What do kids do in their free time?

This picture shows just one of the things that kids in Sydney can do because there are bays and rivers and beaches to have fun in the water.

Do you have fun in the water where you live?

Sydney Town Hall

Sydney Town Hall is in the heart of the main street in Sydney (the street's name is George Street - named after King George).
This is a beautiful building which was built using the local sandstone which was quarried in Sydney. Many of the older buildings were built using this beautiful golden sandstone. It is called Hawkesbury Sandstone.

Does your town have old buildings made from locally available materials?

Public transport

Sydney has a public train system that links Bondi Junction (just near Bondi Beach on the eastern edge of Sydney) right through to the outer western suburbs and the Blue Mountains. It also stretches from the Central Coast, north of Sydney, through to Wollongong in the south. It is a complicated network of train lines both above and below ground. These pictures show the entrance to the rail network at the Town Hall Station in the heart of the business district in Sydney.

Do you have a train network in your town?

P.S. I didn't get a photo of the train but I will try to soon and add it to this post.

Year of the Rabbit

Sydney is a multicultural city. There are people from all around the world who now call Sydney home. There is a large Chinese population so Chinese New Year is a very important festival here. This year will be the Year of the Rabbit and Sydney is getting ready for all the fun of celebrating the lunar new year.

Does your city have different cultural events that you celebrate together?

Woolworths stores

Do you have Woolworths where you live?

Walk - Don't Walk



Don't Walk



Walk



Are these guys the same on your street signs?

Street numbers

This is a picture of the sign for Castlereagh Street in the centre of Sydney. Notice the street numbers. In Australia our street numbers are always quite small. Whenever the numbers get too big, we start again! So there are some really long roads that have houses or businesses that have the same number but they will be in different suburbs. So you need to be careful to know exactly where you are!

Do you have a really big number for where you live?

Statues of kings and queens

When Sydney was first being planned and expanded into a modern city, Queen Victoria was the Queen of England.
Why do you think there would be a statue of her in the heart of Sydney, opposite the Town Hall?

Public phones

Although it is getting more and more difficult to find a public phone (because so many people use mobile phones), there are still a few around the shopping areas of Sydney. This one is on the Town Hall train station - probably for when people who are running late from work and they need to call home to tell their family to hold dinner!

Do you still have public phones?

No smoking!

In many public places in Sydney it is no longer possible to smoke cigarettes. This includes public transport like trains and train stations, buses, taxis, and even restaurants and other places where people gather to have fun. The NSW parliament has passed legislation to protect its citizens from the health effects of passive smoking. Do you have those laws too?

Anyone for a sandwich?

We have Subway restaurants - do you?

Taking out the garbage!

This is a picture of a group of garbage bins waiting in the street for collection by the garbage truck.

Would you call them something different?

Pedestrians Beware!

When you step off the gutter (which is what Australians call the kerb) you have to look RIGHT so you don't get hit by the traffic.

Is that different where you live?

Here's a picture of the traffic:

Can you see which side of the road the cars are travelling on?

The postal service

We call these letter boxes. If you want to post a letter you have to put it in a letterbox in the street (or at the Post Office). The red ones are for normal postage and the yellow ones are for Express Post. Express Post envelopes are special and are designed to guarantee overnight delivery to most major centres in New South Wales overnight. Of course, there are some country towns that you just can't get to that quickly so you might as well save your money and send things there using normal postage!

How is your postal service different?

A trip to Macca's

A visit to MacDonalds and (after asking the Manager's permission) we took a couple of photos of parts of the menu.

Are there any differences between Macdonalds in Australia and other countries?

Things that are the same and things that are different...

This blog is designed to give a window into Australia. It was established to help a class in California, USA explore things that are the same and things that are different. The images are just meant as stimuli for discussion - they may be the same and they may be different, it is up to the viewer to decide!