Sunshine my a**

In multiple locations, my Lonely Planet describes Sydney as having "over 300 days of sunshine every year..."  Apparently I came on the other 65 days.  New Zealand was supposed to be rainy, but for the most part it wasn't bad at all.  Throughout our time there I kept hearing references to the drought in Sydney.  Apparently the drought is over.

I arrived into town on Friday evening and it was pouring.  I figured it was a fluke but on Saturday it continued to rain and now it is still raining on Sunday.  I asked someone for a weather forecast and the rain is predicted to continue through this Friday.  Considering I leave on Thursday, I'm very excited about the forecast.  Not only is it raining but it's also pretty chilly and it has been getting dark at about 4:30.

Despite the gloom it's obvious that this is a pretty cool city.  Unfortunately, a lot of the focus is on outdoor activities so I'm a little restricted in my activities.   I did get to tour around historic Sydney, stroll through the beautiful Botanic Gardens (hiding under arches and trees when the rain flared up every 30 mins or so) and take a tour of the famous Opera House.  The latter was especially interesting as the building isn't at all what I expected  The interior (not the actual concert halls)makes extensive use of concrete which isn't really a material I picture for a theater, and the famous white sail roof is actually tiled which I never noticed in the pictures.  In fact, some of the tiles are shaded gray to give an appearance of more curvature than actually exists.  I wanted to buy tickets to a performance but it seems that everything is in between seasons and there is almost virtually nothing playing this week.

My most impressive sight in the beautiful harbor was actually the Harbor Bridge (but then I do have a weaknesses for bridges).   I'd seen it from the plane and in pictures but I had no idea how big it was.  It's huge and pretty cool.   I signed up for the tour where you get to climb the Bridge so later on in the week I should be getting a pretty good view from the top.

I also spent a good part of the day at Manly Beach watching the surfers try to tackle the huge swells from all of these rainstorms.  Pretty entertaining as I saw some pretty colossal wipe-outs.  Now I believe I'll take the time to curl up in my room with a few good books and get some relaxing in.  I think I'll need all of my energy to tackle China.

I did spend some time trying to avoid the rain in the Museum of Contemporary Art.   This is not normally my bag as I don't get the big black canvases and the crocheted multi-eyed dog (not making that up) but there was an exhibit by a guy named Matthew Ngui that was the most fascinating I've ever seen in a museum.  He works on projects that challenge perspective.  One of his pieces is a room full of PVC pipes with markings on them, that when looked at from a specific angle form the sentence "Seeing is believing, but not necessarily understanding" and that pretty much sums up his point.  My favorite item was a "chair" which was really just a jumble of random pieces spread out over about 20 feet of distance, but when you looked at it from just the right angle, you would have sworn it was a regular chair.   Pretty awesome stuff and finally I had modern art actually succeed in challenging how I think about things. http://www.mca.com.au/general/MatthewNguiTouring.pdf

Oh and for those accountants out there, my the first building I saw in the city was not PwC but it was E&Y.  Don't be disappointed though, when I walked out from dinner last night I looked straight up from the restaurant to see the PwC building.