Sydney Post-Christmas Holiday - Day 2 - Harry Potter

Adam continues to document:

We slept well in the tent, despite rain and a menagerie of Australian birdlife deciding to test out their lungs at 5AM whilst perched in the trees about us. Today was the big day - taking the kids out to the Harry Potter exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum. The exhibition featured many props, costumes and artifacts from the 8 Harry Potter movies, which of course was of interest to everyone in the family (excluding myself.)

Following the avian alarm clock, we drove down into Darling Harbour and onto our first stop - breakfast at the Emperor's Garden Bakery in Chinatown. Love those exotic Asian bakeries.

Afterwards, we determined to check out another one of the "1015 Things" and walked down to the Sydney Fish Markets. It was about a 15 minute walk from the monorail station, which was made more interesting looking at some of the old colonial era buildings. One lady even gave us a bit of a run down of the history of the buildings as she noticed us admiring them as we passed.

Once we got to the markets we were surprised that it did strongly cater for tourists, with lots of tasty morsels on offer. Besides ogling all the sealife for sale, we tried a few items to supplement our breakfast - Elissa had a mornayed scallop served in its shell, whilst Jewel and I had salt & pepper squid. Seth wasn't keen on eating the "cute" fish, and so had crabsticks. Jayde was more interested in one of the gourmet stalls selling chocolate dipped strawberries.

We then walked and monorailed back into the CBD, and browsed the Kinokuniya bookstore again (we love drooling at the large and eclectic selection of books and novelties) before heading to Sushi Hotaru - our favourite sushi train for lunch. Jewel managed to cause a commotion at the sushi train by accidentally rubbing wasabi into her eye. Elissa was frantically trying to convey to staff that we needed water to try and clean Jewel's eye - they started bringing us out glasses of water to drink. Still, despite the Jewel sideshow, as always, the food was incredible, and it was fun watching the sushi chefs creating the delicacies. Elissa was particularly enamoured with a seared scallop nigri that the chefs grilled with a blowtorch.

Finally it was time to head over the Powerhouse Museum, and after battling the monorail and large crowds, we got into the exhibition. The opening room contained a presenter in character as a Hogwarts teacher. She called up 3 volunteers and used the Sorting Hat on them to determine which house they should belong to. Jewel and Seth managed to be fortunate enough to be the first two chosen. Jewel was pronounced as belonging to Ravenclaw, whilst Seth was Gryffindor house.

Following this, we went through the various rooms, done up as sets from the movies with various props and artifacts. The family all enjoyed it. Unfortunately photos weren't allowed so I was unable to document the event. The kids were fairly tired from all the walking earlier in the day, so we spent a small amount of time looking around the Powerhouse Museum afterwards. Jayde got the opportunity to play one of the antique pianos on display, but was a bit intimidated by a child prodigy who preceded her.

After driving back out to the Blue Mountains we grabbed a pizza dinner, eating it at another one of the "1015 Things" - the Prime Ministers' Corridor of Oaks. This is a park where each Prime Minister or a close family member of theirs has planted an Oak tree. Each particular tree had a plaque advising whose tree it was. The kids found it funny to find the trees for Curtin and Fadden opposite each other. The most recent tree was Howard's although it had been vandalised and chopped down. Sad to see juvenile hatred like that on national memorials. Nearby was the grave of Sir Henry Parkes, the Australian "Father of Federation", which we also visited and tried to explain his historical importance to the kids.

Heading back to the tent, we settled in for the evening, using the Davison's bathroom to shower and freshen up. After Jewel and Seth had both showered, we sent Jayde in there. "There's no shower in there" she responded as she came back out. "Yes there is I said, go back in and have your shower". Off she goes again "There's no shower in there, I'll prove it." She demanded that I follow her into the bathroom "Look!" she triumphantly declared, pointing to the corner spa. I place my hands either side of her skull and tilt her head up a couple of degrees towards the shower head and taps above the spa. "Oh" Jayde replied. She hadn't seen any shower screens and had completely overlooked the actual existence of the shower itself.

After everyone freshened up, the family played the Monopoly Deal card game - a Christmas present from the Garlands that has become a big hit with the family.