June 12-Shopping, Bridge, Chinese Food, OH MY!/ Comparing Cities

The schedule for today was going to be the excursion that we got to pick. The choices were either an all day tour of the Blue Mountains or whale watching in the morning and the bridge climb.  I choose the whale watching/bridge climb combo.  Unfortunatly, dure to strong winds, whale watching was cancelled.  I was pretty bummed but the teachers had prepared for this.  So instead of whale watching, we went to a market place.  Im not to keen on shopping but I had never been to this market place.  It kinda of looked like a mall on top but in the "basement" level there was an actually market like place.  There were so many stores that were selling all kinds of things.  We find a couple of really cool stores.  One had gemstones and necklaces, one had food, and another had clothes.  We shopped at a place with clothes for about 20 minutes because the clothes were so cute!! I got two sweaters and a really cute dress!  I also found these really cute shoes that normally would have costed about 40 dollars but at this store, they were only 15!!!  After shopping, we stopped for lunch in Sydney.  My group and I couldn't find anywhere that wasn't really expensive so we stopped at Subway.  It was nice to have some familier food after awhile.  After lunch we went straight to the bridge climb. Our group of about 20 split up.  My group was the first to go up. We started out with a "Pre-climb".  We got suited up in these really fashionably grey jumpsuits(not) and went through some safety stuff.  We then got our harnesses on and went through a training course that looked like the actually bridge.  We all completed the training, got our radios, and went out on the actually bridge.  It was alittle windy and rainy but that didn't stop us.  I'm not afraid of heights so the view was stunning!  The city looked so pretty from above, especially the opera house!



Megan, Jenny, and I on the Bridge!

After the bridge climb, we all got back together at the hotel.  The teachers talked for awhile and decided to split up for dinner.  Each teacher was going to a different type of food vendor.  I went with Ms. Titus because we were doing a group thing (and she rocks duh!).  We walked for maybe 5 minutes and ended up at a place called "Wok right in".  They served all kinds of food.  I got a noodle dish.  It had egg noodles with teriyaki chicken and vegetables.  It was delicious!!  After dinner we walked back to the hotel.  At the hotel, it took Kinzie and I almost ten minutes to get to our floor because the elevator was being stupid! :)

Comparing Cities:

Sydney is such a beautiful city.  There are many buildings, but there are also many trees and fountains.  Chicago just has alot of buildings and very little trees.  Sydney is also not very loud or smelly like Chicago is.  Everyone in Sydney is very polite and friendly.  Chicago has some friendly people but alot of people are very rude and unfriendly.  Thre are alot of people here that walked or cycled everywhere.  Alot of people in Chicago do the same.  Both cities definatly have a big handful of bad drivers :)

Sydney has alot of things to do in it.  You can visit the tower, climb the bridge, visit the local market, and much much more.  Chicago has some great muesums but not much else to do besides shopping.  Overall I think that Sydney is a much better, cleaner, and friendlier city.  I'm not trying to diss Chicago, I just like Sydney a whole lot better.
Sydney is also more caring towards people.  An example would be today when it was raining.  There were areas outside with tarps above to keep people dry.  The only place I can think of in Chicago would be a store, but the store owners yell at you when you don't buy anything.