Patricia wasn't happy with the turn-down service the night before because the maid moved her makeup bag and made everything upside down. So we started hanging out the do not disturb sign outside. Actually, the real reason was because we started washing some of our clothes and left them hanging around all ugly-like.

We were done with our outside-Sydney activities, so we got ready to hoof it through Sydney's CBD (central business district). We got up a little early and walked along the quay towards the Royal Botanical Gardens. Along the way, we stopped by a little cafe type place to grab a croissant. Most places said that restaurants next to the harbor did not serve nice food, but I liked it (I think I had a banana bread or something).

The gardens were pretty quiet, apparently it fills up a lot during lunch time when a lot of people use it for their jogging routes. We didn't see that many people, just a few joggers and dogs. The view of the harbor was nice. The trees...not so interesting. Our real goal was Mrs. Macquarie's chair, which was a good scenic point. We took some time trying to get some good pictures with my tripod. We got there early enough that there was only one group of tourists, and they left soon after. There were also a couple of guys who tried to take our picture for the purposes of selling us the printouts, but we only had to tell them once that we didn't want any and they left us alone, which was nice. We chose a few different spots to try to get some nice pictures -- there was a Chinese group that was just standing around next to a bus talking instead of looking at the view or taking pictures, which was kind of weird.

Since there wasn't anything playing at the opera house at the time that particularly appealed to us, we stopped by and took the tour to see what it was like inside. I never really thought that much about the architecture of the buildings, and it was interesting how the architect designed it all, and then later fell out of favor with the government when elections were held and the government changed hands.

After that it was pretty much time for lunch, so we found a bus that seemed to be going the right way (got to use the TenTravel, yay!) and got down to Chinatown in order to try what was supposed to be a good dim sum place. Apparently, a lot of people from Hong Kong moved to Sydney during the 80s, so the dim sum is supposed to be on par with the food in Hong Kong. Well, I couldn't really tell if it was all that good or not (although nothing was bad...), maybe I'm a little spoiled since the food in the bay area is already pretty decent. One thing though...the 蓮蓉包 really good. Warm and fresh and yummy -- plus an egg inside! I thought I was done eating, but I caught sight of it when Patricia went to the bathroom, so I had to order it with my limited Chinese skills. I ate two of them, even though I was full. Yum yum yum.

One other thing about the restaurant, though. I wasn't really happy with the table that we got, since it was out of the way of the main cart traffic area. Of course, being the passive guy I am, I didn't work up the courage to suggest to Patricia that we move tables until we had already been served one dish (鳳爪, I think it was). So we picked up our tea and check and sat down at the other table. Nobody noticed. We joked that one of the busboys might wonder why the table we were at was empty so soon (and didn't pay!!! o.O), but nothing happened. Until we ordered our next dish and then the lady got confused because we had one check that had a stamp on it already and then another one that was blank...she stamped the blank one, because apparently it corresponded to our table....hmm.... So, yeah, when we asked for 買單 the guy looked thoroughly confused and we had to explain that we moved table, blahblah...whoops...

At this point, we decided to split up -- Patricia would go off and do some shopping and I would go do some sightseeing. We'd meet up back at the hotel later in time to get ready for our cruise. I didn't feel like going up Sydney Tower -- most towers that I've gone up were not very spectacular, unless there was a whole mess of iconic buildings, like in New York. I was planning to save the Harbour Bridge to do together with Patricia, so that pretty much left the Sydney Wildlife World to do. Patricia was happy enough with what we got to do at Featherdale, so she wasn't really interested in going to the Wildlife World since they didn't seem to offer much more. And I wasn't really interested in doing heavy-duty shopping since I'd probably get bored out of my mind... =)

Wildlife World was pretty close to Chinatown, so I made sure Patricia had everything that she needed (and promptly forgot to give her the TravelTen pass), and headed off on my own two feet. Along the way, I passed by a convenience store so I thought I'd pick up some batteries. Now, between my handheld GPS and my camera, I was running through batteries pretty quickly (I think I ended up averaging close to two AA's per day). They were super cheap here. The other places that I had picked up batteries (including touristy places), they came out to be like $15.99 for a pack of four....bleah. This place was selling them for a more reasonable $8.99. And all the places keep the batteries behind the counter for some reason, next to the cigarettes. Do people try to shoplift them a lot? I guess I could have brought a bunch of batteries from the US, but I was trying to save room on packing and thought it would be pretty painless to buy them when I needed them, not realizing how fast I would use them up.

I bought the combo pass since I figured I would be returning there tomorrow with Patricia to go to the Sydney Aquarium. There wasn't that much there -- I primarily took advantage of the chance to get a picture taken with a koala that would look nicer than the pictures we already had. I also got to see the Pyrmont Bridge, which I was originally planning to take a walk over, but it didn't look so interesting (Darling Harbour itself didn't look so interesting, compared to Circular Quay), so I decided to pass on it.

I took a taxi to get back to the hotel early, and then busied myself while I waited for Patricia. She showed up a little late, with big bags in her hands (yay!). She just had enough time to change and then we walked back over to the quay for the cruise. A few times on our walks to and from the quay, there was a performance artist playing the digeridoo (there might have been some other stuff too, I didn't look too much). It looked pretty high tech, with a sound system, and someone else trying to sell what seemed to be CDs of more digeridoo music. There was usually a fairly large crowd gathered there.

The cruise itself was definitely another highlight of the trip. Beautiful sunset views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and yummy food. Surprisingly, I was able to take some decent pictures even after the sun set. I just had to time to shot so that the ship was at either one side or the other of rocking, so the picture wasn't too blurry. I also proceeded to order a bunch of (okay, only one) drinks. The meal came with bubbly and wine, and I added to it with a margarita that was pretty good. I had to pay extra for that. And they made me pay for it up front first... =p

Day 4, got some great pictures, and the sunset cruise was awesome. Dim sum was definitely yummy, if only for the 蓮蓉包. The next day would be the last day in Sydney...