey. At Central station we walked through the vaulted Victorian main hall and through to catch the 'light rail' ... a modern tram thing which only goes a short distance and was something of a white elephant for Sydney City Council... (That said, they are now in the process of putting more of the stuff down George Street, the main thoroughfare of the city.)

Didn't get a shot of that.
It was raining.

I kid you not. It was umbrellas and galoshes weather. Got off the 'light rail' at Paddy's Markets, beside the Sydney Entertainment Centre. One of those enormous concrete conglomerations designed purely for pulling in the money and providing as little aesthetics or comfort as possible. That's where I saw Neil Diamond, and met the Three Tenors - yes the originals, Pav, Dom and Car. Long ago.

Walking round the back of it, though, came across a new (to me) sculptural installation. The Taurean in me was very drawn to it, so wrangled the brolly, bags and The Fudge to get a foto.

Where was our destination though?

The Chinese Gardens at Darling Harbour. We were meeting up with another long-time friend and Homoeopathic colleague, Lea.  We arrived at almost exactly the same time by the main entrance.

The Gardens of Friendship were opened in 1988, the year before I moved to OZ. During my quarter century living there, I visited them regularly (not quite yearly, but better than two-yearly). It has been a joy to see the plantings develop, the bonsai age, the koi feed and breed.

Tomorrow, the pretty shots of the gardens. Today, let me say that Lea and I yakked for the universe all the way round and caught up on each other's news as we made our way up the 'mountain' and back down the waterfall side to reach the tea rooms. There, of course, we had the obligatory steamed buns (pork for Lea, vege for me and Eric) and a sticky cake, with Jasmine tea to wash them down.














As the meeting drew to a slightly reluctant close, (one never really wants to say cheerio to good mates), a couple of 'souvenir' shots were made.



























As I said, the pretty and scenic shots will be in tomorrow's Me-Now-Views post.

Not that they are brilliant photographs. It was, after all, wet, grey and cold...

Ahem..

Thus ended the first week of my OZ venture. On the Sunday it was family day with Emm and co. We didn't feel inclined to go anywhere. Can you guess why?


8 comments:

  1. It certainly was raining. I like the splashes of red in that sculptural installation.

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  2. Neil Diamond and the REAL three Tenors??? OMD you have the BEST LUCK...
    Love that bird and OH THE FOODABLES... We would LOVE to taste those..

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  3. That first week flew right by! We wish we had fun birds like that in our trees.

    Keep Calm & Bark On!

    Murphy & Stanley

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  4. Crikey ..... I hope a dry day is coming up soon. Aren't those King Parrots something else? I got to chase some of them once. Mum was feeding them in the backyard of a farm where we were staying. They were so tame and came right down to Mum to be fed. I gave them a piece of my mind. They didn't come back while I was around but they did come back when Mum made me stay inside. I nearly got me one.

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  5. That King Parrot looks to be beautiful!! Just loving your visit so far!!

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  6. Catching up with old friends is way better than scenic photos. Of course, if you get the chance to do both: even better!

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  7. It's great that you came back to this garden of friendship to meet old friends... is it still the same garden or is it different after that years you haven't seen it?

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  8. That king Parrot is really huge.

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