i'm back home from my mini holiday. we arrived in sydney early saturday morning and fortunately were able to check into our room. went to the train station to discover that there was track maintenance so we had to use replacement busses instead. that was ok though cos even though it took longer to get to where we wanted to go, at least the busses were free (obviously to make up for the inconvenience). first stop was circular quay and the obvious tourist attractions. after a few photos we decided to go to 'the rocks'. on the way there we discovered a funky aboriginal guy playing the didgeridoo (sp?) and he was very funny. bought the cd of his music for $10. when we got to 'the rocks' i discovered an awesome little nick-nacky shop with mainly maritime type stuff in it as well as some interesting antiques. one that caught my eye was an old cash register that was about 1 metre long and half (or more!) a metre high. i wanted to take it home with me - just had 2 small problems - not enough room in my suitcase and the $12 000 price tag! after that we went to the little market at the rocks and i went crazy and bought lots of stuff! i got:
i think that's it... on the way back we saw a man carving big replica boats so my sister took a couple of photos for a donation to children's cancer research. we then caught the train out to homebush bay where there's a new shopping centre with ikea and we had a ball in there even though our feet were dead! i got a funky storage thing to hang on the wall - it's hard to describe so i won't bother! also got some document holder thingys in a stand - useful for getting me more organised! i also got a loveheart shaped ice tray and some little cute jars. can't wait till they've finished building the ikea here!
next day we went on a 1.5 hour cruise around the harbour. some asian tourists took a fancy to my sister as she has 'light coloured eyes and a big mouth' so they considered her to be beautiful. saw all the sights including the 2 usual ones and all the houses of the famous, and some beaches including a nudist one ;), and the mouth of the harbour where there's open sea. we then went to paddy's market. we had been told that it was better than the vic markets in melbourne but i wasn't all that impressed - it was just lots of shops with all the same boring cheap stuff. it also seems that the 'in' thing in sydney at the moment is wigs. scary.
we then had to leave for wagga wagga and i really didn't do anything overly interesting there, just did the training i had to do during work hours, and then relaxed at night - watched tv, tried to sort out my 2.5 kg bag of stamps and attacked the mini bar since i didn't have to pay for it! didn't catch up on mail as much as i'd hoped as we went out to dinner every night and spent a lot of time talking and bonding. great for the working environment.
and that was my mini holiday :)