SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
G'day! We've been busy seeing the sights in Sydney, and it's been a lot of fun, because today my good friend Tom ("It's Not Unusual") Jones flew in from Gainesville, Florida to meet us. He's here for ten days, and is really excited to be on the other side of the world. I'm excited too--it's really great to be once again hangin' with one o' my homies from stateside, so take note everyone else, and start making those travel plans!
Of course, the first thing we had to do after picking Tom up at the airport was take those obligatory opera-house-and-bridge photos, so we walked down to the harbor and took in the view--Sydney has an amazing city skyline that you really have to be in the middle of to appreciate.
After a nice lunch beside the famous Sydney Opera House, we walked through the extensive Royal Botanic Gardens next door. The plant life there is interesting enough, but what really sets the place apart are all the flying creatures that inhabit it: For example, one entire grove of trees appeared to be heavy with fruit, but then we realized the "fruits" were really thousands of hanging bats! These were grey-headed flying foxes, big fruit bats that are really kind of cute up close. Most of them were trying to sleep, but a few were flying around, or fighting with each other for the best hanging spot. The gardens are also patrolled by ibises and parrots, and in one area, beautiful sulphur-crested cockatoos were perched in the trees! One of them actually swooped down and brushed my head with its wing, and another landed on a water fountain and really looked for all the world like it was trying to figure out how to use it! It was really funny.
We finished out the afternoon by taking a short ride on Sydney's monorail, which makes a circuit through the city center and across Darling Harbour. It's not really that practical as transportation, but as a tourist sightseeing device it's okay. After making a couple of loops, we walked down to Sydney's Chinatown and had dinner there.
Australia Fun Facts: In Australia, Burger King is called Hungry Jack's. They have the Whopper and everything. The Hungry Jack's logo is just like the old BK logo from the '70s, and even the workers' uniforms are like old Burger King uniforms. It's very strange. I'm sure there's an explanation for this, but I haven't heard it yet.
G'day! We've been busy seeing the sights in Sydney, and it's been a lot of fun, because today my good friend Tom ("It's Not Unusual") Jones flew in from Gainesville, Florida to meet us. He's here for ten days, and is really excited to be on the other side of the world. I'm excited too--it's really great to be once again hangin' with one o' my homies from stateside, so take note everyone else, and start making those travel plans!
Of course, the first thing we had to do after picking Tom up at the airport was take those obligatory opera-house-and-bridge photos, so we walked down to the harbor and took in the view--Sydney has an amazing city skyline that you really have to be in the middle of to appreciate.
After a nice lunch beside the famous Sydney Opera House, we walked through the extensive Royal Botanic Gardens next door. The plant life there is interesting enough, but what really sets the place apart are all the flying creatures that inhabit it: For example, one entire grove of trees appeared to be heavy with fruit, but then we realized the "fruits" were really thousands of hanging bats! These were grey-headed flying foxes, big fruit bats that are really kind of cute up close. Most of them were trying to sleep, but a few were flying around, or fighting with each other for the best hanging spot. The gardens are also patrolled by ibises and parrots, and in one area, beautiful sulphur-crested cockatoos were perched in the trees! One of them actually swooped down and brushed my head with its wing, and another landed on a water fountain and really looked for all the world like it was trying to figure out how to use it! It was really funny.
We finished out the afternoon by taking a short ride on Sydney's monorail, which makes a circuit through the city center and across Darling Harbour. It's not really that practical as transportation, but as a tourist sightseeing device it's okay. After making a couple of loops, we walked down to Sydney's Chinatown and had dinner there.
Australia Fun Facts: In Australia, Burger King is called Hungry Jack's. They have the Whopper and everything. The Hungry Jack's logo is just like the old BK logo from the '70s, and even the workers' uniforms are like old Burger King uniforms. It's very strange. I'm sure there's an explanation for this, but I haven't heard it yet.
posted by John Kuge at 9:14 PM
1 Comments:
The explanation is that there already was a fastfood place called "Burger King" in Australia when the American Burger King wanted to open its first 'restaurant' there. I think there were lawsuits and everything, and that the original Burger King has long since gone out of business (I'm hazy on the facts, as I'm just a backpacker who heard it from a local myself, and that over a year ago), but in any case the Hungry Jack's name stuck.
(Just stopping by to check up on a direct link to one of my pictures that I saw in my referer logs. For future reference, if you're linking to someone else's photos, the polite thing to do is to link to the actual html page containing them (especially when, as in my case, it's one picture per page). That way curious visitors can actually navigate further, see what else is there. Cheers.)
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