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2. Asians
3. Australasians
1995
4. Australasians
2001
5. Worlds 2000
was hosted at the University of Sydney (Camperdown and Darlington campus)
, and proved to be the largest gathering of students from Universities all
around the world ever. More than 100 Universities from 30 countries were
represented, with 204 teams battling it out every day of the tournament. The
tournament itself started on the 4th January, but I arrived with the four teams
from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) on the 2nd January evening
instead, and stayed for the next two evenings at budget lodgings, at A$30 per
head/evening. Alfred Park Accommodation (above) is situated along
Cleveland road, just a 20 minute walk from the University campus itself, and
about a 5 minute drive from the city itself. Even then, as I wrote, cab fares in
Sydney are criminally high, so even a short cab trip to the main city could cost
nearly A$10.
campus. This magnificent-looking building is what one sees upon driving into
the campus from the front gate . You can't really see it in this picture, but if
you were to stand with your back to this building and face outwards, you'll
have a completely unobstructed view of the Sydney city. Those blokes in the
picture are the debaters of the NTU delegation.
Victoria park if I remember right. The rather small picture I took here doesn't
do justice to it though... it looks much better than it does on print. The flowers
are in full bloom, and the ducks in the pond were about doing whatever ducks
do for their morning business when this picture was taken. :)
on the 3rd January. Cricket is indeed quite the national passion for Australia,
and the stadium was packed with tens of thousands of people. Interestingly,
rivalry is so intense between both teams that I read in the newspapers after
the match that the Indian players were heckled by the largely Australian
audience when they entered the stadium. I didn't really quite understand the
game very much, despite the best attempts by the Indian national debaters in
the NTU team to explain the rules and nuances to me, so left shortly at noon
for the first of my Sydney-City-Walking-Tours.
of Sydney city (see email again). That's the monorail that runs around the city
centre. I never got to try the monorail before I left the city though, but fares I
read are at A$2.50 or thereabouts. The amazing thing is that the monorail
track isn't very high off the street level- about 4- metres at the very maximum I
think, so it's really quite a sight to see the monorail car run just above you.
speaking about. It's very much like Orchard Road in Singapore, except that
it's a lot more pedestrian friendly. Orchard road is essentially a long road
running nearly a kilometre, with shopping malls on both sides of the road,
whereas Market Street in comparison is really a network of streets all crossing
each other, with shopping on all sides of it.
