Riding the monorail, my Market marathon and freaky modern art

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Well I was up early the day I left Melbourne as I still wasn’t packed due to attending the comedy festival yesterday and seeing Ross Noble who was totally (tears running down face, cheeks hurting) hilarious!

After leaving Robyn a little goodbye present and giving Saffy The Biting Dog a tentative pat on the head, I left my residence of 6 weeks in Murrumbeena and headed for the airport and for Sydney.

Thankfully my mate Paul was ready and waiting to pic me up at the other end and as it was a bit late to do anything cool we just headed back to his and his housemate Bib’s place. Once at their house I was alarmed to see that they shared with another housemate, a spider the size of a hamster which Paul maintained was friendly but I wasn’t going to get close enough to check.

The next day we headed into Sydney central and across to Blue Point road area where Paul had a voice over to do. It was lovely to be back there wondering around as I had spent New Year here. After P was done we had lunch and went to Darling Harbour.

As Paul drives the monorail for a living we hopped on for a free ride of the circuit and when finished we got the train to Circular quay where we dodged the gold and silver painted performance artists- including one particular weird man that my mum with her phobia of masks would have been very scared of.

The reason for heading across this side of Sydney was to see a couple of things I didn’t get to see on my first trip to here including Observatory park and some more of the Rocks. We ended up finding a cute old fashioned sweet shop where the lovely woman insisted I came behind the counter to have my pic taken- it was all I could do to not sample the merchandise so I don’t think a career in a sweetie shop is for me- well not if they want to stay in business any how.

After a cuppa in The Rocks it was time for Paul to start is shift on the mono rail so we went back to Darling Harbour and I rode around on the monorail circuit for a bit- having my photo taken in the driving seat and persuading Paul to do the announcements in different accents which he humoured with and which was hilarious- I should say here that Paul is a part time actor and part time Monorail driver who just appeared in an ozzy flic called Battle Therapy- I was invited to the premiere in May but couldn’t get to Sydney- unbelievably gutted!!!!

While Paul drove around Darling Harbour in circles I hit China down. I could easily have been back in South East Asia as the touting was hardcore, I thought I was doing well until I found that I had been persuaded to by a pair of Paul frank pants and had been accosted to have a 10 minute massage. After this I had some dinner and decided the cinema was a safe place to spend the rest of the evening until P finished his shift.

The following day I got my stuff together as the time had come to move into a hostel in Kings Cross so I was more central and ready to be picked up in a couple of days by the OZ Experience bus. After dropping my stuff at the hostel we went to Paddies Markets which is fab; a mix of antiques, funky clothes, old record stalls and my weakness- jewellery. I was incredibly restrained and only bought a gorgeous sparkly glass pendant which I fell in love with.

The next day was Sunday, which meant markets every where tempting me with their merchandise. When I had finished browsing around Kings Cross markets I jumped on a bus to the Rocks markets as last time I was here I saw some beautiful stuff there and vowed that when I was back I would buy something. I jostled my way through thick crowds, up and own the colourful stalls, lamenting the fact I only had one bag and couldn’t buy everything. Amazingly I only bought one thing- yes Jewellery that I fell for immediately!

Next on my list of things to see, that I missed the fist time in Sydney, was the Museum of contemporary Art on Circular quay. Here I saw some fantastic. Two floors were dedicated to aboriginal art by one artist called Paddy Bedford on the Emu Dreaming theme. After reading a bit about the obscure, off the wall dreams that the painting depict it confirmed in my mind that all Aboriginal people were all totally high on drugs most of the time and artists even more! I also saw some beautiful photos from Craigie Horsfield and some funny works by an artist called Stephen Birch involving Spiderman, big genitals and trees with feet- (they all seem to be at the drugs). After meeting Paul for a goodbye lunch I ended the day people watching on Circular key saying a quiet goodbye to Sydney.

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