Blue Fish Point

Today we finish in Sydney and then sail to Brisbane. We spent the day on an urban adventure in downtown Sydney. As we started out before 8 am, we stopped at a place called Georgie Boy’s Coffee for breakfast. The charming and articulate Chinese kid who took our order noticed my camera and asked, “Is that a Canon 70-300mm f/4.5 lens?” I answered, “Yes, would you like to take a look at it?” I handed him my camera. He took it confidently, turned off the auto focus, turned off the auto exposure, set the camera on manual, manually focused the lens, held up the camera and took the best picture of me that I have seen on this world cruise. Later I handed him that camera again and asked, “Would you take a picture of my wife and me?” He answered, “Sure. How do you want it?” I told him, “You’re the photographer—however you want to do it.” By that time I had the 50mm f/1.2 lens on. Without missing a beat he took the camera, backed out just beyond the opening of the front door, manually set the camera and snapped 3 perfectly framed, perfectly exposed photographs.

We walked the 1.5 miles from the Circular Quay (pronounced “kee.” I don’t know why. Ask the Scots.) to Paddy’s Market. This huge emporium is smack in the middle of China town. The Chinese have been for centuries the merchants of Asia. We shouldn’t be surprised that the top 2 floors are an upscale mall. However, the bottom floor is a hodgepodge of a thousand little stalls and booths that resemble a middle eastern suq. We bought some Christmas presents, and I got Glenda Cook an Australian opal pendant. I charted out a path to the Art Museum of New South Wales. Quickly leaving the shops and traffic, we walked most of the way to the art museum through Hyde Park. This heavily treed greenway serves as the communal front yard for the Sydney dwellers who live in apartments. It contains the Australia-New Zealand War Memorial, and skirts the close of St. Mary’s Cathedral. We slipped in just in time to see the elaborate recessional and to hear a magnificent postlude played on an organ that rattled the stained glass windows. Our first stop in the gallery was to allow Glenda to pay homage to Monet. A temporary exhibition of some of Rembrandt’s paintings was on loan from the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam, which we visited in 2015.

The art gallery grounds adjoin the Royal Arboretum, so we were able to continue our track through the city in beautiful, green public parks without having to dodge traffic. Getting a bit hungry by 2 pm, we noticed a little creperie named “Four Frogs.” Sure enough, the owners were four in number and all French. (I hope I’m not insulting anyone by pointing out that a common British slang term for a Frenchman is “frog.”) I washed down a ham and Swiss cheese crepe with a glass of Cabernet, and Glenda had a Galette, a savory French salad atop a toasty buckwheat crepe. We took the shuttle boat back to the Viking Sun in time to relax with chocolate chip cookies and espresso. Tonight we will have dinner at the Chef’s Table onboard the ship as we begin our voyage to Brisbane. On the menu tonight is five-course dinner of Australian haute cuisine with appropriate wine pairings made by the sommelier onboard. What a wonderful world we are discovering!

I’m subjecting our stateroom stewardess Pei Syu Yeng and our waitress Yang Yang to cruel and unusual punishment as I try to recover my Chinese language skills. It was interesting at the Sydney Opera House: translations of the French libretto were projected in English and Chinese. I was a bit relieved to be able to recognize at least some of the Chinese characters that I learned as a young GI in the Vietnam War. There was a coffee this morning for veterans. Onboard we have Porter Hallyburton, the longest-held American POW in Vietnam. Today is the 43rd anniversary of his release from captivity. We also have a retired Navy admiral among our shipmates, a WW2 survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, plus all the rest of us assorted grunts, swabbies, jarheads and zoomies.Read more