Day 1
The flight was fine; I even got some sleep. Nick and Ashley weren’t so lucky. Their plane was delayed out of its previous stop (JFK, ha) so they set off some 4 hours late. Fortunately, they were able to make up some of that time in the air, so we didn’t have to wait for them longer than about an hour. Apparently their toilet was broken, too. I hate to say I told you so…
So after collecting our bags, meeting the narco beagle, and collecting the rest of the crew, we hailed a cab and went straight to our hotel. We were able to get a room right away, and everyone got cleaned up before we went in search of lunch. I had a $10 salad. Things only got more expensive from here.
Nick had approximately 20 different things he wanted to do today, but everyone was pretty tired. We made it to the zoo, which was pretty awesome. It sits on the side of a hill, terraced to make use of as much of the space as possible. There were tons of birds, and a pigmy hippopotamus, which I wanted to take home.
After getting back from the zoo, Nick wanted to go walk around the opera house and take some pictures. The walkway wasn’t open all the way around, so we just went up to the front of the building. There was a group of five or so young Asians singing in the middle of the plaza for no obvious reason. Nick wanted to take the tour, but the rest of us weren’t really up for it. We can do it tomorrow.
We were still trying to avoid going straight to bed, and it was already starting to get dark around five, so we stopped at a café/chocolate place and got some coffee and dessert. I had a brownie, or what they called a brownie. It was like a square of the densest fudge ever topped with a quarter inch of ganache. It was very delicious. It also hit my stomach like a bomb.
The quay was very busy because of some sort of light show that’s going on, and people were still pouring in. Ashley wanted to take a nap (at 6 PM?), so we went back to the hotel, stopping for booze and some snacks along the way. Of course, Matt decides that he’s hungry the second we get back, so he and Nick headed downstairs to an udon shop for some dinner. I don’t think I’ll be hungry for a while.
Our hotel (called The York, I believe) is in an excellent location and is quite spacious. We have a corner unit with two balconies with a nice view of all of the other really tall buildings around us. We cannot see the harbor from here, and I think Nick wanted to see the lights, so he may go back. I think I am done for the evening.
