Saturday, March 10, 2012: OPERA DAY

Howdy Mates!

Joe and I woke up earlier than we usually do so we got off to an early start. It is so wonderful staying at my friend's, Dana, home while she is off traveling to Peru and Mexico. The town is called Dee Why. I think I read that it was a surveyors initials on a map which was D.Y. thus eventually it became known as Dee Why. The town is located on the Pacific Coast, northeast of Sydney. Everyone we meet in this town knows we are visitors from our accents and cameras. They have been friendly and drop hints as to where we should go. Since the town is in the suburbs, not too many people from the USA visit this town. The buses to town are right outside the front entry to The Oaks Apartments. There are Mom and Pop shops everywhere in Dee Why though we did see a Subway and a Pizza Hut close by.

We left "home" about 9AM with our first stop being the Patasserie around the corner with beautiful fresh pastry baked on the premises. The same Filipino lady waited on us from the day before so she knew Joe wanted a "Weak, Long, Black" which is a mild black coffee. Joe had the same chocolate tart and I had a Chocolate Coffee Pastry. We were not suppose to leave Dee Why until 10:30AM but Joe was ready to take the L90 bus to downtown Sydney. Obviously Dee Why is a major bus stop since there were so many people waiting at the bus stop. Most of the people were of Chinese descent. They were mostly young people in their early 20's wearing black t-shirts protesting the Republic of China's treatment of the people of Tibet. The shirt listed a bunch of things the Tibetans can not do such as have access to Facebook, words such as Liberty and Freedom are blocked from the search engine. The young Asians were carrying written protest posters and banners and were jovial and knew each other. They all got off at Wynward Park. It appeared they were headed to Chinatown to protest on this bright sunny warm day. A perfect day to protest! We did not head in the same direction they did. In fact we stayed on the bus and some nice Aussies told us that we missed our stop for Circular Quay. We had lots of extra time so we ended getting off near Sydney Town Hall. We walked through Queen Victoria Building which was beautifully restored into a five level upscale mall. I loved the windows, ceilings, colorful floor tile, the handrails as well as the "old fashioned" lifts. The building was originally built in 1898 and is quite stunning from the outside and interior. We walked slowly down George Street enjoying the street level views of where we had passed yesterday on the red double decker sightseeing bus.

Circular Quay was bustling with activity with families, locals and tourists. Sydney Cove is an excessively busy port where numerous ferries, speedboats, tour boats are constantly going in and out. It is amazing how they do not crash into one another. There is a lovely multiple level fountain just before The Rocks and Circular Quay. The sidewalks are clean and very wide thus made for people walking. There are all kinds of birds scavenging for little pieces of food. Some are aggressive in pulling food out of the garbage cans since they had long pointy beaks.

I had Joe sit on a park bench near the Jet Boats where the tourist had to put on raincoats before they got on it. I saw the reason why later on in the afternoon after the Opera. The boat captain was nuts in speeding and jumping waves with zigzagging in and out as well as making really sharp turns which got the people soaked. I left Joe to view the harbour's insane action while I walked to the famous Sydney Opera House to pick up our tickets at the Will Call window. As I walked to the Opera House, I helped a group of Japanese with a group photo as well as assisting some couples with photo taking with the Opera House or the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background. They were gracious to take my photo also.

By the time I got back to Joe it was about 10:50 and he wanted to eat breakfast at the Searock Fish Cafe Restaurant. He had watched the people eating there and got tempted. Food always invigorates Joe. I am not a breakfast eater so we walked towards the Opera House where there were more cafes but they were not opened for lunch yet plus the places underground at the Opera House along the water were not enticing or did not have table service. We walked back to the place Joe had wanted to eat. It was now 11:30 am and Joe ordered Blueberry Pancakes with strawberries and cream. He was disappointed that there was very few blueberries in the pancakes but not disappointed enough, not to eat every last bite. I had what they call Mushroom Toast which was nothing to write home about. By the time we finished and paid the tab it was 12:30PM so we walked to the opera house since the opera started at 1:00 PM.

The Sydney Opera House has lots of theaters, rooms and concourses. We were happy to find out that the presentation located in the main Opera theater. We had tickets to Giancomo Puccini's opera called "Turandot." We had loge seats which are on the side overlooking what we would call orchestra seats. Turandot is the name of the beautiful, cruel, coldhearted Mandarin Princess. If a prince can answer three riddles then he can marry the Princess. If a prince was wrong, he was beheaded and his head was placed on a platter. The banished old, long bearded, King of Tartary is reunited with his son Calaf whose first sight of Turandot. he falls madly in love with her. Her ministers (Ping,Pang and Pong) try to discourage Calaf. His father and the lovely, humble maiden, Liu (who loved Calaf), also try to talk him out of it since they do not want to see him die. Calaf was stubborn and in love this with bitch princess. Our peasant attitude wanted him to love Liu but it was not to be.

Calaf gets all three riddles correct. Turandot begs the Emperor , her father, not to give her to this stranger. Calaf gives her a way out that if she can find out his name before sunrise, he would forfeit his life for her. STUPID man! There is a proclamation that no one in Peking shall sleep until Turnadot finds out his name. The maiden, Liu. knows it and the Princess has her and Calaf's father tortured to get his name. Liu steals a sword and kills herself since she was worried that she could not take any more torture and she would tell Calaf's name. Liu did this out of love for Calaf.

Calaf confronts the cold mean Princess and kisses her. Turandot feels emotions for the first time and weeps. Calf reveals his identity and his name is "Love." Hey, I did not write this story, Puccini did. Calaf embraces her, the court hails the power of love and life.

The presentation was lush with magnificent elaborate costumes, a cast of hundreds, a live orchestra, wonderful props, detailed makeup, the vibrant colors, the detailed background, lovely special effects, movements of the cast so very graceful (an art form in itself). The singing was great if you love opera. Joe stayed awake about 65% of the time. I wish that I were allowed to take photos of this performance so you could see it but you are going to have to let your imagination take over.

The Opera was over at 4PM and we went back of the speedy bus L90 to Dee Why. It did not take long since it was Saturday, plus this bus had limited stops making it perfect for us. It was jammed packed with standing room only. We arrived back in Dee Why about 5:30 PM.

We watched the elimination round of last week's American Idol followed by the news. We decided to get pizza at 8:30 PM and walked down the street to Poppy's Pizzeria with a wood fire oven. A 14 year immigrant lady from Latvia waited on us and told us about her trip to Miami and a Caribbean Cruise. She also told us that when we get to Cairns that we had to visit her favorite Aussie village called Port Douglas. Another Brisbane friend told me about Port Douglas also.

On the walk back to the apartment we could not help but notice about 6 ladies of the evening. They were young with very tight, low cut, short dresses. We got a few smiles from them but no services were rendered.

Tomorrow Shanelle decided to forgo her Craft Show since it was very disappointing to her so she decided to spend the day with us. We will stop in Manly to treat her for lunch on the trendy Corso then head to the Taronga Zoo. All of this is not far away. We hope to get to do a short visit with our Friendship Force ambassador, Joan London, who visited Atlanta with Dana few years ago and so much fun. Joan had a painful outbreak of Shingles so we do not know if she will be up to it. Joan lives in pretty Manly. We shall see.

Good night my friends since it is now 11PM here on Saturday evening. I suppose I should say Good Morning to you since it is 6 AM on the East coast.

Till tomorrow, my dear mates!