We went to the Taronga Zoo yesterday along with every child in Sydney under the age of 5. Turns out that the zoo is a favorite spot to celebrate the Queen's Birthday in Sydney (a federal 
holiday in Australia... and if it wasn't for our desire not to pay taxes we could have it off in the states as well).
I've been to many zoos in my life but this is the first one with such a spectacular view. The zoo is up on a hill just across the harbor from Sydney giving the animals a lovely view of the opera house, the harbour bridge and they Sydney skyline. I guess if you have to be caged up all your life this is where you'd want to live out your days.
I was really only interested in seeing the animals that I somehow missed during my walkabouts in the bush. Our first stop was to peer at the koalas happily sleeping in their trees. For a mere $30 I could have a picture taken with one of the cute teddies, but instead I will superimpose me in later for free. We also spent sometime in the Australian outback with kangaroos (fortunately they were unaware or just didn't care that we ate one of their friends for dinner the night before),
emus (I think they would have cared but I couldn't find them on the menu anywhere) and wallabies (I hear they are used for stews but are rather chewy). It seemed that many of the animals were off for the holiday as well as we stopped by empty exhibit after empty exhibit. But we did get to see a couple of swimming platipuses (or is it platipi?) which are much smaller than they look on television as well as the lone Australian Little Penguin (that is really what they are called, Little Penguin... sounds like something that some one that would name their silver goldfish Silver and their gold goldfish Goldy would come up with...) left to entertain the hundreds of children peering through the glass. He liked to tease everyone by doing a quick swim
by and then disappearing for a long period of time. Even though gorillas are not native to Australia, we could help stopping by to watch them eat lunch and play, (I guess they didn't want to pay taxes either).
After our quick tour, we moved on to more important things... shopping. We took the ferry back to Sydney and then hopped on a train to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) for a bit of shopping. The QVB is the cities first mall... built in 1898. You can either choose to take a guided tour for $10 or tour on your own (free for me, a bit more for Angie...).
To thank Paul with putting up with me for the last week and Angie for the last two weeks, we decided to test our ability to cook in the southern hemisphere by making Paul and his girlfriend, Melissa, dinner. We had to make a lot of guestimates at the grocery store as well as in the kitchen (such as how many grams of frozen berries equals 10 ounces? how much purple garlic do we need to equal 2 normal sized garlic cloves?). We looked up the important stuff... such as what temperature to set the oven to. The good news is, it all turned out great and I think we will all be making the lemon shrimp linguine again. If you'd like to give it a try, send me an email and I'll forward the recipe your way.
Today is my last full day in Sydney and I still have to go to the opera house. I've seen it from on top of the Harbour Bridge, across the harbour at the zoo, and on multiple ferry crossings but today, I plan to actually see it up close. Hopefully it will be worth the trouble... check out my next blog to find out.
holiday in Australia... and if it wasn't for our desire not to pay taxes we could have it off in the states as well).I've been to many zoos in my life but this is the first one with such a spectacular view. The zoo is up on a hill just across the harbor from Sydney giving the animals a lovely view of the opera house, the harbour bridge and they Sydney skyline. I guess if you have to be caged up all your life this is where you'd want to live out your days.
I was really only interested in seeing the animals that I somehow missed during my walkabouts in the bush. Our first stop was to peer at the koalas happily sleeping in their trees. For a mere $30 I could have a picture taken with one of the cute teddies, but instead I will superimpose me in later for free. We also spent sometime in the Australian outback with kangaroos (fortunately they were unaware or just didn't care that we ate one of their friends for dinner the night before),
emus (I think they would have cared but I couldn't find them on the menu anywhere) and wallabies (I hear they are used for stews but are rather chewy). It seemed that many of the animals were off for the holiday as well as we stopped by empty exhibit after empty exhibit. But we did get to see a couple of swimming platipuses (or is it platipi?) which are much smaller than they look on television as well as the lone Australian Little Penguin (that is really what they are called, Little Penguin... sounds like something that some one that would name their silver goldfish Silver and their gold goldfish Goldy would come up with...) left to entertain the hundreds of children peering through the glass. He liked to tease everyone by doing a quick swim
by and then disappearing for a long period of time. Even though gorillas are not native to Australia, we could help stopping by to watch them eat lunch and play, (I guess they didn't want to pay taxes either).After our quick tour, we moved on to more important things... shopping. We took the ferry back to Sydney and then hopped on a train to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) for a bit of shopping. The QVB is the cities first mall... built in 1898. You can either choose to take a guided tour for $10 or tour on your own (free for me, a bit more for Angie...).
To thank Paul with putting up with me for the last week and Angie for the last two weeks, we decided to test our ability to cook in the southern hemisphere by making Paul and his girlfriend, Melissa, dinner. We had to make a lot of guestimates at the grocery store as well as in the kitchen (such as how many grams of frozen berries equals 10 ounces? how much purple garlic do we need to equal 2 normal sized garlic cloves?). We looked up the important stuff... such as what temperature to set the oven to. The good news is, it all turned out great and I think we will all be making the lemon shrimp linguine again. If you'd like to give it a try, send me an email and I'll forward the recipe your way.
Today is my last full day in Sydney and I still have to go to the opera house. I've seen it from on top of the Harbour Bridge, across the harbour at the zoo, and on multiple ferry crossings but today, I plan to actually see it up close. Hopefully it will be worth the trouble... check out my next blog to find out.
1 comment:
When Lucinda named her silver goldfish "Silver" and her gold goldfish "Goldy" her brother, Patrick, named his brownish goldfish "Duke of Earl" because it looked like it was singing that song.
Patrick did not study engineering.
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