The first weekend in Sydney, we were off to pay our respects to the Sydney Harbour bridge and to the Opera House, they are about 500 metres away from each other, and are in viewing distance. Friday we went there because there was a AGSM get together there, Saturday we went there because we took a guided tour of the opera house, Sunday we went there because the enthusiasts wanted more pics. Had it been a temple my mom would have been so happy. We have shots of these places from every angle. Mathematically speaking, x1=taken from opera house or taken from the harbor x2 = taken of the opera house or taken of the harbor x3= taken in the day or taken at night x4= with no one in pic or with one person in the pic or with two people in shot or with three people in the shot x5= from the front or the back or the sides. So photographs of all permutations of x1…x5 are there with us, and some of them are really nice. We took a photograph of us with the Opera house in the background, and captioned it “the opera house’. We took a pic of the three of us with Harbour Bridge in the background, and called it “the Sydney harbor bridge.”
The next weekend, or a few weekends after that, we rushed to the Blue Mountains, as they were slowly turning normal brown with green trees. Apparently they have a particular variety of trees whose leaves secrete a particular variety of oil which in particular weather conditions make the mountains look blue. But if they named them ‘particularly blue mountains’, I guess that sounds even more misleading, so to the normal mountains called blue we went. Good road, cows and horses, sheep and kangaroos, and this was our first experience of aboriginal names. They’re in a town called Katoomba. Side note : there is also a town called Wollongong. I misspelled it as Woollywong, and I was told it sounded like a Chinese sheep. Anyhow, in Katoomfba, there are three large rocks jutting out of land, and they named them the three sisters, so the three of us took pics together with the rocks in the background, and captioned the pic ‘The Three Sisters’.
We heard that there were bushfires reported in that area, looked like some teenagers thought it would be fun to warm themselves, but they were charged with the crime. So they closed down the forest and other waterfall and creeks for the public, which limited our ability to explore. Of course, what actually limited our ability to explore was our stamina, but it is good to have a back up reason as well.
Since we had been troubled by the forest fires the previous day, the next day we decided to go and find out the forest fires for ourselves. But the gods did not want that, they had made the weather misty and rainy, and it was in such weather that we took the tourist attraction of a cable car with a glass floor that goes above the valley. It was not what we expected, we were supposed to see far and wide and deep into the valley, but all we could see was the white mist through the windows, through the roof, and through the glass floor. I now know what heaven must feel like with clouds and walking on clouds. On second thoughts, it would also be a traffic hazard, with the angels bumping into each other.
On the way back, many cars overtook us, many bikes overtook us too, and a few of them sounded as if more than overtaking the other vehicles, they were more interesting in letting other vehicles know that they would be overtaken, and in no way am I referring here to police cars and ambulances. The point is that these bikes and a few of the cars looked new, were definitely not vintage, but sounded like the ancient roar of a drone. Maybe it is just the owners way of expressing themselves.
On another occasion, we took a walk from Bondi Beach in Sydney to Coogee beach in well, Sydney again. In terms on infrastructure, the Sydney council has created a path by the side of the ocean, over the rocks at some places, close to the beach at other places, which goes by the side of the ocean. It is used a lot by some Australians for their daily jogs. For that matter, lots of places are used by Australians for other daily jogs, the harbor bridge, the beach, the parks, the gym… the Australians just jog a lot. Anyhow, the two of us were walking on the beach walk, and passing by some bushes. It was twilight, an in flew a small bird, flying straight into our faces. I realized the bird was flying straight into us, Harsha realized the bird was flying straight into us, the bird realized it was flying straight into us, and what followed was a symmetrical delight. The bird retreated exactly to the path it can come from, I restreated at 120 degrees from the birds line, and Harsha retreated at another minus 120 degree from the birds line of flight. It was an interesting second of that day.
And now I shall turn my attention to another topic food, and narrate a story. Once upon a time in Prussia, there was a king Fredrick His people used to grow wheat as a staple crop, but wheat was not a sturdy crop. It was afflicted by weather conditions, and the people went hungry sometimes. So Fredrick figured that people should grow potatoes as staple than wheat. He issued a decree to instruct farmers to grow potatoes, and decreed that those who did not grow potatoes would be fined. But people did not grow potatoes. They were happy with wheat. So Freddy was unhappy. But he was a smart man too, and started protecting them. He instructed his gardeners to grow potatoes in the royal vegetable patch, and stationed armed guards around it, and figuratively, also grew gourds around the potato patch. Our dear Freddie figured that what is good to be protected is good to be stolen and used and cherished. So in a couple of months, farmers had stolen potatoes from his patch and taken to growing it, and that is how Fred succeeded in his plan and people lived happily. Even to this day, on the grave of king Fredrick the great, people offer potatoes along with flowers. [What all I have written above is not strictly factual]
Talking of food, kangaroo and duck and crocodile and quail and emu.
