Asia Trip - Day 25

Sydney - Hong Kong

Today we got up at the crack of noon - seriously, the Ukrainian hospitality tired us out - and caught the train into downtown Sydney. It was pouring rain. People always complain about the Melbourne weather, but it was dry and sunny the whole time we were in Melbourne. Sydney was wetter than Darwin during the wet season! We caught a ferry to Watson's Bay for the fish & chips and beautiful views of the city. At least the fish & chips were good. In my experience Australia does the best fish & chips. In the US it is more like batter & chips and my UK experience was similar, but with slightly less batter. In Canada, they are good, but not as good as in Australia. It probably has something to do with proximity to an ocean, so I'll have to try Canadian ones again on a coast.

The ferry ride back was a poor man's Sydney harbour tour. We went by the opera house and the harbour bridge. They even stopped at the best spot for tourists to take pictures, so I think they're on to us.

We met Greg in the city after work and he took us home via his usual ferry route up the Parramatta river. Because it was raining so hard there were a number of impromptu waterfalls falling into the river (I believe the locals call it flooding, but the tourists call it pretty). Christina cooked us an excellent (if numerically challenged) dinner and then drove us to the airport.

Here is where the fun begins. When we went to the boarding gate, there was no plane at the other end of the walkway and I knew we were screwed. Due to the weather, our plane had been diverted to Melbourne. Cathay Pacific was very good about it. They booked us on the next plane out, put us up in a hotel for the night and even bought us breakfast. The taxi to the hotel was quite an adventure. Our hotel was 3 blocks from the airport and our driver had never heard of it. You could see it once we left the taxi stand. He also managed to run over the sidewalk (on a straight bit, not around a curve) and almost kill somebody in separate incidents on a three block trip. I was expecting to die using public transportation somewhere on this trip, but not in Australia.