6 Week Gap Year

18th November (Saturday)
Jon and I catch a flight to Sydney. Post off more paper memories which won’t arrive until February or March! $21 by sea or $68 by air?!
Visit Jon’s rented unit which is quite bijou.
Get on plane wait for spare part for broken down plane in Sydney. Have our own breakdown with smoke alarm in toilet. Leave an hour late. Arrive Sydney shuttle to hotel on edge of Kings X and Potts point. (v. seedy and V posh) Hotel acceptable
Go into Sydney use train, monorail visit Darling Harbour drink in posh harbour side bar see hen nights groups, phone the revolving restaurants in the Sydney tower to make a reservation for dinner as we both fancy the idea of 250m high dinner whilst spinning around. Hah, suckers, they are both fully booked.
Visit Sydney tower anyway as we don’t hold grudges. 300m high, but observation gallery only at 250m. see sun go down over Sydney try and get in to buffet in revolving restaurant as we are up there any way, they refuse as still fully booked so we have drink in the very posh restaurant, 360 degree, below it instead. Takes me while to realise we are going clockwise and not anti-clock as I thought when we first arrived. Don’t ask, it’s quite involved with perspective and reminded me of the Eyes , Lies and Illusions exhibition in Melbourne. Then takes me even longer to realise that the ceiling doesn’t revolve with us and that results in much hilarity for Jon and a New Zealand couple we were talking to. Look, I’m nearly qualified to join Saga so make allowances. The bar supervisor Quentin has worked in 7 other revolving restaurants around the world, including Miami, Los Angeles, and somewhere in Italy and after we’ve been chatting with him for a while we ask if he can get us a seat in the buffet revolving restaurant. 10 minutes later we are being shown to our table. Cool dude! One up for us. How are you paying sir? It’s $116 for you both. Aaagggghhhh! One all. Great food though and the view makes all the difference. The staff are all pretty great to so all in all we have a brilliant evening.
Go back towards Potts Point. But have to go through a little of Kings X which is the seedy and sex area of Sydney. Very loud very bright and lots of “interesting” clubs for gentlemen with diverse hobbies and an interest in models. Wonder if they have the Flying Scotsman locomotive and tender I want for the train set.
We decide to go to night club Bourbon which the hotel concierge recommended as safe and well run and not expensive and used by the backpackers and locals alike. Great music, want to dance but would be oldest on the dance floor by 3 decades! Unlikely to have been a pretty sight. 2 drinks, bourbon and coke Jon, red wine me, cost the same as my glass of red wine in the 360degree bar in Sydney Tower! Stagger off to hotel at 1.30am. Jon falls asleep in about .05 of a second and then starts snoring! Oh no, how am I going to get to sl………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.