Sydney, NSW,Australia-day 2

On our second day in Sydney , we toured the Sydney Opera House and went to Hay Street Market in Chinatown. The Opera House opened in 1973 and houses 5 performance venues. The now iconic design by Danish architect (Utzon) won a competition in 1957. and took 16 years to build. After Utzon was fired, Australian Peter Hall took over and designed the inside. Incredibly there were no deaths in construction even though harnesses were not used. Queen Elizabeth opened the opera house. Although the roof appears smooth, it is actually composed of almost 1 million tiles, that are cleaned every 3-5 yrs. Main performance hall seats 2,700. For lunch, We went to an outstanding food hall within Paddy’s market to try fish and beef tacos. Once back on Insignia, Chef Fareed treated us to an Asian-themed dinner, delicious!
As Insignia sailed out of the harbor we encountered huge waves that toppled things in the dining room. The port was closed to shipping, shortly thereafter.Read more