March 4

Our World Cruise ended prematurely but this journey continues. We will stay in Sydney until March 7 then visit Connie’s best friend in Melbourne. We will fly back home on March 11.

Our plan was to visit a few historic sites today. On the ship, we attended several lectures about Australia history by Jill, a writer of 102 children books. We learned that modern Australia was first built by convicts from Britain. We visited the mint and the Barracks Museum, all built by convicts. Some of the convicts were sentenced to 7 years exile at age of 11-12 for stealing someone’s hat or chicken. It was pretty harsh punishment. We also visited the parliament of New South Wale (a state or province). Most westernized countries have open door government buildings. We like to visit them when we have a chance. It just reminds us how a free society, open government would be like. We also like to see churches on trips. We visited St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. Then it was time for lunch. We decided to go back to Taste of Shanghai again to have fried pork buns, rice cake and dale cake. It was a yummy lunch. After lunch, we paid a visit to Anzac War Memorial and the Museum of Sydney.

Crystal Serenity is leaving Sydney today. On the way to the Opera House, we took a few pictures of the ship to say goodbye. We picked the world cruise on Serenity based on an article from USA Today. However, after a 40-days journey with the ship, we felt a special connection with Crystal Serenity. There were more than 800 passengers on the ship - 327 of them were on the world cruise. Only 40 of them were first-time Crystal cruisers like us. We were considered young among the passengers - the average age on board seemed to be about 70 or higher. Many of them had been on a cruise many many times and some of them knew each other from previous cruises. We definitely felt strange or different among them at first, but by the end, we felt we had become one of them. We started to know some of them, having dinner together and touring together. We also promised to have dinner with a couple from Scottsdale together at their in-law’s restaurant when we got back to Phoenix. The passengers on board were easy to interact with and eager to share their stories about world travel. The crew on ship were also very friendly and helpful and after 40 days, got to know them more closely. We were disappointed to say goodbye to them prematurely. We liked the social aspect of the cruise but wish the population was younger.

Tonight, we watched Opera Carmen in the Opera House. The opera was Carmen in a modern setting. The tickets were not cheap, $170 each on the second floor but it was worth it.