Day 46. Today is the day we are going to get out and experience Sydney and all it has to offer.  Yes, we going to take Sydney by tourist storm.  After a couple hours, I look at the time and realize it’s already 11am and the only thing we’ve taken by storm is the apartment’s microwave.  To be fair, there are 6 of us (John is at his program) and only 1 bathroom / shower.  I must have missed that in the Air BnB booking as when we checked in the kids looked at me incredulously like “seriously, 1 bathroom of all of us – not your most shining Air BnB moment right now.”

“Carpe diem kids!” I say.  “Ok. Carpe a half of a diem kids” as it’s 12:00 by the time we get out of the apartment. We walk to the Sydney Harbor which takes us through Hyde Park and the Royal Botanical Gardens. I must say the Sydney vibe is a surprisingly laid back and relaxed one; especially in contrast to Tokyo.  There are these gorgeous parks and green fields in the middle of the city but it seems very uncrowded and unrushed.

We’re out of the house and at Sydney’s central hub – this is good.  “Dad, it’s lunch time” one of the kids points out.  This is a classic dilemma we have faced.  Option 1 – respond with “it’s 12:30pm and we haven’t done anything yet, we must power on, food be damned!” I tried this approach a couple times earlier on and it is definitely short-term gain for melt-down pain later in the afternoon. Now, the response has morphed into Option 2 – “yes, I understand, the human body must constantly have food to keep up with the demands of this trip, of course we will sit down for lunch.” This is followed by me trying to keep myself from monitoring their rate of food consumption per minute.  “We’ve been here 20 mins and you’ve taken two bites of your sandwich; any chance we could maybe get one bit per every two minutes going forward?” I inquire.  “Dad, stop being such a math major.” No upside going down that path.

So now it’s 1:30pm and we’re definitely ready to seize the remainder of day.  At the harbor, there are a lot of booking agencies marketing all the attractions Sydney has to offer.  We inquire at a booth and find out there are multiple attraction passes that you can buy such as 3 attractions for AU $125 per adult or AU $75 per child. Each attraction has a single entry price but the single entry price varies for each attraction where are the multiple attraction is a fixed price.  To make it even more complicated, you can buy 5 or 7 attraction passes where the fixed price per attraction goes down the more attractions you buy.  

This is some actual real world math.  After breaking out paper and pen and doing a flurry of math calculations, I conclude that the most savings to be had are by doing the highest single entry price under the flat rate multiple attraction price and they make their money off of people who are deathly afraid of math and thus will pay the flat rate attraction price which is actually more than the single entry price.  I explain to everyone with an example.  The 3 attraction pass is AU $125 for adults which is $41.66 per attraction.  If we go on the hop-on, hop-off bus, the single entry price is AU $29 so you would actually be paying more.  Whereas, if we go on the hyper charged, splash-down jet boat ride, it’s AU $85 and we save $43.34! 

I’m feeling proud of my real world math lesson until Leanne says “So, you want us to go on a jet boat ride in the middle of winter where we’re going to get soaking wet with freezing cold ocean water and be miserable for the rest of the day so that you can save $40?” Hmmm…I hadn’t looked at it from that angle.  It does show how different people look and analyze the same situation from completely different perspectives.  It’s now 2:30pm and I sheepishly offer “maybe we should just stick to the single-entry strategy.”

Corey’s top choice for the day is the Taranga Zoo.  “Carpe a third of a diem – let’s go to the zoo!” I try to rally the troops.  “Uncle Kyle, it’s 2:45pm and the zoo closes at 4:30pm.”  By the time we get there, we would have had only have 1.5 hours so the zoo will have to wait until tomorrow.  We settle on a sight-seeing boat cruise around the harbor.  While chilly, it’s a clear day with brilliant sunshine reflecting off the water which makes for great pictures.  While on the boat ride, we see the jet boat whipping through the water with two people gripping on for dear life looking wet and miserable.  I know what’s coming. “Look at those people, I bet they followed the same cost saving math strategy you did,” Leanne says with a smirk. At this point, I know when to let one go.

John’s program lets out at 4pm and we meet up with him.  After retelling the events of the day, John shakes his head in dismay and says, “do you want me to plan your day tomorrow for you even though I won’t be there?” Without the planning and leadership of NCC and John the intrepid explorer, we are clearly floundering.  John takes over.  “We’ll go to the Sydney Tower Eye now, then the kids will get pizza delivered at the apartment and mom and dad go out on date night.”  When your kids offer you date night, you don’t turn it down.

The Sydney Tower is 309 meters tall with the observation deck (“eye”) at the top.  When you first enter on the ground floor, there are all displays and exhibits marketing the prowess of the Sydney Tower.  One in particular catches my attention which is a display marketing the tallest buildings in the world with 3-D replicas of buildings such as Tokyo Tower, Canton Tower, Kuala Lumpur tower, etc.  

Impressive except they are arranged in alphabetical order instead of height order. Suspicious.  This makes me think that Sydney must be the 8thtallest building masked by the alphabetical ranking.  My trusty Google search reveals that the Sydney Tower is actually the 35thtallest building in the world.  I further learn that it’s not even the tallest building in Australia as the Q1 in Queensland overtook it in 2005. I am reminded that so much of what we’ll see harkens back to marketing.  “One of the tallest buildings in the world” apparently sells more tickets than if the marketing slogan “we’re the 35thtallest building in the world and not even the tallest building in Australia.”

Deceptive marketing displays aside, we thoroughly enjoy the tower eye experience as we catch sunset from the top of the tower.  Leanne and I enjoy our date night with live piano music and our now clearly defacto Italian cuisine.