Seagulls stole my lunch! Also, Distant Worlds.
Had a whirlwind trip to Sydney over the weekend for Distant Worlds. It was, as expected, fairly awesome.
The weekend got off to a great start when I hopped off the plane straight onto this double-decker train from the airport! Yes, I am a country girl who is easily amused by such things.
Then, once leaving the safety of the subway tunnels, discovered that it was pouring rain. Apparently it was Sydney's wettest day in 10 years, which is actually kind of weaksauce if true. Perception of 'wet' may be altered coming out of the Queensland floods.
Stayed at the Menzies! It was a bit more expensive than I normally choke out for a hotel, as I reasoned being able to walk back from the Opera House after Distant Worlds instead of forking out for a cab made up the difference.
But god, was it fancy. There were doormen!
Also the bed was enormous. This angle does a poor job of displaying this fact. It wasn't big enough for just two people, you probably could have fit four comfortably. It was bigger than some of my old bedrooms. It's like one of those beds you read about in those OT4 fics. I was actually kind of tempted to kill the afternoon in the hotel, since it was raining and the hotel room was luxurious and awesome.
Fortunately, the lure of chocolate and soundtracks was powerful enough to entice me away.
Queen Victoria Building: got ugly scaffolding? NO PROBLEM.
Went here to visit FISH, a small store which specialises in classical music/jazz/opera/musicals and soundtracks - basically all the genres that get squished into the out-of-the-way corner at JB. Soundtrack pickings were rather slim this time, but came away with a brilliant find with the world premiere recording of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Sunset Boulevard. It is one of my favourites! Though there have been precious few musicals I haven't liked, so maybe that doesn't say a lot.
Inside the Queen Victoria building, there was this curious door. It only opens questions, apparently.
Aside from that one sojourn, my Saturday afternoon seemed to be largely comprised of bookstores. Went to Kinokuniya, which is always awesome and has the best non-fiction range of any bookstore I've yet found. Drooled over many books, somehow dragged myself away by reminding myself I only had carry-on luggage and am supposed to be saving money.
This must be the grandmother of all Dymocks stores. o__o
My grand plans to save money by not buying books was swiftly put to a stop when I discovered this place. Yes, it is as magical as it looks. Entirely sci-fi and fantasy! A whole bookcase just of Star Wars novels! Guys, I think I just found my personal heaven.
Wound up leaving with a modest number of Philip K Dick novels, presumably because it's been far too long since I last challenged my tenuous grip of reality. :|
My Saturday having mostly disappeared in aisles of paperbacks, headed over to Circular Quay an hour or two before the concert.
The goal here was simple:
GUYLIAN CAFE.
IT WAS AS DELICIOUS AS ANTICIPATED.
Ordered a pot of peppermint tea and some kind of chocolate cake and hazelnut praline ice-cream. It wound up being kind of expensive. Possibly because they put edible gold dust on the dessert. Not even kidding.
Thus I headed to the concert high on both sugar and giddy anticipation.
Sydney Harbour Bridge was looking wonderfully ominous under the gathering storm clouds.
As was the Sydney Opera House.
Is it weird that one of the things that most impresses me about the Sydney Opera House is that they backlight their toilet roll dispensers? It's very futuristic somehow.
*_____* There's definitely something totally amazing about seeing a game concert poster outside a major venue in Australia amidst all the usual theatre and choirs and ballets.
One and only shot from the inside. Technically you're not supposed to take pictures, but the rule seems very poorly enforced. I am always surprised by how small the Concert Hall in the Opera House is. Had a fantastic seat, worth paying the premium price.
Okay, I'm about to talk about Distant Worlds in excruciating detail now. SKIP TO THE NEXT LINE OF STARS IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED.
******************************
The vibe of excitement at this concert was unbelievable. There was an absolute crush of people at the merchandise stall the minute the doors opened! There were a couple of people in cosplay too - spotted a Yuna, a Sephiroth, and a few Turks. One couple were wearing white Distant Worlds T-shirts with the logo wings drawn on the back, along with a headband with moogle ears and bobble. XD IT WAS KIND OF HILARIOUS AND ADORABLE.
Nobuo Uematsu came out and sat in with the audience, the clapping and cheering when he turned up was amazing! He played up the crowd very well, no doubt experienced at concerts by now (seems like every single concert on the Distant Worlds tour has him there as a guest, wonder when on earth he gets the time to write FFXIV's soundtrack).
The big screen set up played relevant footage for each piece of music, which was a nice touch, and occasionally hilarious when they turned back to old-school graphics. The symphony was being performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by the choir 'Cantillation'. And sponsored by BigPond, which was vaguely baffling but whatever it takes.
They opened with FFVII: Prelude - which is a darn good choice of a rendition for the classic main Final Fantasy melody. When this first bit of music started to swell, I nearly started crying out of sheer joy, no exaggeration. Actually, that was the reaction for almost every piece of the concert. I will spare you the repetition by merely stating now that it happened a lot.
THEN, THEN - FFVIII: LIBERI FATALI. OMG. THIS WAS AMAZING TO HEAR LIVE. *__* Though I will break away here with my one small complaint from the concert - everyone would get super-excited when they recognised the piece (Despite the set list in the program, a lot of people apparently don't know the track names and so were somehow surprised) and would start cheering and clapping, and while I can't blame them because I kind of wanted to cheer and clap too, guys, you're drowning out the music. It's not a rock concert!
This was especially prevalent in the following Victory Theme, which was so short as to barely warrant a place on the program and the entire thing got drowned out by excited applause. :|
Fortunately somewhere halfway through the first set everybody mostly got their giddy impulses under control. If nothing else, it must have been novel for the Sydney Symphony. (Except that one old violin player in the back row who looked terribly displeased by the whole endeavour.)
Next was FFX: To Zanarkand. This is a beautiful piece, and the extra texture rendered by a live performance makes it nearly heartbreaking. ;__;
FFVIII: Don't Be Afraid (better known as the FFVIII battle theme) was awesome, but that surprises nobody.
FFV: Dear Friends slowed things up a bit. This piece has a very Greensleeves sort of feel, but it's very pretty and the symphony made me like it a lot more than I used to.
FFIX: Vamo' alla Flemenco: This one was the big surprise of the night for me. I recalled the music quite clearly from the game, and while I liked it, didn't expected much from the orchestration. I was sorely mistaken. This track fairly exploded with energy, the original version is now forever trash. This is a lesson in adaptation.
FFVIII: Aerith's Theme. Dammit, even Nobuo Uematsu is spelling it Aerith now. I may be forced to adjust.
It's just.. there's never any words to do this one justice. You just say 'Aerith's theme' and everyone understands.
FFVIII: Fisherman's Horizon: A fun, more light-hearted piece. Brilliantly done, but not my favourite. Sort of an odd choice, really.
Especially when it's immediately overshadowed by FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge! *____* FFV's music was largely forgettable for me, but this track is far and away my favourite, and they did a fantastic job with it. It was so bombastic! alsdkjflsjfalskjf Sydney Symphony, you are so perfect in your execution and dynamics! \o/
Chocobo Medley 2010 was kind of hilarious, mostly because the video guy clearly had waaaaaay too much fun mixing his rather selected clips of chocobo footage together in interesting ways. Had both the traditional chocobo theme and samba-de-chocobo!
Then to close out the first set - FFVII: J-E-N-O-V-A.
*____*
*INTERVAL*
Second set opened with perennial classic FFVII: Opening - Bombing Mission. This piece never fails to send shivers down my spine.
...They sure had a lot of FFVII pieces. Not that I'm complaining. But we missed out on anything from FFI-IV.... (*is greedy*) (Next on the wishlist is The Price of Freedom.)
THEN - Surprise guest! Japanese pop idol Kanon turned up to sing Suteki da ne and FFXI's Memoro de la Stono. She did a fantastic job, I'm always surprised whenever I hear a pop idol sing so beautifully live! Don't know why, must be all the lip-syncing scandals we normally get.
They took a brief break from Uematsu to play some of Masashi Hamauzu's work - specifically FFXIII: Fabula Nova Crystallis (which truth be told was a fairly non-descript and very short piece - normally associated with Serah). Would have preferred to hear Oerba's theme, really. Next was FFXIII: Blinded By Light (much more awesome piece better known as Lightning's theme, or the main battle music of FFXIII.) This was perhaps the only piece where they may have dropped the ball slightly with the arrangement - the dynamics didn't feel quite as punchy live as on CD, and percussion kept crowding out the main melody. But then, they've likely had far less time to perfect this arrangement compared to the rest. Still very enjoyable.
They also called it a preview, which is kind of hilarious for a game that's been out in Australia for over a year now.
Then FFXIV: Navigator's Glory - The Theme of Limsa Lominsa! Awesome piece. A real tragedy that I will never play FFXI or FFXIV. :|
Also FFXIV: Primal Judgement. Equally cool. Seeing the nice hi-def trailer footage was neat.
THEN, OMG.
FFVI: Opera 'Maria and Draco'!!!!! Complete with opera soloists!
This one just blew me out of the water. It gave me chills. This is the thing I like best about game concerts - when they take older games with less sophisticated soundtracks but still beautiful melodies, and give them the big budget orchestration they deserve.
It was also a little eerily fourth-wall breaking. As though you're attending the opera scene yourself, one of the many NPCs in the audience. o__o
Then they closed out the program with FFVI: Terra's Theme. Wonderful. I am running out of synonyms. They also ran a credits sequence for the performance during this. Again with the blurring of realities.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the encore was FFVII: One Winged Angel. :D I just don't get sick of hearing this one live.
Only the one encore, unfortunately, despite some very insistent clapping and whistling and even a standing ovation. That is the difference between Sydney Symphonic Orchestra and Eminence - Eminence are in it for the love of that particular music and will keep coming back until they run out of encores/get too tired/get kicked out of the venue. (*Never misses a chance to plug Eminence*). But I cannot fault them. It was a nigh flawless performance.
Another one crossed off the bucket list, guys. Attended a Final Fantasy concert. \o/
********************** (END EXCRUCIATING DETAIL)
Wandered out from the concert in a euphoric daze, headed back to the hotel, and collapsed onto the gloriously oversized bed sometime after midnight. Proceeded to sleep for 11 hours, which was way longer than intended. Partly because the giant bed was sort of amazing and also probably because hotels have these amazing light-blocker curtains that make it look like midnight even in the middle of the day. I was saved by a friend's SMS, and just barely made the hotel's checkout time. Then, went and ate some proper lunch breakfast, since I was feeling sick guilty about only eating sugar the day before.
As wonderfully relaxing at this was, it kind of put a damper on my plans for the Sunday, as it left me with a small afternoon window without enough time to do much of anything or go very far. Wound up wandering around.
Stopped in at Hyde Park, drawn as always by the sound of a fountain.
Also watched an old guy playing chess with himself on the oversized chess board. Am kind of amazed someone hasn't run off with all the pieces.
Not sure what this building is, but it looked mighty impressive.
Truthfully, Sydney has so many impressive old buildings it's easy to become desensitised to their presence. This one still caught my interest for the precarious clock. Imagine that thing breaking off and crushing a car! (*Clearly influenced by far too many Loony Tunes cartoons as a child*)
Stumbled across this poster and was overcome by jealousy. Gabriel Iglesias, guys! IF ONLY I'D KNOWN SOONER.
Another highlight of the trip was the return to 85 degrees! This time, sampled the Hokkaido Strawberry. Still the best cake ever. It's so light and fluffy and such a delicate flavour~
Probably should not have sat down to eat it in Town Hall Square, though. Had two hobos ramble nonsense at me then ask for money, and then a vaguely creepy guy in a purple suit tried to offer me some sort of church pamphlet. Lesson learned for next time.
That said, there were a lot of very nice people in Sydney who would strike up a conversation! People in elevators, people at the concert, and just about every shop assistant. Was rather novel. One guy was very nice and offered me his all-day ferry pass since he himself was off to the airport and couldn't use it. Had three different people ask me to take a photo for them and two different people ask me for directions. (*facepalm*) ...The tragic part of that was, I could actually answer their questions. :|
Was tempted by the Sydney Aquarium despite the lack of time, mostly because OMG LEGO EXHIBIT.
Had to be satisfied with the two on public display.
SOMEBODY CONTACT LINK. WE HAVE FOUND THE TRIFORCE.
Since there wasn’t really much time to do anything else, wound up wandering around Darling Harbour and Circular Quay and people-watching. Listened to all the buskers. Took a short run on the ferry too.
Doesn't this just make you simultaneously want to cringe and yet, go 'awwwwww.'
Ate a very late lunch at Circular Quay before heading to the airport. Chose an alfresco cafe with a lovely view of the Harbour Bridge and all the ferries coming and going and ordered a sandwich. Took my seat. Received my food.
Then the seagulls came.
These two brutes formed a perimeter around me, bullying away the others gathering with fierce gumption, despite the fact that I had not thrown them even a morsel and had no intention of doing so. This did not matter to them. They crowded on the edge of the umbrellas overhead. Stalked a steady circle around my table. Screeched repetitively at me, demanding their share.
These seagulls had decided: my sandwich would be Theirs.
There were plenty of other diners eating around me. For some reason, however, the seagulls were only interested in my lunch. To be fair, it was a pretty excellent sandwich. I’m surprised the seagulls instinctively knew this without having had the slightest taste.
They were patient. I must have been well over halfway through my sandwich, when, in a moment of clear oversight, I leant back in my chair to take a drink of water.
And then the seagulls flew down and stole my lunch straight off my plate. :|
So concluded my Distant Worlds adventure in Sydney.
The weekend got off to a great start when I hopped off the plane straight onto this double-decker train from the airport! Yes, I am a country girl who is easily amused by such things.
Then, once leaving the safety of the subway tunnels, discovered that it was pouring rain. Apparently it was Sydney's wettest day in 10 years, which is actually kind of weaksauce if true. Perception of 'wet' may be altered coming out of the Queensland floods.
Stayed at the Menzies! It was a bit more expensive than I normally choke out for a hotel, as I reasoned being able to walk back from the Opera House after Distant Worlds instead of forking out for a cab made up the difference.
But god, was it fancy. There were doormen!
Also the bed was enormous. This angle does a poor job of displaying this fact. It wasn't big enough for just two people, you probably could have fit four comfortably. It was bigger than some of my old bedrooms. It's like one of those beds you read about in those OT4 fics. I was actually kind of tempted to kill the afternoon in the hotel, since it was raining and the hotel room was luxurious and awesome.
Fortunately, the lure of chocolate and soundtracks was powerful enough to entice me away.
Queen Victoria Building: got ugly scaffolding? NO PROBLEM.
Went here to visit FISH, a small store which specialises in classical music/jazz/opera/musicals and soundtracks - basically all the genres that get squished into the out-of-the-way corner at JB. Soundtrack pickings were rather slim this time, but came away with a brilliant find with the world premiere recording of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Sunset Boulevard. It is one of my favourites! Though there have been precious few musicals I haven't liked, so maybe that doesn't say a lot.
Inside the Queen Victoria building, there was this curious door. It only opens questions, apparently.
Aside from that one sojourn, my Saturday afternoon seemed to be largely comprised of bookstores. Went to Kinokuniya, which is always awesome and has the best non-fiction range of any bookstore I've yet found. Drooled over many books, somehow dragged myself away by reminding myself I only had carry-on luggage and am supposed to be saving money.
This must be the grandmother of all Dymocks stores. o__o
My grand plans to save money by not buying books was swiftly put to a stop when I discovered this place. Yes, it is as magical as it looks. Entirely sci-fi and fantasy! A whole bookcase just of Star Wars novels! Guys, I think I just found my personal heaven.
Wound up leaving with a modest number of Philip K Dick novels, presumably because it's been far too long since I last challenged my tenuous grip of reality. :|
My Saturday having mostly disappeared in aisles of paperbacks, headed over to Circular Quay an hour or two before the concert.
The goal here was simple:
GUYLIAN CAFE.
IT WAS AS DELICIOUS AS ANTICIPATED.
Ordered a pot of peppermint tea and some kind of chocolate cake and hazelnut praline ice-cream. It wound up being kind of expensive. Possibly because they put edible gold dust on the dessert. Not even kidding.
Thus I headed to the concert high on both sugar and giddy anticipation.
Sydney Harbour Bridge was looking wonderfully ominous under the gathering storm clouds.
As was the Sydney Opera House.
Is it weird that one of the things that most impresses me about the Sydney Opera House is that they backlight their toilet roll dispensers? It's very futuristic somehow.
*_____* There's definitely something totally amazing about seeing a game concert poster outside a major venue in Australia amidst all the usual theatre and choirs and ballets.
One and only shot from the inside. Technically you're not supposed to take pictures, but the rule seems very poorly enforced. I am always surprised by how small the Concert Hall in the Opera House is. Had a fantastic seat, worth paying the premium price.
Okay, I'm about to talk about Distant Worlds in excruciating detail now. SKIP TO THE NEXT LINE OF STARS IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED.
******************************
The vibe of excitement at this concert was unbelievable. There was an absolute crush of people at the merchandise stall the minute the doors opened! There were a couple of people in cosplay too - spotted a Yuna, a Sephiroth, and a few Turks. One couple were wearing white Distant Worlds T-shirts with the logo wings drawn on the back, along with a headband with moogle ears and bobble. XD IT WAS KIND OF HILARIOUS AND ADORABLE.
Nobuo Uematsu came out and sat in with the audience, the clapping and cheering when he turned up was amazing! He played up the crowd very well, no doubt experienced at concerts by now (seems like every single concert on the Distant Worlds tour has him there as a guest, wonder when on earth he gets the time to write FFXIV's soundtrack).
The big screen set up played relevant footage for each piece of music, which was a nice touch, and occasionally hilarious when they turned back to old-school graphics. The symphony was being performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by the choir 'Cantillation'. And sponsored by BigPond, which was vaguely baffling but whatever it takes.
They opened with FFVII: Prelude - which is a darn good choice of a rendition for the classic main Final Fantasy melody. When this first bit of music started to swell, I nearly started crying out of sheer joy, no exaggeration. Actually, that was the reaction for almost every piece of the concert. I will spare you the repetition by merely stating now that it happened a lot.
THEN, THEN - FFVIII: LIBERI FATALI. OMG. THIS WAS AMAZING TO HEAR LIVE. *__* Though I will break away here with my one small complaint from the concert - everyone would get super-excited when they recognised the piece (Despite the set list in the program, a lot of people apparently don't know the track names and so were somehow surprised) and would start cheering and clapping, and while I can't blame them because I kind of wanted to cheer and clap too, guys, you're drowning out the music. It's not a rock concert!
This was especially prevalent in the following Victory Theme, which was so short as to barely warrant a place on the program and the entire thing got drowned out by excited applause. :|
Fortunately somewhere halfway through the first set everybody mostly got their giddy impulses under control. If nothing else, it must have been novel for the Sydney Symphony. (Except that one old violin player in the back row who looked terribly displeased by the whole endeavour.)
Next was FFX: To Zanarkand. This is a beautiful piece, and the extra texture rendered by a live performance makes it nearly heartbreaking. ;__;
FFVIII: Don't Be Afraid (better known as the FFVIII battle theme) was awesome, but that surprises nobody.
FFV: Dear Friends slowed things up a bit. This piece has a very Greensleeves sort of feel, but it's very pretty and the symphony made me like it a lot more than I used to.
FFIX: Vamo' alla Flemenco: This one was the big surprise of the night for me. I recalled the music quite clearly from the game, and while I liked it, didn't expected much from the orchestration. I was sorely mistaken. This track fairly exploded with energy, the original version is now forever trash. This is a lesson in adaptation.
FFVIII: Aerith's Theme. Dammit, even Nobuo Uematsu is spelling it Aerith now. I may be forced to adjust.
It's just.. there's never any words to do this one justice. You just say 'Aerith's theme' and everyone understands.
FFVIII: Fisherman's Horizon: A fun, more light-hearted piece. Brilliantly done, but not my favourite. Sort of an odd choice, really.
Especially when it's immediately overshadowed by FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge! *____* FFV's music was largely forgettable for me, but this track is far and away my favourite, and they did a fantastic job with it. It was so bombastic! alsdkjflsjfalskjf Sydney Symphony, you are so perfect in your execution and dynamics! \o/
Chocobo Medley 2010 was kind of hilarious, mostly because the video guy clearly had waaaaaay too much fun mixing his rather selected clips of chocobo footage together in interesting ways. Had both the traditional chocobo theme and samba-de-chocobo!
Then to close out the first set - FFVII: J-E-N-O-V-A.
*____*
*INTERVAL*
Second set opened with perennial classic FFVII: Opening - Bombing Mission. This piece never fails to send shivers down my spine.
...They sure had a lot of FFVII pieces. Not that I'm complaining. But we missed out on anything from FFI-IV.... (*is greedy*) (Next on the wishlist is The Price of Freedom.)
THEN - Surprise guest! Japanese pop idol Kanon turned up to sing Suteki da ne and FFXI's Memoro de la Stono. She did a fantastic job, I'm always surprised whenever I hear a pop idol sing so beautifully live! Don't know why, must be all the lip-syncing scandals we normally get.
They took a brief break from Uematsu to play some of Masashi Hamauzu's work - specifically FFXIII: Fabula Nova Crystallis (which truth be told was a fairly non-descript and very short piece - normally associated with Serah). Would have preferred to hear Oerba's theme, really. Next was FFXIII: Blinded By Light (much more awesome piece better known as Lightning's theme, or the main battle music of FFXIII.) This was perhaps the only piece where they may have dropped the ball slightly with the arrangement - the dynamics didn't feel quite as punchy live as on CD, and percussion kept crowding out the main melody. But then, they've likely had far less time to perfect this arrangement compared to the rest. Still very enjoyable.
They also called it a preview, which is kind of hilarious for a game that's been out in Australia for over a year now.
Then FFXIV: Navigator's Glory - The Theme of Limsa Lominsa! Awesome piece. A real tragedy that I will never play FFXI or FFXIV. :|
Also FFXIV: Primal Judgement. Equally cool. Seeing the nice hi-def trailer footage was neat.
THEN, OMG.
FFVI: Opera 'Maria and Draco'!!!!! Complete with opera soloists!
This one just blew me out of the water. It gave me chills. This is the thing I like best about game concerts - when they take older games with less sophisticated soundtracks but still beautiful melodies, and give them the big budget orchestration they deserve.
It was also a little eerily fourth-wall breaking. As though you're attending the opera scene yourself, one of the many NPCs in the audience. o__o
Then they closed out the program with FFVI: Terra's Theme. Wonderful. I am running out of synonyms. They also ran a credits sequence for the performance during this. Again with the blurring of realities.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the encore was FFVII: One Winged Angel. :D I just don't get sick of hearing this one live.
Only the one encore, unfortunately, despite some very insistent clapping and whistling and even a standing ovation. That is the difference between Sydney Symphonic Orchestra and Eminence - Eminence are in it for the love of that particular music and will keep coming back until they run out of encores/get too tired/get kicked out of the venue. (*Never misses a chance to plug Eminence*). But I cannot fault them. It was a nigh flawless performance.
Another one crossed off the bucket list, guys. Attended a Final Fantasy concert. \o/
********************** (END EXCRUCIATING DETAIL)
Wandered out from the concert in a euphoric daze, headed back to the hotel, and collapsed onto the gloriously oversized bed sometime after midnight. Proceeded to sleep for 11 hours, which was way longer than intended. Partly because the giant bed was sort of amazing and also probably because hotels have these amazing light-blocker curtains that make it look like midnight even in the middle of the day. I was saved by a friend's SMS, and just barely made the hotel's checkout time. Then, went and ate some proper lunch breakfast, since I was feeling sick guilty about only eating sugar the day before.
As wonderfully relaxing at this was, it kind of put a damper on my plans for the Sunday, as it left me with a small afternoon window without enough time to do much of anything or go very far. Wound up wandering around.
Stopped in at Hyde Park, drawn as always by the sound of a fountain.
Also watched an old guy playing chess with himself on the oversized chess board. Am kind of amazed someone hasn't run off with all the pieces.
Not sure what this building is, but it looked mighty impressive.
Truthfully, Sydney has so many impressive old buildings it's easy to become desensitised to their presence. This one still caught my interest for the precarious clock. Imagine that thing breaking off and crushing a car! (*Clearly influenced by far too many Loony Tunes cartoons as a child*)
Stumbled across this poster and was overcome by jealousy. Gabriel Iglesias, guys! IF ONLY I'D KNOWN SOONER.
Another highlight of the trip was the return to 85 degrees! This time, sampled the Hokkaido Strawberry. Still the best cake ever. It's so light and fluffy and such a delicate flavour~
Probably should not have sat down to eat it in Town Hall Square, though. Had two hobos ramble nonsense at me then ask for money, and then a vaguely creepy guy in a purple suit tried to offer me some sort of church pamphlet. Lesson learned for next time.
That said, there were a lot of very nice people in Sydney who would strike up a conversation! People in elevators, people at the concert, and just about every shop assistant. Was rather novel. One guy was very nice and offered me his all-day ferry pass since he himself was off to the airport and couldn't use it. Had three different people ask me to take a photo for them and two different people ask me for directions. (*facepalm*) ...The tragic part of that was, I could actually answer their questions. :|
Was tempted by the Sydney Aquarium despite the lack of time, mostly because OMG LEGO EXHIBIT.
Had to be satisfied with the two on public display.
SOMEBODY CONTACT LINK. WE HAVE FOUND THE TRIFORCE.
Since there wasn’t really much time to do anything else, wound up wandering around Darling Harbour and Circular Quay and people-watching. Listened to all the buskers. Took a short run on the ferry too.
Doesn't this just make you simultaneously want to cringe and yet, go 'awwwwww.'
Ate a very late lunch at Circular Quay before heading to the airport. Chose an alfresco cafe with a lovely view of the Harbour Bridge and all the ferries coming and going and ordered a sandwich. Took my seat. Received my food.
Then the seagulls came.
These two brutes formed a perimeter around me, bullying away the others gathering with fierce gumption, despite the fact that I had not thrown them even a morsel and had no intention of doing so. This did not matter to them. They crowded on the edge of the umbrellas overhead. Stalked a steady circle around my table. Screeched repetitively at me, demanding their share.
These seagulls had decided: my sandwich would be Theirs.
There were plenty of other diners eating around me. For some reason, however, the seagulls were only interested in my lunch. To be fair, it was a pretty excellent sandwich. I’m surprised the seagulls instinctively knew this without having had the slightest taste.
They were patient. I must have been well over halfway through my sandwich, when, in a moment of clear oversight, I leant back in my chair to take a drink of water.
And then the seagulls flew down and stole my lunch straight off my plate. :|
So concluded my Distant Worlds adventure in Sydney.