A city that puts any other to shame when it comes to accomodating tourists. You can walk around the “Rocks” near the downtown core and get to everything. The City abounds with nooks and crannies, and scenic delights. And it was all done by convicts, talk about good use of time!
Check it out
Alfresco dining and drinking with loads of people around and having a good time. This is what Granville Mall should have looked like. No traffic, just people! Great coffee in every restaurant, bar, coffee shop – Vancouver lags this too!. Made some terrific contacts, Jeff Smoot , GM for Fujitsu Australia- A salesmans salesman, who really knows the buyer driven sales process. Stephen Hughes, a Med. Dr. (friend of Ean Jackson) who invited me to an Aussie tradition, a sunrise swim in the surf at Bondi Beach followed by a bit of Breakie! I walked so much that my Dr Schols sandels kicked the bucket. Our hotel was right on the Sydney Harbour boardwalk. We open the slider and walked out into the middle of it all. looking direclty at the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

Oh sure there were the little gotchas, like your Internet access card was only valid for 24hrs once you started so use it or lose it. Breakie (continental) was $27 and not laid on in a 5 star hotel. But hey we coped. We walked 100 feet to a little cafe on the water called Simmer on the Bay.

This is were Michael (famous barista) whipped up breakfast delights for us for a very reasonable fare every day for a week. Owned by Brigid Kennedy ( two terrific cook books under her belt) we had delightful chats with her and passed the warm sunny AMs away quite pleasantly.

A word about Australian TV. There is really no content to speak of on, except for hilarious commercials now and then. Some of the creatives are just so clever, amusing, scandalous and downright cheeky. Too bad that most of the locals seem to be content with last years Desperate Housewives, House, Brothers and Sisters, Law and Order, CSI New York and so on…the exporting of American culture continues unabated. I really don’t care to hear about Brittany Spears and company anywhere thank you very much.

Australian business seem to suffer from the same full court gouging that we saw with Tyco, Conrad Black and so on. Absolute piracy from what I can see and they do not have the consumer and investor protections we have, definitely no SOX. Customer non service abounds and its likely due to no tipping at all. There seem to be serious disconnects in their logistics. We went to open air Saturday/Sunday markets. The food prices to farmers were quite low, but you never saw that in the Coles and Woolworth’s supermarkets. I suspect that they have the worst of the Old English system of side deals, cosy contracts and really unproductive labor agreements etc. The locals pay a lot for what they have.

But as a tourist I had a ball. So it is hard to find a great salad. You cope by drinking Guiness..more preferable. And the sushi is to be avoided at all costs? Have some more chips with your sausages at lunch.