Day Three: City Tour and the Zoo

Again, I woke up early....2:30 am.

I called home. I signed up with a popular phone service, Vodafone. Most of its plans are prepaid and are pretty much geared toward tourists, study abroad students, and short term residents. You can find a store just about anywhere and everywhere. Oh by the way, my number is 0450-209-984 (feel free to call me *wink wink*). The 04 signifies that it is a mobile number, and no idea on 50, and the rest is the actual phone number. Yeah phone number here has 6 digits only.

So today our group took a tour around downtown Sydney....including parks, historical buildings, retail centers, and the financial districts. People here don't call it downtown, but rather CBD (Central Business District) which stretched from Chinatown (yes there is one!) and Circular Quay. The CBD is connected with underground railways and of course buses, and ferries if you know your ways. The malls (or they call it the Arcades) look very attractive!!!! My shopping nerves are kicking in =P

I am standing on the steps Anzac Memorial building overlooking a part of Hyde Park.
Hyde park is a very greeny place. There are lots of flowers and tree...well trimmed and planted everywhere. Many people take a walk in here as a daily exercise. It is not a bad idea to come here during afternoons with a book and a towel.There are also flying foxes here. If you have no experience of flying foxes, you might mistaken them for bats. They look alike. They just hang from trees and at night they will fly away in large group.

There are about 56 species of parrots in Australia. And you can find some of them right at the park.
He is my orientation leader....super passionate about his own country and his city!! If you bring some muffins to the park, very likely these parrots will hop on your shoulder. Sometimes, you can even see them on your balcony here in the morning.

Then we walked over to an art gallery by the water. I was almost fried in the sun. The sun here is much more intense then the sun rays in the States because there is no ozone layer here. There is no ozone layer here because there are less pollutions here in the southern hemisphere. Most of the industrialized countries are in the northern hemisphere like the US, China, and the European countries. So the sky here is very blue, very clear, thus intense sunlight. You HAVE TO HAVE TO put on sunblock even if you don't in the States.

On a side note, I got tanned already...ergggh!!!!!

Anyway, the art gallery
Interesting...no?? I have more to check out there. We didn't have much time to see everything. One day I will make it over there =)

Then we walked around the harbour (this is how they spell it here) where the Opera House is sitting.
Mimicking the bridge?? hahahahahah
Kangaroos and koalas here I come! We stopped by a petting zoo where some animals are not behind a cage and we are free to pet and feed them.

Wallaby!!
Koala!!! So cute...it takes a baby koala a year to be independent of his mother.
And of course, kangaroos!!! There are some pretty interesting views on kangaroos here, which I will leave for my other post. Their fur is very rug like, I almost think it is too thick for such hot weather. No wonder they all just lay around and not very active.
Lovers =D
Penguins???!!!!! I know right..