Sydney, Part II (Australia)

Sydney's Fish Market is the second largest in the world behind Tokyo's. As a seafood lover and hobby cook, I couldn't resist the Behind the Scenes tour, despite the 6:45 am start time. The demographics of the tour group were particularly amusing – a bunch of Asians and a couple of Frenchmen. But really, who else would be eager to get up so early to look at fresh caught fish? Fisherman in Australia are now required to land 100% of their catch so the Fish Market Seafood School and other outreach programs have been working to educate Sydneysiders (as the locals are known) and visitors on how to prepare and appreciate all the riches of the sea. The seafood is sorted, weighed, graded, and crated on the floor, and various suppliers and buyers can wander through examining the lots before the auction begins at 5:30 am. The auction itself is complicated, and the big screens, stadium seating, and panel of buttons at each place look more akin to an off-track betting operation. Most lots are sold in reverse auction (or “Dutch” auction since it was popularized for selling tulips), where the price starts high and winds down on the screen until someone presses “stop” and wins. Other lots start high, wind down, and then confusingly go up again as interested buyers outbid each other. Weaving through the stacks of crates, the tour guide picked up interesting specimens, explaining how they are caught and giving tips on buying and preparing them. In the sashimi pavillion, we saw the big fish that would be auctioned as single lots: gorgeous sushi-grade tuna, swordfish, and even a couple of mako sharks!

Though the city is known for its life on the waterfront, Sydney's greenspaces are nothing to be sneezed at either. Hyde Park, named for the one in London, is centrally located and home to the Anzac Memorial. At various times, but most significantly in World War I, Australia and New Zealand troops (or “Anzacs”) fought for the British crown... often it seemed with devastating consequences under their British commanding officers. The Royal Botanic Gardens and the adjacent Domain also had their origins in colonial times but now are big, beautiful parks with prime locations in downtown Sydney. Many of the Brit expats (a.k.a. “Poms” in Aussie-speak) were so homesick that the section that grows plants native to their “green and pleasant land” was and continues to be one of the most popular in the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Sydney (Australia)

Rich pushed on with work so I headed down to New South Wales to play. Sydney is Australia's most famous city though it isn't the capital (purpose-built Canberra is). Conceptually, I knew it was a harbor town though I was still unprepared to find it riddled with wharfs, harbors, and quays.

Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) is the main dock for the green and yellow public ferry system as well as home to the famed Sydney Opera House.  Jørn Utzon, the Danish architect who submitted the winning design, fell out of favor with the city when the build took 10 more years and 14x the amount of money that he estimated. He died, never seeing the completion of this Australian icon.  Opposite the Sydney Opera House are The Rocks district (the first settlement in Sydney and now home to artsy cafes and boutique shops) and the impressive Harbour Bridge.

The 18th Biennale, an international art festival that happens every two years, provided a good opportunity to get on the water. There was a free ferry to Cockatoo Island, the site of a former shipyard run on convict labor, where the industrial buildings of the museum were transformed into a contemporary art walk. With an Alcatraz kinda feel – and maybe I've watched too many movies - some of the impromptu galleries were a little eerie... like an abandoned warehouse that would be the perfect location for the someone to be tied up in a chair and tortured by the bad guys. More exhibitions were free (!) to the public at the excellent Art Gallery of New South Wales as well as the Australia Museum of Contemporary Art for the Biennale festivities.