I decided to behave like a real tourist on my days off from work and started with the Museum of Sydney, the latest Museum in the city, designed by Richard Johnson. It was built on the site of first Australia's Government House in 1788 as a home and office for the colony’s Governor, Arthur Phillip.
Edge of the Trees in front of the museum symbolizes the first encounter between the Cadigal people (native Australians) and the First Fleet which brought british colonisers.
There were plenty of old pictures and city plans, from the times before the city flourished and totally changed. Very interactive, with plenty of remains of old things, photographs, models of the First Fleet Ships and videos plus temporary exhibitions: Lost Gardens showing Sydney's gardening heritage and Swinging Sydney, by David Mist, british photographer who witnessed the changes in lifestyle of late 1960s Sydney.
Searching for a perfect, harmoious shape for the Sydney Opera House, which is not white at all ! It is covered with thousands of light green triangular tiles !According to the information provided by the Museum, Sydney's population increased ninefold within last hundred years, from 0,5 mln to 4,5 mln people. Not suprisingly half a million is Asians and 1/3 of the Sydney's population was born overseas !
Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people suffered similarily to native Americans. Museum brings that back, reminding who was here first.
The quotation that caught my attention:
"There were only two classes of persons in New South Wales - those who had been convicted and those who ought to have been so".
The wall of imported things: most of the things, unnknown to aboriginal people were brought to Australia from many different countries by immigrants.
Observing Sydney, I see that it was created out of the best of different countries, that's why it is so rich in culture and many different tastes.
