Krystal finally slacked off for a bit, and she’s napping, so I can get a blog in edgewise.  I’m pretty sure when she left off, it was the day before Valentine’s Day, and we were planning to visit the Sydney Opera House.  We were lucky enough to score great seats for the first performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Ode To Joy.  To start the day, we were scheduled to check out of our room at The Four Seasons and check into a new room at Hotel Shangri-La, only 2 blocks away.  We were originally scheduled to move from The Four Seasons to the newly renovated Park Hyatt on the harbor.  But, construction delays meant that the Park Hyatt wouldn’t be ready in time.  Krystal was gutted, because The Park Hyatt Sydney is supposed to be one of the nicest Hyatt properties in the world, and she’s been dying to stay there for years.  The Hyatt attempted to make it right by paying for our two nights at Shangri-La.  But, Krystal was still quite disappointed.  We did, however find out that The Park Hyatt will be open by the time we pass back through Sydney for one night before leaving Australia for Cape Town, South Africa.  So, we’ll get to stay there for one night.

So, we got up early, dropped off our laundry at Wash On The Rocks.  And, headed back to check out of the Four Seasons.  We were able to arrange a late checkout so that we could watch the Grammy Awards, which aired on Monday at noon because of the time difference.  We had to leave before it was over though, and missed a couple of performances, including Nikki Minaj (who I was dying to see) and Paul McCartney.   When we went outside to catch a cab around the block to the Shangri-La, the doorman we asked to get us a cab looked at us quite judgmentally and said, “You know it’s just around the block, yeah?”  I looked down at our three pieces of luggage, and two backpacks, and said, “I’d rather not roll this luggage uphill for two blocks, yeah?”  So, he hailed us a cab.

When we checked into the Shangri-La, we spent a few hours relaxing and exploring the hotel.

In most of the hotels where we’re staying, they have some kind of “executive lounge”, where those guests who have access to the lounge can have a breakfast in the morning, and drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the evening.  The executive privileges also typically include private check in/out at the executive lounge, complimentary wifi service, and complimentary pressing service.   It’s really a fantastic additional perk, that though a little costly, more than pays for itself if you take advantage of all of the amenities, especially the complimentary drinks in the lounge!

So, before we headed to the Opera House, we hit the lounge for some snacks and several glasses of champagne.  We arrived at the Opera House early, and had a chance to walk around a bit before they opened the theater for us to take our seats.  Unfortunately, i was stuck sitting beside a man with HORRIBLE body odor, and a respiratory problem of some sort that made his breathing very loud.  My hearing is very senstive, and once I hear a sound that doesn’t belong, I have a hard time ignoring it.  But, once the symphony started, there were so many audio treats, I was able to ignore the breathing and enjoy the show.  At intermission, I discovered that if I kept a couple of very strong breath mints in my mouth, it did a pretty fair job of masking the odor.

I thoroughly enjoyed the symphony!  Beethoven’s 9th is a remarkable symphony.  At the time it was composed, it was the longest symphony ever, and the first to include human voice in additional to the symphonic instruments.  The acoustics in the room were fantastic.  And, though I saw microphones on and around the stage, for the most part, it sounded like we were just hearing the instruments with little to no sound reinforcement from the P.A. system.  And, it sounded gorgeous.  My first symphony.  And, it was a great experience.  I often leave concerts saying that I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had a nice comfortable seat from which to enjoy the show.  I guess that the answer might be classical music and symphonies.

After the show, we went to a Thai restaurant that we had been eyeing, called Sailors Thai.  Once we were seated, we realized that the menu was much more limited than what we had seen on the menu online.  But, it still looked fantastic.  For starters, we had dumplings filled with garlic and spinach, and minced prawn with quail eggs wrapped with rice noodles and fried.  Both were pretty great.  For mains, Krystal had some fried rice, and I had a green curry with beef.  My curry came with rice and also some bread that was very similar to Indian naan bread.  Krystal’s fried rice was a little bland.  But, my curry and beef were fantastic!

We attempted to make a dinner reservation for the next night at the hotel’s restaurant for Valentine’s Day.  The concierge just looked at us, unsympathetically, and said, “Ma’am, it’s Valentine’s Day.  We’ve been booked for weeks.”  It’s not a big deal for us to have big plans for Valentine’s Day, since the entire trip has been one long celebration of our love.  So, we spent the day at Bondi Beach.  It’s the most famous beach in Australia.  We did some walking along the coastline.  We watched some surfers, including what was obviously a tourist on a rental board, struggling laughably to even paddle out past the breaks.  We decided to refer to him as, “Wisconsin”….   Wisconsin seemed to be one of those guys who watches surfers and thinks, “I can do that!”   He couldn’t.  And, after being beaten by the waves for about 30 minutes, he gave up and called it a day.  Krystal got her feet wet.  But, the currents were strong, and swimming was discouraged.  We watched some kids at the cool, concrete, beachside skatepark.  We had the misfortune of watching some 8 or 9 year old, unsupervised kid showing off to his friends and the older kids by shouting “fuck this” and “fuck that” and “fuck you!”  He was obviously trying to be cool.  But, it was a sad thing to witness.  Even more sad was when he asked the older kids if they had any weed.  So, we split and went off looking for some quality fish & chips.  It wasn’t hard to find.  We overloaded on fried food, including said fish & chips, some calamari, and potato cakes.  It was all quite delicious!

After, we headed back to the hotel for some rest.  Hiking in the sun really wore us out.  So, we took a nap.  When we woke up, we decided to hit up the Executive Club lounge for some free hors d’oeuvres and drinks.  We figured if we couldn’t get in to buy a nice dinner at the restaurant, we’d get one anyway for free at the lounge!  We had some snacks.  But, we also had several glasses of champagne and many trips to fill our plates with the tasty desserts!

The next day, we would check out of our hotel in Sydney, for a one night stop in Brisbane, so that we could feed kangaroos and hold a koala.  More on that soon!

-CH