This New Years Eve saw my husband and I on a ‘staycation’ in the city due to COVID. With holidays overseas or even interstate having become somewhat a thing of the past, we decided to tour the city for three days.  However, I long for the day, when I can snap myself into a seatbelt and hear those sweet words ‘This is your Captain speaking"

As is the trend with a staycation, we became tourists and ventured to all the sites. One-stop along the way was Madame Tussauds Wax Museum so that we could get up close with the figurines. Except for the sheer physical enormity of the Chinese basketballer, Yao Ming, I was a little underwhelmed with those that society looks up to (excuse the pun).  It made me think ‘why does culture idolise these people, the values they hold and the things they represent?’ These people, and how culture puts them on a pedestal, eclipses us from the real things in life. Heroes embody what people value and believe.

We met a wonderful Russian American woman while looking around the new Crown Casino building on this ’staycation’. Admittedly, her job as the hotel’s concierge was to assist with customer needs; however, our encounter with her was personal, friendly, and warm.

Or the small chit-chat with a man on the ferry taking his three Dalmatian dogs, Jax, Tassie and Ralf on a trip to the dog beach. This man had taught Tassie to smile and proudly gave us a demonstration of her abilities. Our encounter with Jax was love at first back scratch; however, Ralf was a little more aloof, preferring to get to know us before sharing his canine affections with strangers.

For us, even comparing restaurants was eye-opening. Our first-night dining was five star, at a restaurant with a ‘name’. The restaurant experience rested on its name and was underwhelming to say the least. Compared to a tiny place not so far away, struggling to keep the doors open in the pandemic.  The food was great, the staff engaging and service superb.

Real heroes are not those on celluloid or in the public eye, who get paid ridiculous sums for what they do. Idols today in culture eclipse us of seeing the real stuff of life.

A real hero is a woman who does her job to the utmost, the staff of a little restaurant trying to keep the doors open and make ends meet, or a man on the ferry and his kind conversation with his sidekick dogs dishing out some loving (like only dogs can do).

Real heroes and their stories can cross over cultural boundaries and understand that people matter.