She was shucking Oysters (a whole new type of shucking), which means first she pried them open with a knife, then to clean them out she loosened the actual Oyster inside and cleaned around it. She was very nice in explaining the process to us. She also told us sometimes she will wear a pearl necklace and tell gullible tourists she made that necklace from all the different pearls she's found while shucking Oysters. :)
After that we went to Chinatown. I don't have many positive things to say about Chinatown except don't go. Long story short I found a bar called Star Bar - which of course sounded like home to me so we (I) just had to go in for a drink. While in there we saw a casino was attached so I grabbed my $10 AUD and went in. Absolutely nobody was in there, I put my money in a machine and hit bet one time before some bat crazy Chinese man came running in and screaming at me that it was his machine and to get out. SCREAMING I tell you. In comes Derek who knows as much about the situation as I do. The guy literally pushes me off the machine and sits there himself. I headed to the bar to talk to the bartender. She had to call this mysterious "manager" to have him "check the camera". Basically in the end we decided it was definitely some sort of scam, and they usually just try to seem so confused and act like they have no idea what you're talking about so you finally just give up and leave your money. We did not give up and finally the girl gave us $10 out of the register. After that - we got the hell out of Chinatown.
Finally it was time for us to do the two coolest things you can do in Sydney, Australia. First the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We had a tip from several Aussie's over the week that if we were short on time to just climb to the top of the towers on the bridge and walk across the bridge for free rather than do the official "bridge climb". I'm really glad we went this route. I think if I ever make it back to Sydney and am looking for things to do the bridge climb would be cool - but it was about $300 total for us both to do it and $22 for us to climb the tower in it (which was still 200 stairs). The tower also had the entire history of the bridge, how the idea of it came to be, and how it was built which was fascinating. It was built from 1924 -1932. I think its amazing people were able to engineer and build something that size with no computers, hard hats, harnesses, or any other safety precautions. The Sydney Harbor Bridge ties in size as the largest bridge in the WORLD with San Francisco Banyon Bridge.
Here's me practicing my photography / minor editing skills:
Clearly we were parched after this so we went to the Australia Hotel - which it took me one week in Australia to realize "hotels" are actually "bars". This "hotel" had beers from all around Sydney which was fun. I've been drinking a ton of cider beer - they are very tasty here.
Saving the best for last we went then to the Sydney Opera House. I had no idea the entire white parts of the Opera House actually is made out of ceramic tiles all grouted together. It was fun to walk around it and see it. The Opera House was only finished in 1972 so really it's a very young historical building. I think next time in Sydney I'd consider seeing an Opera there, it was really expensive to do so though. We had dinner at the Sydney Opera House bar and watched our final Sydney sunset looking over the Opera House, the bridge and the rest of the harbor. I could definitely have sat at that same location every night looking at the view and watching the boats for a REALLY long time. It was stunning and I don't think I've ever seen a prettier harbor.
I grabbed some night shots of the attractions and then we said good night to Sydney.
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