Sydney - The Pulse of the City

The restaurant associated with our hotel sits right on a street corner, so we people watch while we eat breakfast.  Across the street is a parking lot for motorcycles, and it was clear that it was a work day as the lot was full.  We watch people pull in dressed in leather jackets and helmets and emerge from the lot ready for work -- suit jackets, briefcases, etc.

The sounds of the city seem higher on a work day... more truck and bus traffic and more people.  As we set off this morning we were trying to find the Post Office.  According to Google Maps there was one 5 blocks away near Hyde Park (Sydney's equivalent to NYC's Central Park).  WRONG!   

Luckily, I had a back up address -- but it was up five blocks and over three,  Off we went!  We got into and area of the city where they have turned the streets into pedestrian malls or parks.  Martin Place is one of these.

This little three block mall is dedicated to the Australian Defense Forces, as proclaimed on banners on each side of the park.

soldier

In the center is a "Lest We Forget" monument with a WWI doughboy on one side and a sailor on the other.

sailor

Finally the Post Office!!!

Turns out we have been passing by this corner everytime we took the tram to and from Circular Quay.  If we had known that, we could have gone straight to it.

Debski this one is for you!  We had no time in Maui to mail your birthday card...  there is no telling how long it will take to get to Talkeetna, but it was mailed this morning.  Have a Happy Birthday!

From here we headed for the Royal Botanical Gardens, taking in some sights along the way.

the Sydney Tower Eye - City's tallest  
seen between buildings

front of one building - coffee under a tinkertoy sculpture

Sydney Libtrary

Entrance to the Botanical Gardens

The Royal Botanical Gardens are a restful oasis of trails, formal gardens, and open spaces.  Benches are placed in quiet corners throughout.  

statues...

fountains....

cool trees...

and lots of birds.
(This is a Noisy Miner.)

We found a quiet bench in a bamboo grove -- a great respite on another hot day.

Everywhere we went we encountered construction sites.  On one, we walked under a covered sidewalk while they were lifting steel girders from trucks beside us on the street.  Another we saw a "cavern" underneath a building where there were at least three concrete trucks backed in getting ready to drop their loads.  At another site, a guy was usng a sledge hammer to pound on metal pipes,  Down another lane there was a line of trucks waiting.  If you had to describe the CBD - the Central Business District - of Sydney in a couple of words, it would be EVOLVING, or REMODELING.  Old buildings are getting remakes -- new buildings are going up everywhere.

Old and new... 

This is the Queen Victoria Building near our hotel.  

When I was here in 1988 I discovered they had repurposed this into a shopping mall.  

It's still a shopping center, 

but now it has a lot of company!

NEXT UP

Tomorrow we head for South Australia, for the beach in Glenelg (a suburb of Adelaide).  

Walking to dinner, we got a good view of the Sydney Eye,

the Eye from Market Street near Darling Harbour