Day 4: Tuesday, Feb 12, Sydney

Today was our “dead day” in Sydney. We had planned to mop up whatever we hadn’t seen in Sydney. We really wanted to go to some caves west of Sydney, but we were told that the only way to go on a tour since we didn’t have our own car and public transportation doesn’t go out that far. We ended up going to the Powerhouse Museum, an old power plant converted into a natural science museum. It was one of the best museums I’ve ever been in. They had sections on the history of transportation in Australia, a lot about steam engines (they have one of the original Bolton and Watts steam engines and it’s still in working order), some about the history of style, and a lot of other eclectic displays. They also had a great… playground. They had a teeter totter with sliding weights so you could balance two different-sized people, they had a tall jungle gym, and they had several things that I can’t describe except to say they were like swings around a vertical axis.


Teeter totter fun.

Perhaps the best moment of the day might have come as we were buying tickets. I asked the lady at the counter if they had a water fountain. Her eyes glazed over and she stared at me without moving for a full five seconds. I really thought she was having to reboot her brain. She finally asks, “decorative… or to drink from?” I told her I wanted one to drink from, and she gave me directions and told me she was about to send me to a park nearby. She then told me the word that is our Aussie lingo of the day: she said that in the future I should ask for a “bublar,” but because of her accent now it was my turn to be stumped. They pronounce ar’s like an “ah,” so I repeated back, “bublah?” My sister had to jump in and translate.

We spent almost the entire day at the museum. We took a break for lunch and went to a mall food court. It was all Chinese except for an Indian and a fisn’n’chips place. It was set up like the ones I was familiar with in Singapore where you get dishes, leave them on the table, and someone cleans up. Basically the dishes that each place uses are communal between all the stalls.

Dinner that night was at a Thai restaurant down the street from our hotel. It was made of two townhouses with a wall knocked out. It was quaint and still had what I’m sure were original chandeliers and molding. It definitely would not have been possible under our ADA.