I landed in Sydney less than 24 hours ago, and have seen only glimpses of the place, those too merely on my way to work. I am not even staying in the main city, but in the suburb of Parramatta. Hopefully will have many more things to say after the weekend.
- About 5-10 minutes before landing, if you look out the window, you get a spectacular view of the ocean, especially if its evening and the sun is just beginning to set.
- Its not dark here even until 8 in the evening.
- I thought Australia was a place with few people. But I haven’t stopped seeing people anywhere. Airport, the hotel dining room (had to wait for a breakfast table!), the roads (choc-a-bloc traffic moving at snail pace even in a tunnel!) and finally at the work place!
- The place is full of awesome cars – I just can’t stop staring! The roads are swarming with all the Audi’s, BMW’s and Porsche’s that are rare on the Indian roads. I saw some amazing sports cars too, but did not catch the names of either of them. One popular brand seems to be Holden from GM – the lion logo stares at you from 2 out of every 3 cars. I also saw a 4.0 L mini-truck. People literally drive with sheer brute force!
- The cabs are very expensive! Prohibitively so.
- The hotels are very expensive too – even an Accor (where I stayed one night) costs more than 200$!
- Parramatta looks like a lovely suburb, with traditional looking houses and a surplus of green. Unfortunately everything closes here at 5 pm – so I think I will get to see it only on the weekend or may be tomorrow as I am told that on Thursdays the place is open till 9! So may be tomorrow will be my luck day.
- There is something playing at the opera every day! I just need to go out and buy tickets. Wish I had some company.
- At the hotel where I am staying, there is an access card required even for the lift – and if you don’t swipe it right,you stay put in the lift without moving anywhere and with doors closed, until you either find the right way or someone else wants to use the lift! Talk about crazy!
Wanderlust 
A friend of mine used to live in Parramatta & I remember walking across a very lovely park while staying there for a couple of days. My impression is that Paramatta has a number of immigrant communities & if I recollect it right, the Vietnamese are a visible presence.
I really like Australia & I am sure you will enjoy yourself there.
The lift thing is seriously insane… Imagine some sort of radiation frying your access card and getting stuck inside the lift in the middle of the night with rescue to arrive only in the morning… I will probably steer clear of such intelligent lifts and use the more un-nerdy staircase… Or is that thing just as geeky and asks for a passcode ??
Hari, I did get to see a bit more of Parramatta – the park is nice, though I still have to explore it. But the whole place sleeps off pretty early (very true of Sydney in general it seems) When I go out for dinner, I see deserted streets at 8 in the evening, and after Bombay that seems pretty haunting.Yes, and the place is full of immigrants, Vietnamese chiefly and also many Indians.