TFirst impressions….1. Palms and bright blue skies with few white clouds and about 60 degrees with a nice breeze. 2. Driving on the left but very orderly and not as busy and aggressive as in London. 3. A lot of building activity going up right I. The midst of the older buildings. But, the old is not London old as Australia is much younger. 4.A lot of folks on the street at the beginning of the work day so they must use public transport and very many taxis all relative newer ones with Mercedes,Volvos and Toyoyas…all clean and in good condition,,In about 20 minutes we got into the CBD which is also called The City,driving along beautiful tree linded streets with lots of parks. Very beautiful area,,,,,,
With more and more high rise office bldgs along with the older attractive buildings. We dropped off folks at very hotels and finally got to the Devere Hotel in Potts Points. This was the old Victoria area and the Potts area is now adjacent to the Kings the area Cross section….both bring very trendy and lots of small boutique shops reminding so much of SanFrancisco and some of the much smaller communities nd areas. Very active and colorful.l
5. The small boutique hotel is in the middle of the Potts Point area so is most convenient with lots of bars,shops,and small stores …aver attractive. I walked down to the Kings Cross train station to get the story a and found that their Metro is called a train and they run both above and below ground,,,and are very smooth and clean and easy to get around,
Below ground are some of the stations and some are like regular trains. Very nice looking and very well designed with a gretionaljIdea for seating of the crowds that ride the trains daily.
6. I rode the train to the Central Station where I was to get my HoP Hop bus for a prepaid city tour, and I finally found the right area and bus and off we went. Strongly recommended..too much to cover here but suffice it to say c
overs the entire downtown area with good explanation of all that you pass.
7. Summary of day 1…very clean …very London like ……very modern in places and very old next door. Very tropical setting and ver beautiful city and area.
Today I check out the Convention area etc and see more of Sydney ..a great first day. So glad to be hear and experience this vibrant and modern city,,and very,very international….which makes it doubly entertaining and interesting.
More to come…..
I am going to continue on into day 2….after a good night sleep of 8 hrs I got up to go to the hop on bus to get to Central ….in the middle of the morning rush hour. Again, lots of folks going to work and clearly among the best dressed I have seen in years. Predominantly Europeans and Indians….but few from Africa or the Middle East …or so it appears….Got to Central station and found the train to the Olympic Park. Central Station is built on European standards with a massive main hall and good access to the long distance trains as well as the local trains. 20 minutes to Olympic Park, which is renovated from the 2000 Olympics…and is now used for everything, not just conventions. The massive stadiums are used for Rigby world competition, etc. The track was holding a meet for high school kids….with a soccer meet in one of the other venues. I registered and got my volunteer assignments…..and I start tomorrow with the World Choir rehearsal in preparation for the opening interfaith service on Sunday. My primary assignments are for Sunday afternoon the the big sessions on Monday,Tuesday, and Wednesday. So, I am waiting for the train back to the central station. The trains here are very modern and impressive and certainly ones that we could learn from. The cars are all double decker so hold large numbers of riders. Very clean and quiet….and quite fast and on time…very impressive to say the least. Trains are used here, along with the city buses as the basic means of getting in, out, and around both Sydney and the outlying area.
My plans for today is to do t he Bondi hop on tour…then the Sydney Tower and then try to hear a service at St Mary Cathedral which is the largest catholic cathedral in the country. Tonight will be at Circle Quay with all of its activity…..so should be a full afternoon…
A couple of things about the convention….again, extremely well organized with lots of folks to help with directions etc…..all very helpful. The area of the Olympic Park is huge so a lot of help is really valuable as they are expecting 25000 attendees. The information that is given out at registration is very complete and more than you need but very useful. After I got checked in I went over and had a subway sandwich……and all of the fat foods are here….Burger King is called Hungry Jacks…..more to come…
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