Day Two: Sydney

My day started early today, as I am still having a bit of trouble adjusting to the time zone here in Sydney. It wouldn't be that bad of a problem if it weren't for the fact that it is pitch black by 6:00 in the evening, which is around 1:00 AM back home, although we are one day ahead here. This means that around the time I am used to going to bed around home, the sun is already starting to lower in the sky, making me think that it is the evening when in reality it will be 3:00 in the afternoon. Because of this I have gotten into the routine of waking up very early, and today I rolled out of bed around 6:00 AM local time. I decided to start off the day going downtown. I didn't have to be out to the Olympic Park until 3:00, so I thought it was an opportune time to check out the core of the city and grab some breakfast.

Upon arriving at the local train station, I quickly realized that I was a fish out of water. While I thought I may be overdressed in my suit shorts, black tank top, and elephant sweater complete with chacos, it turns out I was over dressed for this "winter" morning. Virtually every other person at the station, minus a kid that was harassed by a man with a fleece, scarf, and sweatpants about wearing only a t-shirt in the cold, was dressed in their winter finery. Now the people of Sydney are pretty sharp dressers, but on this very comfortable morning they were bundled up as if they were expecting snow on what turned out to be over a 60 degree day. Realizing that if I didn't look like a crazy foreigner before that I sure must now, I boarded the cramped train to central station, where I decided to wander towards the tallest buildings I could see.

What I found was the Town Hall. A beautiful English Gothic building amidst steel giants, I stopped to take a few pictures before I moved on to the underground mall directly below. I wanted to find a watch before I caught the train to the park so that I could make it on time to my appointment with Craig Bagely, who is the man in charge of sustainability issues there. Hours later, I found myself mulling over the possible purchase of a $500.00 watch with bamboo inlay. It first made me chuckle because it reminded me of a woody wagon, but then it won me over with its charm. Thank god I walked away and remembered that I was looking at bikes for that same price back home and quickly found a Wollworths where I bought a hideous watch for $9.95 that keeps the time with the best of them.

I couldn't believe the maze of malls in the city center ... first a Dior boutique, then a bargain-basement home ware store, then a tiny jewelery shop. Before you know it, you have already entered another mall, with almost similar stores of similar size. I did find one mall in a historic building (I know, I'm a nerd) where I stopped to eat my breakfast of fruit salad before any more pieces of it fell out in my bag. I'll probably make a tip back to do some shopping before I leave town ...

After finding a watch, it was time to head out to the Olympic Park. The train ride was pretty anxiety ridden, as I had to ride the line all the way out to Lindcombe, which is at the boundary line of my train ticket, and then take the Olympic Sprint (which was the slowest train I've been on by far) over to the park. But upon reaching the platform I was sobered up by the site of a funeral at a church literally right across the street from the platform. I felt like I was intruding on a private moment, until I realized that there was a busy street that ran right in front of the church; I'm sure the few people waiting for the sprint were the least of funeral-goers worries at that moment.

It took me getting off of the train at the park to fully understand the scale of it all. Even though I had given myself over two hours to look around before my appointment with the Sustainability Manager of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority, or SOPA, I only saw a small piece of the urban core. It was sprawling, with huge open spaces and public art everywhere. I was so taken with this area of the park that I really only scratched the surface of the parklands, and didn't even have the opportunity to see any of the heritage sites yet. What you see to the left is the old cauldron from the games. While it held a flame in 2000, it is now a water feature, which people are drawn to upon first entering the park. Upon further inspection, the cauldron sits in a plaza that has twisted lines reflecting that of the cauldron supports, which have all of the medal winners from the 2000 games inscribed on them. It seems like everywhere you look in the park, there is always something see, especially where you may least expect it.The mound you see, believe it or not, is a tribute of sorts to the past use of the site. This is where they store all of the powder which is a byproduct of the method used to get all of the dioxin out of the soil. The park, before it was transformed into a sporting facility, served as three major government agencies: there was the brickworks, the abattoir, and the armaments depot. Literally toms of waste were dumped into the soils here over the years, which had to be cleaned up before the games. But while many cities usually remove the chemicals and bury them somewhere else, in Sydney they used a new technology which sucks the dioxin out of the soil, neutralizes it, and then turns into a find powder, which was left in mounds throughout the site. As a part of their sustainability agenda, they did not want their waste to be someone else's problem, and wanted to deal with the problem in-house.

Planners at SOPA are very aware of the history of the site, and have as a part of their sustainability agenda included heritage conservation and education as priorities. As seen on the right, they know that before Australia was settled by Europeans a couple hundred years ago, that Aborigines passed through this site quite often, as it was a crossroads of sorts in between two important areas. Because of the somewhat tumultuous relationship between the white settlers and Aborigines historically seen in Australia, it was quite the step forward for the Games to give so much recognition to what Aboriginal culture has done to help form the present day site that is seen today.

While there weren't too many people at the park on this Monday afternoon, it was still bustling with activity, as numerous tour buses were coming and going, children were playing in every fountain, and there were even an abundance of skateboarders as one of the pavilions has be transformed into a skatepark. I was also told that there was a BMX and Motocross area on site as well, as SOPA is looking to make a niche for itself in the extreme sports market. While there is a lot of unused space at the moment, this will be changing over the next 20 years as infill has already began in certain areas of the park. There are already about 3,000 residents here and 16,000 workers, and they are looking to triple those numbers in the next few years. They are looking to get some kind of sports-oriented education campus on site, are building a hospital that will specialize in orthopedics to fit in with the sports culture, and will be infilling many of the existing common areas with mixed use commercial and residential housing which will not compromise on floor space, but which will have a small footprint in the park overall.

Of course, what I like about the park is the history here. Where you can't visually see the heritage precincts, there are hat tips and nods to what has happened at this place for the last 400 years.