A Sunday walk in the domain

Discussing about life, a friend shared that 10 years is 3,650 days. Does not sound like much. This is how I am spending one day.

It is Sunday morning and I am walking through the Botanic Gardens and the domain, heading for Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair. Named after the wife of a Governor of New South Wales, it is a ledge carved out of a rock occupying a prominent point in the domain. It was where the governor’s wife would sit and admire beautiful Sydney Harbour.

I wonder how the view is?

Today is not exactly Sydney’s best autumn weather. It is wet and overcast. The gloomy weather will hang around for another 5 days. After two years of really dry weather, drought and water rationing, I have not heard anybody complain about the many wet days we have had this year.

I arrived to see a few people holding some banners. A Free Tibet protest? No. A pro-China protest? No. The banners say “Banish the Chinese Communist Party - Free China”. Surprise of the day.

If Mrs. Macquarie were sitting here today, what would she see? A JetCat ferrying people to Manly, “a thousand miles from care”, people scaling the Harbour Bridge even in wet weather, joggers running to a longer life, a QANTAS jet in the distance, a lone fisherman increasing his chances with three rods, and scores of Chinese tourists. A snapshot of life – commerce, leisure and pleasure.

I have read another version of the Chair. The story goes that Mrs. Macquarie would sit there to longingly wait for her husband’s return when he went for a business trip to England. It must have taken him about a year or two to make a return trip to England in 1816. These days, the QANTAS flight takes about 24 hours each way.

Time has changed, even though 10 years is still 3,650 days. It may not seem much. Consolation - we can actually do more in 3,650 days than in Mrs. Macquarie’s time.

Now where am I? O.k. how’s the view of the Sydney from this angle? I also wonder if we look at our own life from a different perspective, will we appreciate it more?

The Sydney harbour and skyline look great. Sydney is beautiful, no matter from what angle, what season, and what weather.

Wouldn’t it be nice if life is like that – no matter what season of life, and how rough the going is, and from what perspective, we can still say it is beautiful?