G’day mate! I hope you’ve missed me 🙂 It’s been a while since I’ve written about my travels but I have not stopped traveling! I still can’t believe I was able to squeeze in a personal trip right between 3 other business trips but I’ve made it! Dozens of flights and repeated destinations later, I finally visited a new country this year!
Last year I did Germany and UK which were both very nice but it’s nothing compared to this time because I’m stepping foot into a whole new continent too! It’s been a pretty short trip for 2 amazing cities but I think I made a good call to focus on the city and save the outskirt day trips for another time. I got to see everything I wanted to see, and everyone I wanted to meet 🙂
9 hours later, I landed into Sydney with a clear blue sky and big fluffy white clouds. I have probably taken 500 more photos than I need but I simply couldn’t get enough of these gorgeous cities. Yes! It’s just starting to get warm down south and the weather just couldn’t get any lovelier.
Everything seemed pretty central so I ended up walking 30 mins to places without realizing all these short walks add up to 6-8 hours of walking daily. My legs are still sore as I write this but it’s just hard to resist when the sun is being so welcoming and the wind so gentle (the expensive transportation costs is a big push factor too of course).
1788, prisons were starting to get crowded in London so basically this city started off as London’s offshore jail! Even until the early 1800s, 75% of the population are convicts! They also relied on food coming from London every few months so life was very tough. The prisoners who got exiled weren’t even deadly villains, but rather guys who stole horses and girls who shoplifted hair brushes who get sent off all the way to Australia on a 6 months journey by the sea.
Over 1000 convicts would get shipped off at a time but since the businessmen get paid up front, the money always get spent on prostitutes (for themselves of course) instead of basic supplies for the convicts. By the time these ships get to New South Wales, only 10% of the prisoners would still be in heathy conditions. I think my 10 hour flight wasn’t so bad given that 200 years ago people had to travel 6 months with no clean water and food crammed in a ship with half of your buddies dead on the way there.
Lucky for the ones that actually gets here, they can roam around the city freely! Because a) it’s an isolated island so you can’t escape to anywhere b) you either get killed by poisonous snakes, crocodiles, weird beasts, gets drowned or all of the above if you’re unlucky c) everyone’s a criminal so locking everyone up won’t even make a difference anyway. So these convicts were mostly building a life around this hilly area called the Rocks.
Back then the gender ratio between convicts was about 4 guys : 1 girl. I mean heck if I was a Londoner back then single at mid 30s, I’d steal a few breads just to get shipped off here considering how cute the guys are 😉 😉 And just imagine, an entire city run by convicts, with alcohol and rum especially as the unofficial currency. Life must have been pretty fun back then. What’s most interesting of course were the crimes committed on this convict island!
After a few decades, Sydney also became a port where sailors would stop by. If you’ve seen Pirates of the Caribbean you’ll probably know sailors are good business! You can sell them food, drinks, shelter, clothes and of course, prostitutes! But you know what is most profitable? Don’t tell that I told you this, but stealing is a pretty decent business with no overheads and costs 😉 You can also sell these sailors! What happens is they go to bars and they were told the drinks are free!
Drink as much as you want. The next thing you know, you woke up in a dark room, found yourself chained or shackled on a rocking ship heading to god knows where or enslaved on the ship for eternity! Apparently, the bar owners would just place these drunkards in wheel barrels, roll them downhill and then directly load them onto ships. Oh what a easy and good business sailors were.
As the society developed, banks and courts were also established as part of the system. And when there are banks, there are robberies 😉 On a normal weekday, the bank opened up its vault for the usual check ups and saw a big hole on the wall while 20M AUD (in today’s value) was gone. The police (yes, there were police) snooped around to no avail. It wasn’t until a few years later, when the court sentenced a random William Blackstone to hanging did they get a tip on the case in exchange for lighter punishment. Turns out William and a few friends discovered the direct wall to the bank’s vault and simply dug for 3 Saturdays in a row to break through and got all the money! The police went out and arrested all these people BUT they were unable to convict them because the tip came from Willian who was a criminal. Back then, if you’re a convict, your words do not count in court! So they never recovered the money and these bank robbers just went free as a bird.
Speaking of birds, do you know that it is only in Sydney that you see these silly birds with long beaks (Ibis) roaming around, fighting for food with pigeons and sparrows? Imagine you’re a tiny sparrow from Sydney, sigh, your life is even tougher than if you were living in say Hong Kong. How do you get any food from the bin (British 😉 when your competitors get this unfair advantage of freakish long beaks!
Miss Tofu 