Hostile Traveler

I arrived in Sydney late last night, so I pretty much went out long enough to grab some food and crash. My first observation upon stepping outside for the first time in Sydney was, “Holy fuck it’s humid.” We’re talking the kind of humidity that causes your skin to get condensation on it when you step out from something air conditioned. Then again, the condensation doesn’t really matter because you start sweating your ass off in a few moments anyways.

With hopes of drier air, I headed out of my hotel this morn to be confronted with 90+ degrees, 100 percent humidy. Fuck. Where Perth was pleasant and dry, this was just nasty. But, at least it was sunny out, so I headed over to Darling Harbour, which is where my hotel is this time.

…and another view from the ground. My hotel is the white bowed-out one in the middle, and my room overlooks the harbour. Along the right side are tons and tons of restaurants of all sorts that turn into nightclubs at night. There’s also a couple of large nightclub-only places that attract queues of tarted-up girls. They wouldn’t let me in. I’ll have to try more makeup tomorrow.

I found a place that had sails around the entire harbour, so I signed up for one with the intent of just chilling out in the seabreeze with a margarita and maybe snapping some pics of the sights. But, I had a couple of hours to burn, so I did a bit of shopping and wound up in a kind of strange little zoo-ish place in Darling Harbour. It’s all indoors, but they have stuff like koalas and reptiles and such….and biggest plus - cold cold air conditioning. Sold - I’m in. Besides, it was right across from the salboat’s mooring.

Just a couple more critter pics. First one is a Horned Devil as close as I could get.

And the second is something a little softer - a koala. Looks like a man-eater, doesn’t it?

After a quick walk through the exhibits, it was time for the boat to depart. Know that phrase ‘One is the loneliest number’? Yeah, well, I was the only one that wasn’t a couple getting on the boat. Ah well. So as I’m getting on the boat, as soon as my foot hits the deck, the skies open up. Everyone runs inside the cabin area for cover, and it looks like we’re going through a carwash. But, apparently, the sail must go on, so we do a kind of halfhearted cruise around.

The rain let up long enough for me to snap a few pictures, and I caught one that would have been good if it weren’t for the rain pissing down. You can see the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, and Fort Denison in the shot, along with a ginormous cuise ship docked at Circular Quay behind the Opera House.

…but then the rain started coming down hard again, so that was that. At least it’s cooler now, but I hope it stops soon. Tomorrow (my last day here) I’m heading out of the city for the day to the Blue Mountains so I can get a taste of what the countryside looks like.

As I mentioned, I’m back in Sydney now, but I wanted to get caught up with what I’ve been doing for the past few days. The short answer is playing salesguy, which always makes me feel like I need a shower afterwards. Still, it’s looking like we may have some business in Perth with a couple of the largest companies here, so I’ll keep on scrubbing harder in the shower and crying myself to sleep.

On Thursday, my afternoon meeting got pushed to Friday afternoon, so I wound up with an unexpected bit of free time. So, I took a ferry across the Swan River to South Perth in order to check out the Perth Zoo. After spending so much time with sales weasels, I wanted to check out the real thing.

The zoo itself was nicely done, and it was nearly empty so I basically had the place to myself. They do a great jon with the whole”natural” thing, and all of the walkways are surrounded by bamboo and tall grasses, which helps with isolating it even further from the sounds of the city around it. The only unfortunate thing was that apparently it was naptime for the animals, so all I saw of some things were a tail sticking out from behind a rock or something. Really, I think zoos only have about half the stuff they claim to - they just have fake tails and paws and stuff that they leave around to mess with you.

There’s one area where you can walk amongst the animals, though they will pretty much have nothing to do with you. Apparently I don’t look like something they want to eat, mate with, or attack, so I’m basically ignored. Kind of like with other people…hmm. Anyways, my first real roo sighting:

I won’t bore you to death with tons of zoo photos…I mean, after all - we’ve all been to the zoo. But I did want to post up a few. This one is of a baby orangutang playing around. I really don’t understand how people don’t think we’re related to primates when you see how they interact with one another. Orangutangs particularly exhibit so many traits that just look human.

Last one - the official mascot of the Hostile Traveler - the Tazmanian Devil. These guys are foul, evil-tempered little bastards that don’t get along even with each other. Brings a tear to my eye. What you don’t see is that the two in this enclosure apparently hate each other, which is normal. Each one has bites all over their asses from where the other one would take a nip out of them. Add to that a bunch of hissing and growling and you have what looks to be a very loving relationship…or something.

The zoo has one section that is from when the zoo was originally constructed in the late 1800s, and you can really see the difference in how people view zoos. It used to be that they were just a place to collect animals, with no concern about their well-being. Now, zoos do their best to give the animals a decent environment in which to live, and to keep them occupied and happy. Then again, I’m sure they’d much rather be out in the wild if they had their choice.

Wandering back from the zoo, I came across what may be the greatest Pub name ever: The Lucky Shag.

There’s this other thing I saw a bunch around Perth, and apparently it’s all around Australia - the drive through Bottle Shop (aka liquor store). Is it just me, or does anyone else think this is a really really bad idea?

After the zoo and the walk around the city in the glorious weather (85, sunny, breezy, dry), I met up with Conor for some dinner. We had intended to eat light, maybe Thai, but (surprise), we wound up in an Irish pub called Durty Nellie’s. I know you’re all shocked. Next mornafternoon was solid with meetings and I had to make a mad dash to get to my flight. Good thing the security at Perth Airport is basically nonexistent. So with that I bid farewell to Perth and move on to Sydney once again.