Sydney Opera House from Our Hotel Room- the View of a Lifetime!

Written by Charles November 6, 2013

In Sydney we didn’t do much, so I’ll tell you about the exciting things.  We went to the zoo the first day.  We went on a backstage tour of all the Australian animals.  First we saw a platypus and a Tasmanian devil.  Those were not backstage but still pretty cool.  The Tasmanian devil was like a little dog/cat with razor sharp teeth.  It walked around the habitat and even gave us a snarl.  The platypus swam in circles in its tank, making us all laugh.   Then we saw the koalas, which were like the ones on Kangaroo Island- tired.  We actually got to go inside the enclosure and look at them really close!  There were two in their enclosure; one was sitting on the tall tree (10 feet high), and one was at my eye level.  I got really close to them, and I wanted to touch it, but the guide said I could not.  (That was the one at eye level.)  The one high in the tree was sleeping, so there was no action there.  The koala in front of me was cool because it moved its head a lot.

After the koalas, we went into the nocturnal house.  We went into the back tunnels of the nocturnal house and got to hold some animals.  We first held a glider which was softer than a chinchilla.  It had a long tail that liked to tickle me in the face, although I did not hold it.  It really liked people, and when the guide tried to put it back, it crawled all over his back!  It took him ten minutes just to put it back into the cage.  Next it was off track a bit and the rare North American Possum.  I got to hold it, and it crawled onto my shoulder.  Then the guide gave me a bowl of food that it started to eat from.  The possum’s fur felt funny, and I did not know what to think of it.  After the possum, we held FTG’s- try to guess what that stands for. (Post a comment as your answer)  No using Google or Yahoo or any other search tool.  I’ll give you a hint; G stands for glider, while T stands for tail.  I got to hold these mystery creatures, and it crawled all over my hand while in its vain attempt of an escape.  It was tiny, the size of about a mouse.  It also had gigantic eyes that took up half its head.  Also their heartbeat was so fast the whole animal vibrated with it. After the FTG’s we fed wallabies.  Yes, wallabies!  It was sort of like feeding a horse.  It licked the peanuts out of your hand.  The wallabies were about as tall a William, but they had way longer legs.  Overall at the zoo, I liked the koalas because they were the best looking ones.  

Also from our hotel room we can see, you guessed it, the Sydney Opera House!  It is literally two football fields from our hotel, right across the little harbor.  The harbor is actually the cruise ship terminal.  Right behind our hotel is the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  The hotel rooms look out over the water onto the Opera House.  The funniest thing about the hotel room was there were heated toilet seats!  I thought that was hilarious.

The next day we went to the Aquarium.  It wasn’t the best one because 70% of it was little fish tanks lining the walls with small fish in it.  The other 30% was tunnels with the top half of them were glass and looked into the fish tanks.  The tanks were not fish tanks, but they were the size of a football field!  In there were manta rays, manatees, fish, turtles, and even sharks!  I thought that it wasn’t the best aquarium ever though. 

We also went to the top of one of the giant concrete posts on the Harbor Bridge.  I saw the skyline of Sydney.  I saw the world’s ugliest space needle.  It looked like a pencil with a little kid’s block stuck at the top.  (It was rounded at the edges.)  We also saw the Opera House and the zoo.  I thought that the skyline was like any other city's, except for the Opera House.  I still thought that it was really cool though.  Later we tried to go into the Opera House, but some genius had the idea of making people go on the tour to see the inside.   So, we walked on the outside instead.  The Opera House is actually two opera houses.  There are two halls but it’s called the Opera House, not Opera Houses.  I thought that was confusing.  I liked the Opera House because the roof is made up of bathroom floor tiles.  My favorite part of Sydney was seeing the Opera House.

Written by William November 5, 2013

Yesterday we arrived in Sydney; we can even see the Sydney Opera House from our room! What makes the Sydney Opera House so special is that it is the only building in the world that is that shape. Today we went to the Taronga Zoo. My favorite animal was the FTG (which Charles mentioned earlier). We went on a tour with a guide, and we got to see the kitchen where they make all the food for the animals. Then we got a backstage tour, where we got to pet some animals and help feed them. We also saw my second favorite animal: the Komodo dragon. We took a gondola down to the bottom of the hill, and on the way down, we saw elephants, crocodiles, and hippos. Then we climbed up the lookout tower of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, where we got to see some of the city from up high. After that, we went to dinner.

Written by William November 6, 2013

Today we went to an aquarium and saw sharks, stingrays, little blue penguins, manatees, sea snakes, and seahorses. We also walked around the botanical gardens and climbed some trees (even though it said no climbing trees). Then we went to dinner, and there was a misunderstanding that led Miss Jenn to the wrong restaurant when she was trying to meet us. The concierge had sent her to the same restaurant but on a different street. We also went and saw the Opera House, but we didn’t have time for the tour, so we could only see the basement. Its really really really big and cool and awesome.