Too much rain in Sydney

After a three day work week, I took off on Thursday night to Sydney. It was my first time flying out of Brisbane since I've arrived. I knew I had to do Sydney, so I didn't go anywhere until I got that finished. Luckily I have a coworker who lives there, and so I crashed with him. He was really great and hospitable, he had everything arranged for me.

Sydney Streets

The first day I arrived it rained so hard that I considered cancelling my tour the next day. But I stuck with it and I went to the Blue Mountains. The Blue mountains are listed as one of the 1000 Must see Places in the world. I don't know if I'd say they were that amazing, but 1000 is a lot of places so if it hit at #1000 I wouldn't blame the authors. Anyways, I walked onto the bus and there were people there already. I got my first cup of starbucks since I arrived in Australia. By the way, people don't really drink regular coffee here in Australia. They either have cappuchinnos, lattes, or flat white. No flavoured coffee. Anyways, so i got a normal coffee from Starbucks cause I just like drinking it. I walked on and instantly it was a conversation started. I don't know why, but perhaps it's an early morning and people are tired, and they see what a great idea such a large cup of coffee is. The people I travelled with were all quite young, mostly from different countries and travelling around, backpacker people. Got to meet some Canadian to-be doctors, an English teacher, an English architect, and some kiwis who just came from Dubai.

Part of the group on the tour. Behind us is the three sisters. See below for story on Three Sisters.

So we got to the blue mountains and it was raining all around, couldn't really see any long distances because of the fog. But the interesting part was we waited for the fog to appear and it's like the beauty is revealed at certain moments. Reminds how such beautiful things in life can be given and taken away, and the fog representing this was perfect. We did some bushwalks and the funny thing about this tour was the tour guide, he would lead us around seeing stuff, then he'd be like, "ok, here is where I leave you to get the car. You guys will take the road, veer left when you get to a split, and keep on walking and I'll meet you at the end." He did this type of thing twice, which was quite funny, because what if we got lost. But actually I rather enjoyed it because it left some bit of excitement, we're walking through the rainforest and moutain terrain alone without a map, with directions drawn on the ground with his finger in air.

Really cool walk. I really liked this one.

The second time he did it, we were seeing the three sisters. So here's the story behind the three sisters. There was this old man who had this magic staff and three daughters. One day as they were walking they encountered some vicious creature. The creature were after his three daughters so in desperation he used his magic staff and turned them into stone so the creature could not get to them. So the creature went after the old man who then fled, but the creature was too fast and so he turned himself into some bird. But what happened was he dropped his magical cane so he could not turn himself nor his three daughters back to human form. So the legend is if you see a bird of his type messing around the ground around the three sisters, it's the old man looking for his magical cane so he can turn himself and his daughters back to human form. And that's the legend of the three sisters.

At one of the "sisters". Right up close to it.

So around the three sisters is this National Park with a staircase that has 100 steps (really not that much) and we walked down to the bottom where the tour guide told us to follow the path all the way until we reach the scenic railway. It's about a 30 mins walk all the way there, but we get to see some beautiful trees, can pssibly see the three sisters from a distance (all three of them) because we couldn't see them before because of the fog. And we were not let down, as the walk was really nice with some waterfalls, really nice trees, and the view of the three sisters. The scenic railway is apparently the steepest railway in the world, at some point going 51 degrees. It was short, not a whole lot of interesting stuff. Under the mountains though, is a coal mine. So back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the mined for coal underneath. It was really cool seeing these passageways underneath the mountain. Too bad we could not walk into them and experience it, I would do that.

Sydney itself wasn't that great actually. It reminded me of London a bit, with the constant rain and the buildings of brick. But it didn't do it for me like London did, and the rain really made me feel detestable to Sydney. It did have some decent chinese food as I had a craving for some congee and yau tiu, which I did satisfy. I went to see the Opera house, quite a nice building. The QVB is this historic building that looks like some other malls that both Melbourne and Brisbane have, though this one is much bigger. There were sales everywhere at this time, but I really wasn't interested in shopping nor buying.

The QVB. That's a really cool clock right in the middle.

Went to Liechhardt where they had some amazing Italian food. This hole we went to looks family run, but it was Italian on the outside (wait staff) and chinese on the inside (in the kitchen), was quite funny. but the pasta was homemade and superb. They keps everything simple, not too much meat in anything really. And a gelati store next door. A must visit if you ever go to Sydney.

Dave and I at the Opera house

Harbour Bridge. The pride of Sydney. But it didnt do it for me.

Sunday morning I went to Hillsong, on the hill. Hillsong has many campuses all throughout Sydney surrounding areas, but I wanted to go to where it all started, on the Hill. This campus is massive, it has several buildings, and this sancuary that didn't impress me much in terms of its size, but when I thought about the amount of seating that must be in there, it was quite big. The worship service was on the mark, and really spoke to me about how to live for our Lord. This Brian Houston is quite funny, and the way he talks is quite funny, the mannerisms he has, and the way he pumps his arm to emphasize. Oh, I remember smething that I found funny. I have a feeling he's been doing this television thing too long. Because I found that many of the things he did when talking, were directed as if he was being taped. Like pointing straight out to the crowd when addressing people, like picture he says "..and He want you!" and he points his finger straight ahead as if he's staring right into the camera. Too funny. But the one thing that amazed me about this church was the graphics going on behind in real time. All the different pictures going on, and the overlapping of images and real time feeds. it was amazing, made me want to learn how they do such a thing, because it totally makes watching more interesting. Anyways, was good to go here. they have Hillsong conference going on in two weeks, some amazing speakers coming for keynote addresses. I wish I knew, I'd definately like to go, but I don't think I can as it's just too soon after I was just there. Too bad. But not all is lost, because I have a great church that I'm looking forward to going back to, and really living out the life He calls me to live in the city of Brisbane.

Alright, I'll blog again soon hopefully.