Sydney II

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8th Feb: We arrived at Sydney airport in the afternoon after a short but turbulent flight from Hobart. There were a couple of highlights on the flight. First, the two blokes sitting behind us were slagging off Tasmania for being backward, I loved their comment as the pilot announced we were flying over Launnie that they were still surprised that it had an airport and that Hobart wasn't much better. They had me in stitches. Second was a child reacting badly to the turbulence. He was shouting, "Mummy, we are going to die!" Not being a fan of flying myself, I hear you kid, he was definitely voicing my own thoughts. We took the metro into the city. That was quick, but expensive $16 for a 16 minute journey, thieves! Our hostel was a short walk from Central Station on Pitt Street. It was opposite the hostel I had stayed at last time. All I can say is, if you are ever contemplating staying at Maze Backpackers don't. No free wifi, I still don't get that places want to charge you for it in this day and age, extremely hot rooms which the fan did little to compensate for and grotty old bathrooms. Needless to say we dumped our stuff and headed straight out.

Our first port of call was finding one of those epic doughnut shops that we had visited in Melbourne. We were in luck, there was one just up the road from us. We had a hard time picking just two doughnuts when we (well definitely me) wanted to sample them all. In the end we plumped for the Milo Cyrus, which was a big chocolatey, malty delight and the Life on Mars, which has chocolate, caramel and, of course, pieces of Mars bar. We headed down to the harbour, it was busy with tourists and the after work crowd. We found a bench to sit and eat our doughnuts on. They were delicious although I was attacked once by a seagull, the effing cretin. Those birds along with pigeons should be shot. It was nice to sit by the harbour and people watch. This place was buzzing and a big cruise ship had also docked. Those ships are beasts. After our doughnuts, we took a walk around this side of the harbour. There were some statues set up for lunar new year of all the different animals of the zodiac, so we took some pictures of them. I really liked the rabbits doing tai chi under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We spent a while waking around this area. It was nice, when I had visited Sydney before the weather had been pretty bad, so I hadn't ventured this far along. After walking along this side of the harbour, we headed back to walk along the other side. This side was a lot busier, as it leads to the Sydney Opera House. I am not too enamoured with that building, it may be iconic, but I think it is bloody ugly. However, I would like to go and see a show of some kind there, so I can say I've actually been inside. There were a couple of nice looking outdoor bars, which if I wasn't a scruffy backpacker, I would have liked to visit.

For dinner we headed to a sushi place just across from the harbour in one of the fancy office buildings. The place was called Hero Sushi Train. I love a good sushi train and this place was pretty cheap. We got stuck into a few plates. I was gutted that we had to pay for green tea, that would never happen in Asia. Also, bloody old people are so rude, pushing in ahead of us in the queue to pay. There was one more food place left, I had to try Gelato Messina. Luckily, there was one in the building where we had eaten dinner. I can't remember what I ordered, but it was good. I'm not the biggest ice cream/gelato (I don't know what the difference is) fan, but this was tasty. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around Sydney.

9th Feb: We were up early in the morning as we had a breakfast reservation for 8 am at Bills. Since discovering the restaurant Bills, in Korea, I have been a huge fan. This would be the third country I had been to one of their restaurants in. There are a few locations around Sydney and we decided on the one where it all began, the original restaurant in Darlinghurst. It took us about 20-30 minutes to walk there, luckily it was pretty much in a straight line, so no chance of us getting lost. Yay! I was excited the original Bills. The restaurant wasn't too busy when we arrived, since it was a weekday a reservation probably wasn't necessary. I ordered my favourite, the 'Fresh Aussie', and a coffee and a juice. I am a total glutton, but I wanted all my favourite things. My coffee came first and it was nice to get some caffeine injected into my system since we'd had an early start. I would have had another coffee, but it would have been pricey. Then my food and juice came. I had ordered the bills green, which is spinach, cucumber, green apple, ginger, celery, chia, and coconut water. I like it because it is refreshing and not sweet. My 'Fresh Aussie' breakfast was delicious. I love everything on it; smoked salmon, avocado, kale and poached eggs. I could barely walk leaving the restaurant, I was so full. Bills needs to open a place in China and preferably in the city I live in, not the big places like Beijing or Shanghai.

We decided to go for a walk around since it was a lovely day and still earlyish, therefore not too hot. We headed down to King's Cross, which has a bit of a reputation for being sketchy as it is home to the red light district and lots of bars. It is also a bit of a mecca for backpackers as there is a few hostels in the area. Since we were there in the daylight hours, it seemed pretty tame, maybe I will re-visit at night one day to see what it is like then. We walked along the main street coming to the El Alamein memorial fountain.The fountain was built in 1961 as a memorial to the soldiers who died in 1942 during the two battles that took place in El Alamein in Egypt. We continued our walk past the navy base and into Woolloomooloo. What an awesome name! It is derived from the name of the first homestead in the area, Wollomooloo House. However, where John Palmer, the landowner got the name from is still up for debate. Several different Aboriginal words have been proposed; Wallamullah meaning a place of plenty, Wallabahmullah meaning a young black kangaroo, Wala-mala meaning an Aboriginal burial ground, or the pronunciation of the word windmill by Aborigines as there was one on view until the 1850s. This area used to be a working-class neighbourhood, but as undergone a lot of gentrification. There were sculpture displays and the apartments on the wharf looked pretty fancy. We headed up the path next to it, in the grassy parkland area. That was really nice. We passed a very nice looking outdoor swimming pool, too. After a bit of a walk we reached Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. The 'chair' is a sandstone rock, which was cut into the shape of a bench by convicts in 1810. It was made for the then Governor of New South Wales, Major-General Lachlan Macquarie's wife, Elizabeth. Local legend goes that she used to sit on the rock and watch for ships sailing into the harbour. The views were really gorgeous. I could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. The water was busy with the local ferries to-ing and fro-ing to their destinations. We also saw a giant cruise ship making its way into the harbour. We also spent a while observing the Chinese tour groups that were visiting Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. There were quite a few tour groups coming and going and there were some Falun Gong members trying to spread their gospel. It was funny watching the Chinese trying to avoid these nicely dressed old ladies. We continued our walk and the view just got better. To be honest, I wasn't really impressed with Sydney when I visited many, many years ago. But this time round have enjoyed it a bit more. I really liked the view of the city skyline that we got. Is it wrong that I prefer this view to that of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge? Probably, but I don't care. Our walk continued into the Botanical Gardens. I would really like to go back there and do one of the tours that we saw advertised.

We had spent too long in the sun, so we headed back to the hostel for a rest. My friend wasn't feeling too good from all the heat,so the afternoon was spent resting. We very briefly ventured out, but soon returned to take it easy. It would have been nice if the room had been cooler. It wasn't until evening time that we decided to go out properly. My friend was feeling slightly better and I was hungry by this point. There was a food court type of thing in one of the malls close by so we headed there. There was a Mexican place that looked good. So we decided to eat there, however, my friend wasn't feeling up to food, but I was hungry as always. It was in the basement kinda indoor/outdoor food court of one of the many malls in this area. I think the place we ate at was called Guzman y Gomez. It was kinda like classy fast food. You ordered at the counter, I think the food was brought to your table though. They served alcohol, too, not that we imbibed. I ordered some plain nachos with some salsa on the side, which were nice. I also got a pan seared Barramundi burrito, which was really good. I am a sucker for extras when it comes to burritos, I always say yes to more guac/avocado an sour cream. After dinner, we took a little wander through some of the side streets in this area of Sydney. I liked these small streets filled with cafes. bars and restaurants. We headed to Angel Place, where we saw the art installation, 'Forgotten Song' by Michael Thomas Hill. Strung up across the street, high in the air was lots of empty birdcages, I read online that there are 110. These birdcages play the songs f the 50 birds that lived in central Sydney before colonisation and urbanisation.

To end the night we decided to honour our time in Korea by heading for a spot of Noraebang. We went to Sydney noraebang, which wasn't too far from our hostel. Noraebang here is a bit different. When we got out of the lift, there was a security guard to greet us and we had to have our bags inspected to make sure we weren't bringing in any contraband. Not like Korea, where our bags are filled with booze to save some cash instead of buying the overpriced Noraebang drinks. Instead we had to buy beer here. We got one hour of singing time, but of course that wasn't enough and we ended up buying a second hour. We had so much fun, it was just like being back in Korea, especially when we could hear the drunken ajeosshis chuntering away in the corridor. Another difference here is that the security guard comes and escorts you from the room when your time is up. Well, we impressed someone with our singing, the security guard loved us, wanting to shake our hands and thanking us, for breaking up the monotony of his night, they mustn't get too many people in singing wall to wall western songs for two hours. The perfect end to a perfect trip!

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Photos

Sydney Harbour Bridge
and a giant cruise ship