Winter Festival…What?

This weekend, Sydney has decided to throw a winter festival to try to get everyone out of "hibernation", as they advertised it. In the ads, they stated they had tons of food, drink, the largest ice rink in the CBD since the 1950's, as well as a petting zoo (one of these things is not like the other, but we'll get to that later).

So Yazi, Alexi, and Brian and I decided to head over to the festival. We all expected this to be a pretty amazing place. The website was really well developed, and the food looked amazing.

Boy, was that a disappointment.

First off, the ice rink was hardly larger than our living room. It was in the lower sixties outside, they were making fake snow, and had heaters placed around the perimeter of the ice rink. No joke. It was such a contradictory picture. Children were running around in short sleeve shirts, hats, and boots, people were wearing coats and scarves while standing on an ice rink under a heater. I just couldn't understand it.

The food was a major let down. I felt like I was at a baseball game back home, where everything is ridiculously over price. But, instead of finding $5 nachos, I found $20 Dutch pancakes, and $15 Calamari bites. I'd take my $5 nachos any day. As for the petting zoo, I just could understand this either. How does a petting zoo incorporate into a winter festival? There were about 20 animals stuck in a tiny pen, and were meant to fit in with the festival. This was just beyond comprehension.

I think we spent maybe 15 minutes at the festival overall. We browsed, but there wasn't much to see and we were all pretty hungry. We decided to leave, all being unwilling to spend so much on food. I had been craving Hungry Jacks for about a week now, so we decided to stop there for dinner.

Hungry Jacks = a fusion of American Burger King and American McDonalds (Sydney McDonalds is NOT an American McDonalds)! I had a whopper jr, which actually tasted just as a whopper jr. should taste! Even the onion rings were exactly as Burger King's onion rings are!!! The fries were closer to McDonald's fries, and they had some sundaes that were very similar to McFlurry's. Oh, this was heaven on earth. I had been craving an American hamburger for at least two weeks now, and had visited a couple different hamburger joints to try to find a good hamburger (see Adam Worling, week one, for info on finding hamburgers in Sydney). Craving #1, fulfilled!! I still can't wait for In n' Out when I get off the plane, though!!

On another note, before the Winter Festival today, I decided to walk around Sydney for a bit to try to find a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of Australia (I was really lenient on what the picture could be, I just wanted something relating to Australia). Now, I've done a pretty great job so far finding where to go for places by simply walking around and looking in shops until I see slightly what I'm looking for. I had asked Zara where I could find jigsaw puzzles, and she said any typical toy store. So I took off looking for a toy store, having not yet see anything in Sydney that represented a toy store. I walked around the CBD for nearly three hours looking for a toy store. I found nearly every other type of store, but nothing that resembled toys! I eventually stumbled upon a visitor's information booth, and asked them where I could find jigsaw puzzles. They stated that David Jones (a store that vaguely represents Macy's, but maybe a bit more of a Target/Macy's fusion…there also seems to be one of these every few blocks, and they're as gigantic as Target) would carry something like that, but my best bet would be a placed called Hobby Co in the QVB (Queen Victoria Building - a great shopping center). I had walked by this place probably about 20 times since I arrived in Sydney, and at least four times today alone. I had ventured so far down the CBD that I was nearly in Circular Quay though, so it was a good 15 minute walked back to the QVB.

Anyway, I finally found this place again, found the puzzles, and was nearly in heaven. There were SO many puzzles in this store, and the few I had looked at (without scenes of Australia, just wanted to check prices) seemed reasonably priced. I was so excited that I was finally going to find souvenirs for a couple different people. I started looking for scenes of Australia and looked and looked and looked. I eventually found one puzzle, just one, with a scene of Australia. It had the Opera House and it was so very beautiful. However, it was a 3,000 piece puzzle and was $70 (not to mention it weighed a TON).

That burst any bubble I had of bringing home a puzzle with a scene of Sydney. Looks like I'll be ordering some from the internet once I get home. Bummer.