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