transport – dangermouse.net

Trying the new ferry wharf

I’ve probably mentioned that the nearest ferry wharf, at Greenwich Point, has been under reconstruction for the past six months, and recently reopened just before Christmas. With ferry services resumed from a place within walking distance of home, we can now do excursions on public transport with Scully again. So today we took the opportunity to try out the brand new wharf and take a trip across the Harbour to Balmain.

The new wharf is pretty spiffy, better than the old one. Here’s the old one (last year):

And here’s the new one today:

Over in Balmain we walked up and down the main street. My wife stopped for an iced coffee because it was a bit warm (28°C), and then we walked a bit further before deciding on a place for lunch. We stopped at Shila Kitchen, a Persian restaurant, where we had a variety of mezze dishes.

That’s not all of them – we also had a spinach and feta borek pastry, which I forgot to take a photo of. It was a delicious lunch and a great day out. Afterwards we walked back to Balmain wharf, stopping to browse a couple of book shops along the way, and caught a ferry back home. Scully was tired after the day out!

New content today:

My first second university coursework lecture!

Today I gave my ~~first~~ second lecture of regular coursework for a university course, as I’ve mentioned preparing for over the last few days. The professor had an important meeting and asked me to give the lecture for him. I’ve done “guest lectures” before for this image processing course, during the project work period, on topics that weren’t strictly covered by the course, but this is the ~~first~~ second lecture I’ve done that was actual course material. (Edited after the professor reminded me I in fact did one last year!)

In the morning I did a couple of critical thinking classes. Then I had to get ready for the trip to the university. I would normally leave at 12:30 and walk Scully down to my wife’s work to drop off there and then catch a train in. But I ran out of some ingredients for my usual home lunch fixings (falafels and tortilla wraps), so I decided to walk up to the shops and get some sushi. I didn’t really have time to walk back home again so we went straight from there to my wife’s work and arrived a little early.

After dropping Scully off, I rode on the new Metro train from there in to the university. This train line only opened on Monday, and it’s a significant change from the style of train lines Sydney has always had. Our old train network is heavily interlinked, with many lines diverging and converging, so the train traffic has to be carefully regulated to avoid collisions between trains on different lines merging into one. The Metro is designed on the principle of a single line with no branches or merges, so the trains can run more frequently and faster while still being safe. From my place to Central Station (the closest station to the university) takes 16 minutes on the old line, but only 12 on the new Metro line.

Being a brand new rail line, the stations are gorgeous and clean, with impressive architecture. Here are some photos: Victoria Cross Station.

I arrived in good time for my lecture. It was about image processing operations like binary morphology, cross-correlation, segmentation, and so on. It’s material I know pretty well and the lecture went smoothly. I made sure to try and give context and motivation for every algorithm that I covered, and explain it in simple terms. Afterwards, a couple of students came up and told me they enjoyed the lecture and thought I explained things well. So that was good!

And another Metro photo: Central Station, on the way back home:

Tonight for dinner I made lemon pasta with broccolini, garlic, black pepper, and Parmigiano Reggiano. I used a fresh lemon that I picked up for free from a crate of lemons out the front of someone’s place. Presumably they have a lemon tree out the back and had ridiculous numbers of lemons so wanted to give them away. It was super juicy and the pasta turned out delicious.

I’d use fresh lemons more, but I always feel like paying $1 or whatever for a lemon from a supermarket is bad. It just fells like lemons are a thing that should be free.

New content today:

A new Metro line

Today was a big day here in Sydney. The new Sydney Metro line opened, connecting suburbs in the north through the city centre to suburbs in the south. It’s the first train line to run underneath Sydney Harbour. And one of the new stations is walking distance from my home!

I didn’t actually ride on the Metro today, but I will be using the new line for the first time on Thursday when I go into the university to do my image processing lecture. My wife’s work is right across the street from another of the new stations, and I can hop on there very conveniently after dropping off Scully at her work. The new line takes me to Central station where I normally get off.

One of my friends spent time today riding the new train and taking photos of all the new stations. It’s pretty big news here and there were thousands of people keen to try out the service. Hopefully by Thursday it will have calmed down a little!

For me it was a day of finishing off the Video Games topic in my ethics classes, with 6 classes during the day. I also started work on the next week’s topic, which is “Sayings”. We’re going to examine a bunch of English sayings, work out their figurative meanings, and discuss if they are sensible or bad advice.

New content today:

A mess of a morning

Normally I take Scully (my poodle, if you’re new here) for a quick 10 minute walk around the block just before my wife leaves for work, to prevent Scully crying when my wife leaves. This morning Scully got up a bit late and I needed to take her out for her toilet about 30 minutes before my wife left for work, so I decided I’d take her on a long walk to Naremburn, and sit at the bakery there and get a croissant or something for second breakfast before coming home.

I took Scully downstairs, realised I’d forgotten my phone, but thought, “Oh well, I’m not going back upstairs just to get that, no biggie.” After Scully did her toilet, I walked with her to Naremburn. All the way I was looking forward to sitting down and having that croissant or whatever. But when I got there I realised that since I didn’t have my phone I couldn’t buy anything! (I’ve taken to using Apple Wallet to pay for things, and basically haven’t carried my physical wallet/credit cards/cash since COVID restrictions began in 2020.)

So we turned around and walked home. When I got to the front door, I realised I had also forgotten to take keys! So no phone, no keys… the only thing I could do was walk with Scully all the way to my wife’s work at North Sydney and get keys off her. I didn’t finally get home until nearly 10:00. And since I expected to be home before 8:30, I didn’t put any sunscreen on, and it was a hot sunny morning.

I thought my woes were over, but no! After lunch I went to the post office to pick up a package that was awaiting collection. I got there and because it’s December there was a huge queue. 20 people or so. I joined the end. The queue progressed super slowly because everyone was sending multiple Christmas packages. Eventually I was about halfway down the queue, and I spotted a sign saying “Parcel collection” with an arrow pointing out to the hallway. I figured I’d been standing here for 10 minutes when I could have gone straight to the parcel collection point!

So I left the queue and went out there, around the corner in the hallway and saw the parcel collection window… shuttered up, with a sign saying “After 9am, collect parcels from the main service counter”. So I had to go back in, and of course now the queue had grown even longer, and none of the people who were behind me a few seconds ago showed any inclination to let me back in. So I had to go to the back of the queue again.

15 minutes later, I was the next waiting to be served. An employee appeared out of a side door and said, “Anyone just collecting parcels?” A few people behind me raised their hands, and so did I. As the next to be served, I went first, leaving the others in the queue, and gave her my package delivery card. She took it and disappeared back through the door. Then while I was waiting, the service counter called the next three people, and they all got their packages before the woman reappeared with mine! Aiiieee!

In other news, while heading to the post office I walked past the new underground Metro station that is being built at Crows Nest. It’s been a construction zone for a long time and as the building has gone up above the underground station it’s been shrouded in scaffolding and screens. But now part of it is being peeled away, giving us our first look at the station access building.

Well. It’s not exactly what I’d call pretty.

I assumed the building above the station would be shops at ground level and offices with windows above. But it looks like a big bland wall of bricks, probably hiding a bunch of air conditioning plant or whatever else they need to keep an underground train station habitable.

Lest the day be nothing but negativity, I’m pleased to report that my lingering jet lag symptoms seem to have passed fully away, and I’ve been getting decent sleeps the past couple of nights. Oh, and the package I picked up was an American food care package from a friend, in time for Christmas. It contained a bunch of American sweets that are either impossible to get or super expensive here in Australia, as well as a big bottle of maple syrup, which is definitely super expensive here. So that was good!

New content today:

Getting stuck into that comics batch

That’s pretty much what I did today: Worked on the next batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips.

I started with the photography first thing in the morning after breakfast. That took me up to close to lunch time, when I took a break to go out for a walk and get a tandoori chicken pie for lunch. After lunch I started work on assembling the comics in Photoshop. I’m about halfway through that task.

I did take another break to take Scully to the park for some exercise and play with other dogs. While there I noticed some construction/drilling work being done at two sites in the dog park. The regulars told me that this was the beginning of exploratory drilling for construction of the new Western Harbour Tunnel road project, which was approved just a few weeks ago.

The new harbour tunnel will pass directly below the dog park, and there’ll be construction sites and stuff interfering with the park for the next six years. We may even lose part of the dog park permanently – that’s not clear yet.

The annoying thing is that Sydney’s road infrastructure is being expanded at a rapid rate in a misguided effort to “reduce congestion” – when adding roads merely induces demand to the point where congestion is just as bad as before. All the city planners and traffic planners know this, but the NSW Government keeps building more roads anyway, because the drivers/voters demand it. Ugh.

New content today: