Fully mouthing the water fountain

2 April, 2023 | Sydney Australia

Australia directs those seeking entry to their nation to download an app, which basically does all the stuff you would do at customs everywhere - declare anything they don’t really want you entering with, scanning ID/Passport information, and of course taking a photograph of your face.

It’s a pretty snappy app honestly. You are rewarded for going to all that effort with…precisely nothing. You are still going through all those steps when you land. Enjoy.

Coordinating with the fella I was renting a room from - I grabbed a key from the proprietor of the nearby Italian restaurant that I presume is a close friend - and walked in. I was greeted by some absolutely exceptionally high quality photographic art.

Did I mention I was staying in Darlinghurst, the quintessential/classic gay neighborhood in Sydney?

My host was Robert; he is a professional photographer, has lived here since it was considered seedy with appropriately depressed housing costs, and this was an Actual Room Rental. Airbnb is largely now a clearing house for semi/outright-illegal hotel rooms, but in its earlier days you actually did rent it from a real person and you generally interacted with them. It was an opportunity to know a local and they in turn got to know someone from another land/culture. Rarely you can still find this - if you can, I highly recommend it.

Sydney is the first city I have visited where I actually have some relations. I’m not entirely sure how distant of cousins they are, but that is far beside the point. We decided to meet up at the closest park. As I approached it, I started to immediately get the sense it was dedicated to something particular

This is the main ANZAC memorial - dedicated to the men who fought in WWI. If you are going to do a war memorial, I think this kind of statement is one of the best ones you can do.

DESIGNED TO EXPRESS WITH DIGNITY AND SIMPLICITY NEITHER THE GLORY NOR THE GLAMOUR OF WAR, BUT THOSE NOBLER ATTRIBUTES OF HUMAN NATURE WHICH THE WAR OF 1914-18 SO VIVIDLY BROUGHT FORTH - COURAGE, ENDURANCE, AND SACRIFICE.

In the very center of the rotunda, you can stare down at one of the most metal statues that I have seen at a memorial to soldiers.

As I walked outside, I noted the drinking fountains had guards like they were trying to prevent Andy from Parks and Recreation from putting his whole mouth over it.

Met up with the cousins. Had a lunch in a nearby mall food court (eh) and went to Muji. What is a Muji store and why is my cousin so excited about it?

MUJI, originally founded in Japan in 1980, offers a wide variety of good quality items from stationery to household items and apparel…. Mujirushi Ryohin, MUJI in Japanese, translates as "no-brand, quality goods."

So it’s fairly cheap, relatively good stuff that doesn’t have some dumbass branding plastered all over it. I’ll have more to say about MUJI in a future post from Japan itself, but while in Australia I picked up a bunch of nice space-saving packing cubes and some random other travel things that were compact and functional.