Saturday 2nd July 2011

The very first weekend of the holidays, we went down to Sydney overnight, with two main aims in mind: Powerhouse Museum on Saturday, and Taronga Zoo on Sunday. Went down at our usual leisurely pace and got there just about check-in time (noon) to the hotel. First stop – MASSIVE bacon-and-eggs lunch (oh and some rather delicious Chinese dumpling soup).

Stop two, Powerhouse Museum. There was an excellent holiday construction thing going on upstairs here, where they provided loads of super-long toilet-roll holders and interconnecting foam pieces, and let the kids (and parents) build little igloos and enclosures out of them. Some of the constructions were really good – ours looked a bit like the webs spiders spin when you feed them on Mescalin but still, the Non was much taken by it. We spent a great deal of time in that little corner – built two igloos, listened to a kiddy story about architecture (she enjoyed that, too), and played with these magnetic building-blocks, too –cool stuff.

The Powerhouse in general was the sort of place we really wished we'd brought toe Whale to: he'd love it. Chock-stuffed with trains, robots, motorbikes, spaceships, planes, and everything that makes noise and moves. Some games thrown in for good measure. We didn't get nearly enough time there, could easily have spent the whole day from the morning but hey I guess we can go again.

 

We ended up at a loose end at about 5 o'clock when they chucked us out. Wandered about the Chinese markets for a while and picked up some stuff, and then the Littles got antsy so we went along to Chinatown proper to peruse the food offerings. The Mr and I were still brim-full of Huge Lunch so we weren't inspired, but the Littles shook hands with a giant blue panda and seemed hungry enough. She got particularly animated when we walked into the rather grotty Food Court- sort of a covered Chinese fast-food takeaway nexus with lots of melamine tables, like you might find in a corner of a shopping mall. Insisted on sitting down RIGHT THERE and EATING immediately, ordered her food and sat down at a table to wait for it while doing some colouring in from her bag. Well, we weren't hugely impressed but there wasn't much we could do –and after finding somewhere that sold us a bottle of white wine we weren't too bothered. We sat there drinking and she ate, as slowly as she liked. The food was actually delicious, and about half the price it would have been in a restaurant. Eventually we decided to order a meal between the two of us (more than enough) and that was yummalicious, too. So in short, don't snuff at grotty food courts. Girl knows what she's talking about.

Ah, after this very pleasant evening there was, however, the Unfortunate Incident of the Alarm in the Night. As you may or may not know, the Mr is a very light sleeper (unlike his wife). We retired to bed quite happily shortly after the Littles, looking forward to a good night to set us up for Toronga in the morning. Oh no. At midnight, the alarm clock in an adjoining room went off. Up got the Mr. It woke me up but I was just going to turn over and go to sleep – as for the Littles, oblivious. Poor Mr couldn't think of turning over and ignoring it. Tried knocking on the door but the room was empty. Had to get up, go outside the hotel, ring a bell, wait, get someone to open the room and turn the damn thing off. Needless to say it took him a while to get back to sleep. Then at four o'clock the Littles got up and went to the loo. Oh dear. It was a bit of a bleary-eyed Mr Daddy in the morning. Still, pretty nice day in all.