The Land Down Under!

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Well, I've touched down in the Land Down Under! So exciting to finally have made it here.
Jess and I flew into Sydney, which is a city I've always been looking forward to visiting. I'd had these romantic and exotic visions of a sparkling, beautiful, clean city full of beautiful people. Well, as it turns out, Sydney is anything but sparkling, beautiful, and clean (beautiful people - sure, though no more so than any other large city!). In fact, the first thing I saw was a huge layer of smog as we descended onto the airport runway - a layer that would rival what I see in L.A. on a regular basis. Ok, fine. But then we enter the subway system as we leave the airport and I'm shocked by how old, smelly, grungy, and nasty it is (although to be fair, the train system is HUGE and very convenient). We immediately headed down to the harbour and everything just seemed so... old, and dirty. Now, I prefer my cities to be beautiful, clean, new, and modern. I thought Sydney would be like this - anything but. Even the two major landmarks in Sydney - the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge - were underwhelming to me at first, as they are right beside each other and somehow seemed less impressive than I'd imagined (the bridge, especially - it's just another bridge, heavily used, with anti-suicide barbed wire barricades all along it). I guess I'd just set my expectations too high...
We only had 3 days in the city, which isn't a lot in a city the size of Sydney. There were a ton of sights to see and friends to meet up with - and of course, we wanted to find some time to experience some of the hedonistic delights that Sydney is so renowned for! The first day, as mentioned, we immediately headed to the harbour to check out the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Like I said, underwhelming initally, although the Opera House IS impressive. However, in general the downtown area just seemed so sterile and worn out, so we decided to head off to Bondi Beach to see another of Sydney's famous sights. Bondi is, although unbelievably touristy, gorgeous and worth the hype. The sand is like powder, the waves perfect (not too big, not too small), and the surrounding area is beautiful. I definitely would love to come surf on this beach in the Australian summer. The area around Bondi has a lot of funky shops and good pedestrian malls - a definite improvement over downtown. We had to head next to dinner at the hostel, as they were serving kangaroo beside the rooftop pool - don't judge me for eating a cute little 'roo, they're like deer here and are on many a menu. Anyways, it just tasted like tough beef - pretty boring! Jess was tired but I wasn't, so I headed out on the town for a bit of partying. I'd heard tons about the hedonistic Sydney party scene, and it was pretty good. Once people in the last bar I went to found out I was Canadian, I never bought another drink for myself that night, haha. That night ended up being rather late and messy, and I woke up with rather a number of phone numbers in my phone...oops.
The next day was my day to see my long-lost Aussie friend, Ashlyn. It was so awesome to see her after a few years!! She took us up into the Blue Mountains for the day. Unfortunately it was pouring and foggy, so the mountains were nowhere to be seen, but it was still a fun day of catching up and hanging out with a great old friend.
Our final day in Sydney just consisted of me doing some sightseeing and checking out various neighborhoods around the city. I checked out the pretty but touristy Darling Harbour, Hyde Park, the Botanic Gardens, and then headed out to the red-light district, Kings Cross. I'd read that Kings Cross was a sketchy area of 'drugs, crime, prostitution, and fun bars'. I read that as the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and I went expecting to fear for my life. Uhhh...pretty sure I felt safer in Kings Cross than anywhere else in Sydney. It's a totally nice area with shops and apartments - even some upmarket ones - and, OMG! a couple of strip bars. There were no hookers and blow to be found (darn!). In fact, I thought it was one of the nicest parts of Sydney... if that's their infamous redlight district, I was disappointed! I was asked by 2 people to spare some change... hell, in my neighborhood at home, which is possibly the trendiest in all of Canada, I get asked to spare change at least twice per block! Anyways, after that Jess and I met back up to go meet up with her friend Andy, and Ashlyn and her boyfriend also joined us. We had a few beers at a really nice pub in the Rocks district of Syd, and then Ashlyn took us up to the Elevation Bar at the ShangriLa which is 36 floors up and home to a 100,000 dollar drink (seriously). My old fashioned was thankfully only 21 bucks, but all the cocktails we had were phenomenally made and definitely gave me a few ideas for back home...
By the end of my few days in Sydney, I had fallen in love with spirit and the energy that emanates from it. Sydney is full of life! The people are great, the nightlife is great, the culture is great, the architecture is great... and maybe all of this changed my initial impressions of the city (ugly, dirty): Turns out Sydney is pretty, after all.
Next up - we head to the warmth of Northern Queensland! (Thank God - I've been colder in Auckland and Sydney than I ever was in Canada this winter)

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