SYDNEY

We are in the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay.  Very convenient walking distance to all the activities at the port, Opera House and Royal Botanic Garden.

Sydney is on the other side of the International Dateline, so I lost a day.  This is now Wednesday, March 8.  Here are 22 things we can do in this city today.

Sydney is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and is the most populous city in all of Oceania, with 5.4 million.  Melbourne has 5.1 million people.

Some history:

• Aboriginal Australians have lived in this region for at least 30,000 years, and maybe 50,000.
• Captain James Cook, on his first Pacific voyage, came to Botany Bay in 1770.
• In 1788 the first fleet of convicts came to Sydney Cove as a British penal colony.  Thus the name Sydney.  This partly because, they had been sending them to America, but then the U.S. became independent in 1776.

• 
  Japan was just getting ready to invade Australia when the U.S. naval victory at the battle of Midway in early June of 1942 ended that threat.
• After World War II the city experience mass immigration, and by 2021 40% of the population was born overseas, mostly from China and India.

• 
  Now Sydney and Melbourne both rank high on the World's Best Cities to Live, in 2022, Melbourne #5 and Sydney #6.  
• Number one is London, with Tokyo #2, Shanghai #3, Singapore #4 and Paris #7.
• The two cities are about the same size, with a huge rivalry so that they neutralized each other, allowing Canberra, 400,000 population, about midway between them, to become the country capital.
• But there must be some half dozen of annual international rankings, for the Forbes version, Vienna is #1.  Yet, in the above Global Finance selections, Vienna is #20.

Sydney is known as Emerald City or Harbour City or Sin City.

• Emerald City from a 1987 play by that name by Australian David Williamson, described as part love letter, part hate mail.  Seattle and Toronto are also called Emerald City.
• Harbour City comes from being around Sydney Harbour.

• 
  In the second half of the 20th century, organized crime infiltrated politics, law and justice. Kings Cross was especially notorious, but lockout laws from 2014 virtually eliminated brothels, casinos, strip clubs, gangs and general violence.  Here is a wiki list of sin cities, and the USA has 13 of them.  Sydney is no longer on any sin list.

• 
  Sydney today is one of the safest cities in the world.  Okay at night, but be cautious, especially crossing the street because of vehicles.  On the phone, the emergency # is 000.
• 
  On the other hand, the world's deadliest spider, the Funnelweb spider, is found in this city, and can kill you in 2 hours.

• 
  The Sydney Morning Herald began in 1831.
• The Coathanger, or Sydney Harbour Bridge, built in 1932, is the largest and widest steel-arch bridge in the world.  Until 1967 it was also the tallest in the city.

• 
  The Sydney Opera House came from an international design competition in 1956, but the entry by Danish architect Jorn Utzon was at some point discarded, but rescued.

Breakfast is in the Executive Lounge, and not much, but good enough.  For lunch, we walked outside the hotel, and just adjacent was a take-out of Vietnamese/Malaysian/Chinese food.  We pork chop and noodles to take back to our room to have with beer and a Shiraz.

The executive lounge is open all day for our convenience, and with a 5-8PM open bar with appetizers and salads.  Just enough for our needs.

We had a long chat with a couple from San Francisco.  They are here for a Holland American cruise to New Zealand.  Tomorrow, we depart Sydney for Honolulu and a 53-day cruise

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