Here are a few more brief remarks about various things I’ve been up to here in Sydney. I’ve been frustrated looking online for honest feedback from the customers of businesses and services I am considering patronizing, so I’ve structured this post as a series of reviews.

Surfing Lessons. I ended up purchasing a three-lesson pack from a company at Bondi called Let’s Go Surfing, and really enjoyed it. Each lesson was a mixed crowd of folks who had completed anywhere from zero to three or four lessons, but I still felt that in all three cases I got something new out of it, and appreciated the instruction given. I’ve been told that despite its fame for swimming and sunning, Bondi is not actually all that great a beach for surfers; I don’t understand the science of it, but the waves aren’t very wide, and don’t last that long—both qualities that make it lame for any surfer except the complete newbie. I’ve since been Manly and had a good time on a rental board from Dripping Wet. Verdict on LGS—recommended.

Swing in Sydney. The scene here is centered around two groups; Swingtime is the local dance school, and there’s also a larger group called Swing Patrol—from Melbourne—who have outposts here and elsewhere. I haven’t had a whole lot of exposure to either, but I really like the people from Swingtime. Both the dances and classes are extremely friendly; there seems to be this nurturing, pleasant attitude that filters down from those in charge and infects everyone involved. Despite having some very highly skilled dancers on board, they put the smiles and fun first, which is so important for social dance. I attended the Swingtime-hosted Sydney Lindy Exchange some weeks ago, and this spirit was epitomized in the Sunday-night swing pajama party. Verdict on Swingtime—highly recommended.

Koala Park Sanctuary. The Koala Park is about a 40 minute train ride north-west of Sydney, in the suburb of West Pennant Hills. It’s not that large (I was able to see everything in under two hours), and it’s all animals that are native to Australia. Because it’s small and more difficult to get to, the staff are able to be pretty easy-going about interactions with the animals. You could pet the Koalas at feeding time, and they even have eastern grey kangaroos hopping about in open areas where you can get a DIY photo op. I spent the afternoon taking a bunch of little movies on my camera, and strung them together into this clip, for your viewing pleasure. Verdict on the Koala Park—recommended.

Taronga Zoo. In contrast, Taronga is massive, world famous, and has lots of international pavilions. It’s more expensive, and if you want to get close to the animals, you pay extra for the privilege. Obviously this helps them control demand, but it still felt a little more commercial than I would have liked. Taronga has an extensive selection of Aussie beasties, including the big red kangaroos that the Koala Park lacked… but of course there’s still an overally focus on classical African plains animals that you can see at any major zoo: lions, zebras, elephants, etc. Verdit on Taronga—recommended with caveats.

The Blue Mountains. I took a bus tour with a company called OzTrek. You never know how much marketing prattle to believe, but as someone who has designed a lot of websites, I’m inclined to trust a homely page that claims to represent a family-owned, ecologically respectful tour company. Too much professionalism looks like the well-oiled machinery of a tourist trap. I’ve no basis for comparison, since I just took the one tour, but I felt that we got to see lots of interesting things for a pretty modest price. I’m booked solid for the next few weekends, but maybe in December I can sneak back to the Blue Mountains for a leisurely hike. In terms of getting there without a tour, there’s a specialized Blue Mountains public bus service, and it’s apparently walkable from the Leura CityRail station. Verdict on OzTrek—recommended.

The Opera House. I didn’t want to blow too much cash on theatre this term, but I did definitely wanted to see an opera, as well as something in the famous Concert Hall. A few weeks ago, I got out to see The Gondoliers, and had a great time. I went with a work acquaintance, and we had B-grade seats. Like most theatre, the premium seats are in the middle of the orchestra section, with lower-priced seats in the balconies and towards the edges. However, the cheap seats that we had were actually right in the second row, so the visibility of the performance was fantastic. The main downer was that the “surtitles” projected over the stage were not really visible from where we were. Unlike Broadway, it seems the opera is less concentrated on lyrical clarity and more on emotion and expression; the understanding is that if you want to know exactly what’s being said, you will look at the titles, especially since many of the shows are in Italian or German. Despite this, the most important plot points got iterated multiple times, often by the soloists who were much clearer than the chorus (and had the benefit of discreetly-placed microphones). It was a pretty farcical story (it was Gilbert and Sullivan), but I had a great time. I’m also going to see the Rachmaninov Rhapsody in a week’s time, which looks to be excellent. If you’re going to see classical music in the Concert Hall, watch for events by the Sydney Symphony; at those shows, C-grade tickets are available to persons under 30 years of age for just $32, which is a fantastic bargain. One last piece of advice on the Opera House in general: if you bring a bag, you’ll have to enter through the basement and use the coat check. That’s not necessarily bad, but if you don’t need to use the coat check, you can go up the stairs on the outside, and enter the wing directly, like a rock star. Verdict on the Opera House—recommended, but watch for cheap symphony tickets.

Govinda’s. I may get to a formal food-review post at some point, but Govinda’s deserves independent mention. It’s a small restaurant with an all-vegetarian buffet, followed by a movie. The movie room is smallish, but the cool bit is that rather than chairs, there are mattresses and pillows all over, so you lie down to watch the film. Obviously, the correct way to enjoy Govinda’s is to take your sweetie and cuddle through the movie, but it was still a great experience without the cuddlage (I went with Ole, a German guy I met on the Oztrek trip, and we saw Bourne Ultimatum). As for the buffet, I appreciated that it concentrated on “real” vegetarian dishes—a bean casserole, a vegetarian ziti, etc—rather than standard fare with unappetizing tofu derivatives substituted everywhere for chicken breast. And pricewise, Govinda’s is a steal. I had dinner, a mango lassi, and the film, and it was just $30. There are plenty of places to eat here of similar décor, where $30 would barely cover the main course, much less include a drink and movie. Verdict on Govinda’s—recommended, especially for a group.

Unwired. I’ve completely lost patience with Unwired, but the price of hardware and the fact that I paid a steep setup fee prevents me from switching to anything else. If I could make the choice again, I’d be using an iBurst service or maybe Three. As it is, the best I can do is complain… Unwired is the worst broadband service I’ve ever endured. The one redeeming factor is that despite Unwired’s absurd latency and packet loss problems, you can actually pull torrents over it at about 40 k/s. That’s not fast, but it’s enough to grab a TV episode or two overnight. So I use most of my 3 GB quota on snatching new episodes of Life and Pushing Daisies as they come out. As for a verdit on Unwired—definitely seek alternatives.

No Amazon Australia. The poor internet experience and lack of decent television programming has driven me to do more reading this term than I normally do. However, I was disappointed to not have Amazon to buy some of the books I’d been meaning to read. As a consequence, I ended up using my Amazon shopping cart as a list and then going to pick them up at Dymocks, or Borders. I had forgotten how expensive it is to buy books at an actual bookstore… I think I paid something like AU$27 for a paperback copy of Surely You’re Joking. Verdict on bricks-and-mortar book retailers—a necessary evil.

And there we are!

Mike

← Earlier Later → Posted at 9:17 pm to Culture.