The most arresting aspect of Sydney – it’s a lovely city and I have nothing against it or the beautiful people who inhabit it - is the fact that all shops and commercials establishments close at 5 PM. Yes, you read it right, 5 PM every day including weekends (actually they close earlier then) except Thursdays. I am not a great one for shopping or doing the tourist rounds – in fact, the only occasions when I went across the street to view the Eiffel Tower when I lived in Paris was those infrequent occasions when friends & relatives used to drop in and insist I show them the Eiffel Tower…actually, but my idea of a holiday is be in the midst of 10 million other human beings in Calcutta reading a good book and sipping the local hot brew in the day time munching on samosas or kachauris or drinking something a bit bitter later in the day… anyway more about my likes and dislikes later but about Sydney first before I digress once again.
This aberration in global terms at least of establishment owners finding places to drink rather than open one themelves leads to some peculiar problems for folks like us who have to earn an honest living by working till pretty late in the evening. When I come out at about 10 pm in the evening which is late by Sydney standards, I very often am the only person in the North Sydney suburb where I live and work when I am around. The biggest tragedy is that the bars close up at 10 (PM, not AM) leaving people like me search and scrounge around for places to get an honest bitter. Tough times folks.
More to come on Sydney…Interesting experience its been so far...
3 comments:
Ah well..for all the vagaries of life ..and I remember how some people used to crib that Chennai had no night life...Well Sydney -as a city ( as you narrate yourself) seems to encourage its denizens to maintain what we in common parlance call as "worklife balance"...the definitions of "work" and "life" are of course highly prone to subjectivity and the amount of "bitter" available on the table . Hope you are having a wonderful time !
Come one that can't be true...
that is not even true for Adelaide nowadays( pre-2003 adelaide maybe)
When I lived in Merrylands, Sydney 9 pm was closing time while most bars close at midnight or so... based on patronage...
Are you "thirdman" from ICF forum, cause I saw a similar post there about Australia... and had to make the same defence...
Where in Sydney are you put up???
By the way, Ram from Intersoft put me across to this blog...
Post a Comment