After church we headed out on the train to the one area I wanted to see from my mission. Church Street in Parramatta. This was my first area and my last area I served in and on Church street I spent a lot of time street contacting. Every morning in both these areas and a 3rd area close by that I served in we would head over to Church street and street contact. I taught a lot of first discussions in front of this Anglican church there and spent more time in this little shopping area than any other area on my mission. So it was fun to see it and see how it had changed a little. We ate lunch at the shopping center near by. We were going to head over to the temple but the Sunday train schedule didn't really line up right so we ended up not going there.
When we got back to Sydney we headed over and climbed the bridge...well ok we walked across the bridge. Ok we didn't walk across the whole thing but we walked out quite a ways to see the views, etc. :) Apparently someone told us a lot of people have a hard time finding how to get to the right place to walk across but we found it just fine.
We then walk to the whole other side of the harbour and walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens, Mrs. Macquarie's chair and Macquarie's point which has more great views of the Opera House and Bridge. We saw my favorite yellow crested cockatoo's and lorikeet birds there and although being tired from a lot of walking, the gardens were really pretty as well.
On our way home we walked though St. Mary's cathedral for part of a catholic mass and then headed to 'NoodleFest' that was going on in Hyde Park. We got some good chicken skewers but most the food was pretty over priced. On the way home we saw a red carpet event everyone was gathered around staring at. It was the Australia premiere of Blacksaw Ridge, a film by Russell Crowe, apparently he was there but we didn't see him.
Speaking of food...food tended to be more expensive than I remember it. But with the AUD to USD conversion I guess it was about the same or a touch more.
However, there was a lot of food I was looking forward to eating while I was there...so here's a few pictures of my favorite foods I ate while I was there. One thing to note, there is so much chinese food in Australia...I remember thinking I ate a lot of chinese take out on my mission but really didn't know how true that was until I went back and realized that every where you look there are 4-5 chinese take outs.
However, First and foremost of all my favorite foods to eat while I was there...mangoes. It was just the beginning of Mango season but I was not going to miss out...even if 1 mango cost almost $5.00 AUD...that's still about $4.00 US!! A lot for one piece of fruit...but seriously I LOVE the mangoes over there. I could eat several a day and never get sick of them. And the mangoes in the US taste nothing like the ones here, they are so delicious and juicy. My mouth is watering just typing this.
Other food I got to enjoy...Kebabs...not Kebobs and not the greek Kebabs you get here. They are made with a thin pita, kind of like a tortilla, chicken, beef or lamb and then lettuce, tomato and onion with a bunch of choices of sauces. Then they grill it in the pita bread to make it crispy. Yum
The one day it rained we stopped and got some yummy pumpkin soup which I had a ton of on my mission. I always was surprised how much I liked it and it was good once again. Although the warm bread roll served with it made the whole meal.
And then I introduced everyone else to Tim Tam slams. We did them a few nights we were there and they are always a delicious treat. Although we kept laughing at my parents who kept missing putting their Tim Tam in the hot chocolate far enough and missing the whole point.
I took a video of my dad and was laughing so hard I never got a picture.
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