Thank you all for your amazing tips, tricks and concern re my puff, my favourite remedy that of rubbing tomatoes on my person to alleviate the sunburn. The overdosing on antihistamines has done the trick. I no longer look as though I am gunning to replace either the Gerber Baby or the Michelin Man.

My skin is also no longer lobster red, but rather almond. This morning, I peeled off my forehead (yum!) as I worked. Honestly, at the risk of taunting skin cancer, my burnt off and peeled skin has given way to new baby smooth skin.

And FYI: I am now clinically terrified of the sun. Like, I see the sunshine and experience an immediate gag reflex when considering the recent pain of my sunburn. All I can think is once reading that the most painful way to die is to be burnt alive. (Hi there, Gag Reflex.)

Enough about this, and back to Sydney. After work today, I enjoyed an early evening stroll along both George and Pitt streets (with umbrella and dodging the sun’s rays, performing wild zigzags across streets to hide behind shade). There is a portion of Pitt St which is for pedestrians only and it is filled with live musicians; strong rec that you stop in if in Sydney, and find the drummer. Follow the beat to be mesmerised. I have taken a short video which I will upload upon my return home.

Every single person – including toddlers and premie babies – in Australia engages in happy hour / after work drinking. All pubs and restos past which I ran (with my umbrella) were overflowing with folks enjoying a drink. Why have we classified the poor Irish as drunks, when clearly, it’s the Aussies who will run over their grandmother for a pint?

Maybe this is why I have dubbed them the nicest people on earth…that they are drunk?

No matter. What matters is tonight I watched a performance of Carmen at the Sydney Opera House, and was afforded the opportunity to learn one very critical bit of info about myself: I do not like opera. Nor do I like live theatre which is being surtitled on a jumbotron above the stage.

However, I do love it when a man and a woman opera at the same time and overlap. There’s an official word for this, but I don’t care enough to Google, and so have decided that opera is now a verb. Honestly, if one of the genders rang through a “kaakaa” while the other boomed a “poopoo” into my ears, I (a) wouldn’t understand what they were opera-ing; and, (b) would love it.

Tomorrow: more sun dodging and Saturday travel to Taipei for the last leg of this trip.

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