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Chinatown, Paddy’s Market and Oceanworld/Manly
I had to buy Christmas presents and vegetables, therefore I decided to visit one of the attractions of Sydney, the Paddy’s Market. This market is located in a large building, close to
Chinatown.
On the first three floors are warehouse outlet stores located. The market is situated in the basement of the building. Paddy’s Market is opened Thursday to Sundays from 9am – 5pm. The great
range of goods included vegetables, clothes or souvenirs. Most of the shop owners were Asians, and it felt like as I was back on one of the markets in Thailand or  Laos. In addition to the flair of these markets, they all have one thing in common: you
can get everything to reasonable cheap prices.
You could easily spend half a day in Paddy’s Market, but after I fought my way through the small and crowded alleys, I wanted to visit the nearby Chinatown.
Supermarkets, Souvenirshops and Internet Cafes were lined up there. The Souvenirshops were packed with cheesy and pink souvenirs, and in the background played typical South East Asian music.
The restaurants offered typical (jummy) and cheap Asian food. The Internet cafes were a story for themselves! Numerous kids played war games, of course with deafening sound volume, and it  felt like back in Vietnam during the Tet offensive. One Internet café was
even designed with a camouflage net!
In one of the Supermarkets you could get every special ingredient to cook typical Asian food, there I found also Aga-Aga.
For all asking “What the hell is Aga-Aga?”, let me explain: Aga-Aga is neither a spice related to Cannabis, neither it is an aphrodisiac, it is just eglantine. Simple, isn’t it?
Sunday the weather didn’t seem to clear. Therefore I decided to visit the Oceanworld Aquarium in Manly. For that I had to take the ferry from the Circular
Quay towards Manly. After we had passed the world famous Opera House, it took another 30 minutes, before the ferry arrived at Manly wharf.
It was only 5 minutes by foot, from there to Oceanworld. However, I did it in fewer minutes, because the dark grey sky opened already its gates again, and it poured down.
Oceanworld is a little smaller than the aquarium in Sydney but not less interesting! In a small aquarium, with anemones and snails, children could experience and feel the
underwaterworld. All this happened of course with deafening noise and running around and I would have been more than thankful to help the loudest kid to experience the underwaterworld in holding her head under water!
On the first floor I saw fishes from Australian waters, like stonefishes, seahorses and even a crocodile! After that I went down to the sharks.
The shark aquarium was very impressive: you walk through a
clear glass tube and the sharks swim above or beside you. If you were willing to pay you also could dive in the Aquarium with the sharks, but that wasn’t that cheap, of course!
After the tube, an exhibition told about the history of the sharks, and you could see the huge jaws and teeth of a special type of shark. It was very interesting, but I wasn’t keen to see them alive from that distance again! The jaw from a
shark is very interesting, because they have a couple of teeth behind each one. So if one breaks off on a though body or a surfboard, the next one just flips forward. 
Nevertheless, they are very impressive and interesting animals!
After visiting the sharks, I went up to the second floor to see a few terrariums, where the most poisonous animals of Australia were issued. Beside Red Back spiders were also terrariums with
Brown Snakes, Taipans and other high poisonous snakes. But you could also see grasshoppers and beetles.
When the rain diminished then, I took the ferry back to the
Circular Quay. On the way, the sky cleared up and I could see the evening sun, which sank behind Sydney’s skyline.
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