Sunday & Monday, August 24th & 25th

We continue to luck out with clear weather. Cool but if in the direct sun it gets warm fast. We had no plans for Sunday so we hung out in the room and took our time getting out and about even though we were awake early. We left the room at 10am and just headed out on the street in-front of the hotel which is George street and leads to a big shopping area. The architecture in Sydney is modern with old buildings mixed in.

They have taken several old markets and made them into shopping arcades. They kept the original tile floors, stained glass windows and architectural details. Most are 3 to 4 floors with a basement.

Tons of little shops but a lot were closed since it was Sunday. We ended up at Darling Harbor again and had lunch by the water. Chicken schnitzel seems to be big here which is good for me so I had that and Kathy had fish & chips. After lunch we sat on a bench and read, enjoyed the cool weather and people watched for an hour. We then walked back to the hotel and along the way we found a car shop that had a prototype of a flying car on the show room floor. It was like a 2 seater giant drone. I looked it up on line and the price is $US250,000 to 275,000.

The XPeng flying car. The Jetsons are finally here!

We opted for no dinner since we had a big lunch and watched some shows on the iPad and enjoyed the view from the room.

Monday August 25th, 2025

I was up early because I wanted to see the Carnival cruise ship sail in. Of course I was not as quiet as I wanted to be and I had to raise the blinds to see the harbor so Kathy was awake early too.

The ship came in around 6am. This was a disembarkation day after a 3 day cruise and embarkation day for a 10 day roundtrip cruise out of Sydney.

We decided to get out and have breakfast and then have dinner later to try and get on a better schedule. We went to the pancake house and Kathy had pancakes and I had eggs and pancakes. After breakfast we walked the harbor and tons of people were coming and going with luggage both to and from the cruise ship. There was an entertainer playing an acoustic violin and that is my favorite so we listened to her for a while. We had tickets for a noon whale watching tour and had to be at the pier at 11:45. Since it was noon a lot of people were standing in line and eating or drinking. The majority of the crowd was Asian and lots of kids. We were warned, prior to getting on board, that it was very rough once we left the harbor and they passed out sea sickness bags.

They were not kidding about the roughness. The swells were quite high and the boat was really rocking and rolling. Kathy and I started inside but ended up outside so we could watch the horizon and breathe the fresh air. We saw dolphins and humpbacks but it was so rough you could not let go enough to take any pictures. When we glanced inside at least a dozen people were sick and several were sitting with their eyes closed. When they started to sail back in that asked that we all sit down and there was not much outside seating so we had to go inside with a lot of retching people. As soon as it was safe we escaped back outside. Not one of my better ideas.

Kathy staying warm whale watching.

The Opera house and the Sydney skyline.

After our bumpy adventure we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit and watched the Carnival ship sail out at 3:45.

We then walked around town some more and visited the Lego store where they had this great lego build of the Opera House

This is all Legos and I wish they told you how many were in the build but they didn’t. It took up a large section of the wall.

We had dinner at a Ramen place

Kathy always gets to be the food model. Two ice cold beers and pork katsu for me and some sort of vegetarian ramen bowl for Kathy. We also shared a fried tofu dish in a savory sauce, great.

We are now back in the hotel room and are packing up to leave early in the morning. Our ride will pick us up at 8am to go back to the airport where we will fly to the west coast of Australia where Merv & Michelle will pick us up for the next phase of our Australian adventure.