Today was our 3rd day in Sydney! After enjoying a quick breakfast, we departed for our morning tour of Sydney which explored additional areas that we didn't get to see on our I'm Free Tour. This included the very famous Bondi Beach as well as a great lookout point from the gap (the gateway to the Tasman Sea). When the tour was over, we were left off at the Opera House where we got to explore it with an additional tour. Wow, what an amazing building! I'll leave it up to you to find out its interesting and intriguing story of how it was built. In short, the Opera House was constructed by Jørn Utzon, who won the contest for the best unique design chosen for it. He was originally given a 7 Million dollar budget but grossly went over that. After some political turmoil over the costs of the Opera House, Utzon was pretty much forced to resigned and the construction was taken over by other architects. After more years of time and 100 Million dollars later, the Opera House was finally opened in 1973. Utzon never came back to Sydney, and he died without ever seeing his creation. Even at the dedication ceremony on Opening Day, his name was never mentioned. It's a sad, tragic story, and I'll leave it up to you to find out the rest. By the way, the Opera House not only has an opera house, but also a concert hall and a drama theater! After the tours, we had lunch in a Japanese restaurant called Nazimi, followed by going to the IMAX theater to watch two great shows: Born to Be Wild 3D and Tornado Alley 3D. We then had dinner in a Greek restaurant called Medusa Greek Taverna, and after that, headed back to the hotel for bed. Hoped you enjoyed today's activities, stay tuned tomorrow for our next adventure!
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| One of the "What If" signs |
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| Mrs. Macquarie's Chair (constructed by the convicts from sandstone for Mrs. Macquarie, the governor of Sydney's wife. She used this chair to watch ships sail into Sydney) |
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| Interesting Sphere Fountain |
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| Sydney Skyline |
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| Closeup of Sydney |
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| The Gap (the entrance into Sydney Harbour from the Tasman Sea) |
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| On top of one of the gaps |
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| The famous surfer beach... Bondi Beach |
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| Panorama of Bondi Beach |
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| Blue Bottle (Man o' War) at Bondi Beach |
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| The Opera House |
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| Close-up of tiling on Shell of Opera House |
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| Lots of What If signs |
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| The Interior of the Opera House with Purple carpeting |
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| View of Sydney Harbour from inside of Opera House |
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| A Look at another Shell of the Opera House (the Drama Theater) |
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| The Enormous Concert Hall of the Opera House (containing a 10,000 pipe organ in the back) |
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| These tiles are made different colors of off-white to avoid blinding people from the sun. They are also made to be self cleaning from the rain. |
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| Can't forget about the Sydney Opera House Barbie |
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| Panorama of the Sydney Harbour |
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| Lunch Time at Nazimi |
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| This IMAX has the largest cinema screen of all the IMAX theaters in the world |
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| Gelato! |
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| Cool Spiral Fountain at Darling Harbour |
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| Fairy Floss, the English way of saying Cotton Candy |
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| Bird Fountain at Darling Harbour |
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| Our Moussaka Dinner at Medusa Greek Taverna |
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| Darling Harbour at Night |
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| Bird Fountain at Night |
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| Sea Gull inside the Harbourside Shopping Center at Darling Harbour |
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| McDonald's Menu at Harbourside... check out how expensive things are here! |
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| Sydney Skyline at Night |
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| Another view of the Sydney Skyline at Night |
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| Harbourside Shopping Center at Night |
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