Bondi, harbor, and birthday views: Sydney

After leaving Japan at 6:50 am, we arrived in Sydney around 5:30 pm…with just one hour time difference. Qantas has an incredible film selection. I watched:

-The New Boy: Cate Blanchett plays a wartime nun who runs an orphanage in the Outback…and a new Aboriginal boy arrives and tries to adapt.

-The Wedding Banquet: Lily Gladstone, Bowen Chang, and Joan Chen star in a movie about a gay Korean man in Seattle who decides to marry his Chinese best friend to help out both gay couples.

-Deep Cover: Orlando Bloom in an action comedy about improv actors going undercover to solve crimes.

-Black Box Diaries: This will become a separate blog post after I read the memoir it’s based on…about a Japanese woman who survived a rape and became the face of the Japanese #MeToo movement.

Flying into Sydney (see the opera house)

It’s been 25 years since Mike’s brother gave us a few weeks’ notice that he was marrying his wonderful Aussie wife Shemara. Because of the expense and a planned vacation at Holden Village, only Mike went. I urged him to take lots of photos of the wedding, and he returned with photos only of the frigging Olympics stadium!!! In addition, Mike lived in Brisbane for about a year when his dad was serving as consul general.

So I’m glad to finally see Australia for myself! It’s beautiful here, and the culture seems to be a hodgepodge of the UK, Asia, and the USA.

Spring has just begun, and our first two days here were hot. On Monday we explored Bondi Beach.

Crowded Bondi Beach (Apparently Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer!)

I was craving a salad after several days in Japan! With grilled halloumi…very popular here!
(Bill’s in Bondi Beach)

At a cool bookstore where we had iced drinks

The next day I indulged Mike and went with him and our nephew Alex (our driver) to see the 2000 Olympics stadium.

Next Alex dropped us off downtown for our walking tour. We started with the David Jones food hall for lunch. Then we walked downtown through some pricey, upscale shops (not exactly our scene!). Next we went to Hyde Park and St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Mike lighting a candle for our dear friend Adele

We walked through Barangaroo, an upscale area named after a powerful 18th-century Cammeraygal woman of the Eora Nation, a key figure in the local Aboriginal community during early colonial settlement.