St. George Down Under

QVB, Cubans, Gardens, and Monks

February 27, 2009 at 10:04 pm (Uncategorized)

Today was a good day. Didn’t have class, so I decided to go into the city. Took the new Epping-Chatswood railway link, which is free for the first 100 days, then I had to take the Chatswood-Wynyard train. Took about a half-hour or so, and round trip was a little over $4. Dulce txted me that she was buying a camera and that she would call me when she was done, so I explored the city. Found the Virgin Mega store, which was alright, then went to the QVB building (Wikipedia site), which was just incredible! Checked out Versace, which was CRAZY! The architecture of the place was absolutely incredible, so stunning and beautiful.

Inside the Queen Victoria Building

This is the style of the building. Just incredible stained glass!

Yet again another shopping center! Then I found a cigar place, and bought my first Cuban cigars! IT WAS AWESOME! Gonna smoke em with Ryan a little later tonight, I’m pumped for it. Hopefully I can handle it!

The tiny tobacco shop.

I then headed down towards the Royal Botanical Gardens. Passed by the Channel 7 News building and watched the taping of the news; they had a glass window where you could see everything behind the scenes, then also a TV on the outside where you can see the actual broadcast. I’m guessing this is common in big cities, but for me it was a first, and was pretty cool.

You can't really see her due to the glare, but she's in there! And yes, they were reporting on Obama...!

The botanical gardens were incredible. Never been to Central Park in NY, but I’m guessing its like that. Just an oasis in the shadow of a bustling city.

I don’t know if you can see it, but the lower label says Royal Botanical Gardens, and the upper label says The Pond I have a Picture of (which is below).

HUGE trees, hibiscus plants, tropical garden areas, ponds, POMEGRANATE TREES! Very cool. Also saw a few ducks in the pond (REPRESENT). A part of the area overlooks the harbor, as well as the Opera House.

LOVE this tree!

For my mommy. A yellow one!

The tropical plant pyramid/greenhouse.

Next time I'm bringin my macro!

I heard some weird screaching, so I looked up in the trees trying to figure out what it was. I finally saw it, BATS! Hundreds of them, clustered in the trees. I began shooting them, hundreds of shots, and realized that there were pairs of them, hugging…THEY WERE MATING! It was crazy. and kinda weird. But I got a few good shots, so that was cool.

BAT!

So many of em. They are HUGE!

I'm not the only Duck here...

Incredible setting!

I spotted some asian men in orange robes down by the Opera House and assumed that they were monks. I thought it would be a great shot if I could get them in front of the Opera House, so I went down to where they were and sat by them. I was gonna just take a shot of them, but felt kinda weird about it. So I just kinda chilled there, and saw that they were taking pictures. I offered to take a picture of them all, but they said no. Then we began to talk. They were Buddhist Monks from Thailand, the main guy I talked to was actually the Abbot of the Watpangha (if that means anything to y’all). I told him where I was from and he told me that he had a friend that was visiting here, but lived in Massachusetts. So he ended up calling the friend and having me speak to him! I think they are here on a mission trip kinda thing…the friend on the phone was also a monk and asked me if I was interested in Buddhism. I told him that I was interested in it as a religion, but that I wasn’t really looking to become Buddhist or anything.

The head monk that I was talking to got pretty excited talking with me, and asked me for my email address. He gave me his card. (He said, “I’ll give you my person card.” “Business card?” I asked. He said, “No, not a business!” We had a laugh about that.) Then I asked again if I could take a picture for them, so I did, and asked if I could take a picture for myself. I did, a few of them left, and the remaining two of them and I continued to talk.

SO awesome!

After a little while I said that I had to leave, and they wanted picture of each of them with me! I took pictures with them, then asked a tourist if he could take a picture of us. It was awesome! They had alright English, it surprised me!

One of my favorite pics as of yet. Nicest guys EVER!

I tried to be careful so that they didn’t think I thought they were weird or ‘the other’ by wanting to take a picture of them. I hoped they didn’t think that, but in their group shot it kinda looks like they weren’t too pumped about it. Or maybe they just don’t smile in photographs, that might be it…

Oh, and Dulce txted me back at around 5:50, while I was in the gardens, to say that we should chill, but she was going out with her flatmates at 7. I told her we should reschedule for Sunday. I’m glad the way the day went, I had a great time, made some new Monk friends, and had fun photographing! A successful day! (as you can see, its up and down! haha) Alright, I’m gonna turn in the keyboard for the nite…

P.S. This post took FOREVER…you’d better enjoy it!

LATER EDITION–Apparently, according to Wikipedia, those are Grey-headed flying foxes, a type of bat, and are a threatened species, level vulnerable (highest threatened level). Read more about them here. I found it quite fascinating.