Darling Harbour and Paddy's Market

A couple of weeks ago we wandered by a playground under construction. We all pressed our noses up against the construction fence and wished for opening day. The grand opening was last Saturday, so we headed for it first thing on Wednesday. It's hard to tell the scale of this net structure, but this is about as high as Daniel and Molly were willing to go - the ropes got far apart and they were WAY off the ground. About an hour later, it was so jam packed with kids you could barely see the sky through the ropes!
The best part was this water park. Daniel and Molly are on their way up to the pumps at the top of the hill - that send the water through these trenches. It's filled with dams you can lift and gates to shift the water patterns and these random screws and wheels that send the water all different ways. I thought how easy it would be to have one of these in East Lansing, until I thought about the winter months...




The Chinese Garden is next to the playground, so we checked those out too. Free for kids during school holidays - bonus! They were cool to see in the middle of the city - with good explanations of the symbolism in the water, sculpture and rock formations. We first thought some of the resident lizards were sculptures...

Do the rocks look like sea dragons?

Finally, a few photos from Paddy's Market, where we almost feel like regulars. There are loads of cheap Australia souvenirs, of which we're now the proud owners. I was looking for some local sports jerseys and only happened upon a Steeler windbreaker and a complete assortment of NFL, NBA and NBA jerseys. Go figure.
On the food side, we found bananas for only $3.63/pound! So, we took a picture and dreamed of letting an entire bunch turn brown on our East Lansing counter!