Walking to the Sydney Opera House

2015-05-23 · Updated: 2026-08-11 · Original (Korean)

This article was translated from the original Korean post with AI assistance. Read the original Korean post →

Saturday morning. I was supposed to sleep in a bit and head out to explore Sydney feeling refreshed, but my head is pounding from drinking heavily with Manager Yang yesterday. We drank so late, losing track of time, that we missed the last train. When we first started drinking, he asked if he could crash at my place, but I didn't think he'd actually sleep over. Anyway, for one reason or another, we all ended up sleeping in the same room. Since Manager Yang is older, I gave him the bed and slept on the floor, only to wake up to my back screaming and cracking. At this point, I'm more worried about whether I can actually walk around all day than my aching body. Ah... I really should have taken it easy on the alcohol.

After finally pulling myself together, here is today's plan: In the morning, walk to the Opera House with Manager Yang's group, and in the afternoon, meet up with my friend Yong-wan, who lives in Sydney, to look around the city.

On our walk to the Opera House, we saw a park with a sign saying "Royal Botanic Gardens," so we decided to cut through it. (Since all three of us have terrible English, we had no idea it was actually a royal botanical garden until later.)

A white bird with a long beak walking on an asphalt road next to a lawn, alongside parked cars. — A bird with a long beak we saw on the way. In Seoul, you only ever see pigeons, but Sydney has such a variety of birds even though it's a city. The one thing they have in common with Seoul pigeons is that they don't fly away when you get close—they just walk away looking incredibly annoyed.

A walking path stretching through a green lawn with large trees.

A cityscape with various high-rise buildings lined up beyond a green lawn. — I've never seen such a vast expanse of grass in my life. I don't usually jog, but this place actually makes me want to run.

Art Gallery of New South Wales

People walking around a bronze equestrian statue in front of a classical stone building with pillars. — The Art Gallery of New South Wales, located inside the botanic gardens. The guys I was with, myself included, know absolutely nothing about art, so we just snapped a few quick photos.

The exterior wall of a classical stone building engraved with the names of famous painters and decorated with bronze reliefs. — The names of famous artists—ones even art novices would recognize—were written on the exterior walls. Some had artworks displayed below them, while others didn't. I don't care much for art, but I was curious about this, and I still don't know the reason.

A woman and a child walking past a giant bronze figure statue on a park lawn.

The entrance to the Art Gallery of New South Wales with colorful banners for a pop art exhibition hanging between the pillars. — It's probably a great spot for art lovers to visit, right? Though a novice like me definitely prefers the lawn.

Three dogs playing in the water of a shallow park fountain, and a man watching them.

Three dogs are playing in the water of a shallow stone fountain.

Since it's the weekend, there are lots of people walking their dogs in the park. People jogging with their dogs, people sunbathing on the grass with their dogs, and people laughing out loud while letting their dogs swim. Watching the dogs splash around frantically in the fountain automatically brings a warm, fatherly smile to my face. If I had a yard and a place to walk them, I'd love to live with big dogs like these. But in Seoul, where it's hard enough just to find a house for a human (and where neighbors will immediately file a noise complaint if a dog barks next door), it's nothing more than a pipe dream.