There's no Place like Home

Back in Cairns, Emma planned to go back to Sydney, and even though I really liked Cairns I wouldn't want to stay there on my own. We booked a plane ticket together and we flew a day later. Back in Sydney we didn't actually have a place to stay, so I called up someone that I knew was living in my old apartment and asked if Emma and I could stay on their couch for a night. The following day we met Jesse and we walked from the apartment to Darling Harbour, where we visited the Chinese Friendship-garden that I didn't know was there up until then. The garden was built there (in Haymarket, which is basically Sydney's Chinatown), for Sydney's 200 year existence as a friendship gift from Guangzhou to Sydney. There's waterfalls, different pavilions, a pond, and fun fact: it's impossible to get a view from the whole garden, from any standing point. Throughout the gardens there's Chinese Zodiac signs with information about each 'personality'. Found out that I'm an Ox (or maybe a Rat), but unfortunately I miss many of those personality traits.

That night, after our dinner, we walked to Circular Quay through Hyde Park. Jesse and I played a game of big chess, I think he won, and we walked on slowly, because we had already missed the fireworks at the bay. When you stand at Circular Quay, or at the Rocks in Sydney, you can see an amusement park at the other side of Sydney's bridge. It's called Luna Park, and the first one was opened in the early 1900s, in New York. From there on it spread over the world and Sydney's Luna Park was opened in 1935. I think originally Luna Park was meant to be some sort of arcade hall, all themed in an early 1900s vibe, completely with the music and the art and the rides. It's easily recognisable, because the entrance is a big creepy sun-like face. We all got a big fairy floss and we walked through the park, laughing at the funhouse mirrors and singing and dancing to the music. That night Emma and I slept at the apartment of one of her friends, close to my old one, very high up with a beautiful view over the city.

The VIVID lights festival was going on in Sydney, which meant that everything that could be covered with lights, would be (even Luna Park the night before). The opera house was illuminated as you can see in the pictures, the whole botanical gardens were filled with art installations with light as their subject. One quote lit up the wall on one of the buildings, saying: 'How many lights does it take to change a person?' instead of the well known joke: 'How many people does it take to change a light?' and I think that'll stick in my head for a long time. Whole building surfaces were lit up, almost using them as a canvas to play a movie on. There was a mat with different blocks, and they changed colour if you stepped on them. A pond was filled with lightbulbs on sticks, waving in the wind, changing colours with the music that played, or voices that talked, making the show seem so magical. I had never seen anything like it. I was mesmerised. We ended the night at the different food stalls at the Rocks, with a big hot-dog in our hands.