Sydney: Third Time's a Charm

I've only been to Sydney twice before in my four years living Down Under, the first over Christmas 2012 and then a quick two days (one and two) in mid-2014.  In keeping with my biennial, even year schedule it was time for my 2016 trip!

Almost every single one of my friends has fled Brisbane for greener pastures.  Most have returned to their country of origin, but there is one, Jerusha, who's the odd one out and moved to Sydney instead of overseas.  She fed dolphins with us on our first trip to Moreton island.

Meanwhile, Martin's classmate and my German tour guide from last summer Sabrina moved to Australia this year for a working holiday visa and quickly fell in love with Sydney, where she put down her roots.

I played match maker for these two big city gals and they are now the best of friends!

While I sit alone in Brisbane - ha!

Being German, Sabrina is stupidly outdoorsy and active.  Like, ridiculously so.  My goodness I don't know how Das Germans do it!  We spent the majority of my 3 days there "nature walking" with minimal alcohol consumption.  I must say this was a huge paradigm shift for me.

Bondi to Coogee coastal walk

I've wanted to do this walk since 2012, but never found the time when I was in Sydney before.  As I suspected all along, it is a must do!  It's a pretty cruisey walk and the scenery is nothing short of amazing.

Six easy kilometers (3.7 miles) of very scenic coastline is well worth a leisurely stroll.  And the best part is, there's booze at the other end!  The Coogee Pavilion is the perfect place for reversing any health benefits you may have just caused, and has primo skank watching.

Bondi is a huge pain in the butt to get to from Sydney city center, and the beach is so underwhelming for all the hype surrounding it.

But alas, it's what everybody does when visiting Sydney.  Yawn.  The coastal walk, however, speaks for itself:

Not yawn at all!

Manly to Spit Bridge Walk

Not nearly as cruisey - ten kilometers (6.2 miles) the Manly coastal walk is also scenic but in a very different way.

Manly is delightfully tree-filled, which gives a European feel to it.  I have always preferred Manly to Bondi, and my knee jerk preference has now been solidified.

But holy crap that walk was not easy!  Do not attempt unless you are pretty fit.  Fitter than me, I would say.  Ouch!

Unfortunately at the end of the rainbow there are no drinks or skanks, but a dirty bridge and busy highway to take you back into the city.  Disappointing, actually!

Of the two walks we did, I recommend the Bondi walk for the fairweather (non-German) hiker like myself!  I'm glad I did the Manly walk once but am in no rush to repeat it.  These old knees simply can't take it!

To get to Manly you need to take a ferry, which takes you right by the Opera House and gives you the perfect tourist viewing opportunity at a commuter price.  The luster of this view had worn off for me, except when the ferry captain pointed out an adorable seal sunning itself on the steps leading up from the water:

I stupidly forgot my proper camera at home, so you can't really see it here on my phone camera, but trust me it's there.  Australian nature is the best!

Because we are the most basic of bitches, the misery of physical activity wasn't the only item on the agenda.  Of course there was brunch!

And, the most basic activity of all, photographing our brunch!

The Vivid festival also happened to be on during my visit. Vivid is hard to describe, mainly because I don't really "get" what it is.  It's a festival...of lights.  But it's not Hanukkah.  So many lights, that's the only way I know how to describe it.

We only went to one exhibit, this tunnel of lights:

It was nifty but...you walk under lights.  Not really groundbreaking stuff.  I'm barely exaggerating when I say that I've never seen this many people in my life!  There are so so so many people in Sydney it's absolutely ridiculous.  It's slightly overwhelming to my little old country bumpkin self!

The coolest thing I saw in the big city?

Melanie is the lucky gal, but I couldn't fit it all in one shot.  By the time "Melanie" was started "Marry" was already starting to fade, and it evaporated so quick all 14 letters weren't legible at once.  I didn't think this actually happened in real life, but apparently it does!

My tropical Queensland self was freezing "down south" in the tundra of New South Wales.  So much so that I packed gloves.

And actually wore them.  

Seriously, this 50-60 degree winter temperature is killing me.  Sydney is way freaking colder than Brisbane! 

Join me again in 2018 when I return to Sydney for my regularly scheduled, big city fun!

Sydney Part Deux (Day 2)

I dubbed Day 2 of Susanna and my time in Sydney "aquatic day".  It was all underwater adventures, all the time for us on this day.

Due to my "slight" obsession with sharks Susanna knew damn well I would accompany her to the 3D IMAX showing of Great White Shark 3D.  I didn't realize before agreeing to see this show that the Darling Harbour IMAX cinema is the biggest theater screen in the world!  It's 8 stories high.  Eight stories of shark.  In 3D!  Hell yes!

I must say due to my avid documentary watching there really wasn't anything in the show I didn't already know, but that's the price you pay for being a certified sharkologist, I guess.  It was still awesome to see sharks in lifelike 3D, and 8 freaking stories big!  It was awesome.

After the movie we went to the Australian National Maritime Museum, which was still on Susanna's To Do list, because it was featuring life-sized photography of whales.  Turns out "life-sized" was some serious bullshit - we were expecting 100 foot long photos - but there were some very artistic/pretty totally-not-to-scale whale photos.  And a theater where we could relax our tired feed, veg out and watch Finding Nemo.  And this!

A life-sized (for real this time) replica of hump back whale.

I had really wanted to check out the Sydney Fish Market because I had heard it was nuts (busy) and cool to see.  True on both accounts!

It was an easy walk from Darling Harbour and, ever so conveniently, Messina Gelato was right on the way.  Three (double) scoops of gelato in 48 hours: CHECK!

We weren't in the market for any fish, either ready-to-eat or grocery style, but if we were this is definitely the place to find it.

If you're a fish-ivore this would be a good lunch spot, but you'll have to wrestle gaggles of Chinese tourists for a picnic table.  This appears to be a reoccurring theme in Sydney.

Our final aquatic-themed activity for the day was Sea Life Aquarium.  Martin and I are big aquarium goers, and I am not one to turn down a shark sighting, so I was happy to help Susanna tick off yet another item on her Sydney bucket list.  They had a penguin feeding session just as we got there, so we made a beeline through the place to witness the adorableness of teeny, tiny penguins begging for food like Oliver Twist.

So tragically the aquarium was undergoing a bit of construction, so the resident dugongs were not on display.  What is a dugong, you ask?  It is a fabulous, big-ass sea cow:

They are crazy marine mammals, similar to a manatee.  They are super rare so I honestly don't know if I'll ever get a chance in my life to see them again.

The tragedy of the missing dugongs aside, there was lots of fun fishes and sharks to see.

And platypuses (platypi?):

Quick buggers are not easy to capture on film

And this fine creature of the sea:

Earlier in the semester Susanna did an aquarium shark dive in Sydney, and you better believe I plan to do one someday.  They may not be great whites, but when it comes to swimming with sharks I don't discriminate!

By this time we had exhausted all of the fun aquatic things Sydney has to offer, so I headed to the airport to head back north and Susanna went back to studying like the good little student she is.

I'm very glad I went back to Sydney because I definitely hadn't fully experienced it on my first, rainy Christmas trip.  I know I barely scratched the surface of it compared to Susanna, who spent the past 4 months tirelessly taking in all this country has to offer.  I must admit I am sad to see her back to real life, in Norway, not posting action packed blog posts anymore.  I'm afraid that the end of one person's Australian journey might mean the end of mine, and that's a thought far too harsh for me to consider right now.

Sydney Part Deux (Day 1)

The first and last time I was in Sydney the weather was atrocious, so I knew I had to go back one day to get the full experience.  When Study Abroad Susanna planned her trip up to Brisbane I thought, with a free place to stay, this was my time to go back.

Susanna was in my first group of students when I worked in Norway back in 2007-2008.  She's five years younger than me, and I feel positively geriatric in comparison.  OK that's a bit of an exaggeration, but this girl knows how to seriously live life to the fullest in a short period of time!  We had roughly 50 [awesome] things to do in the 48 hours I was there, and Susanna saw to it that each awesome activity was accomplished.

This list can serve as a handy travel guide for anybody low on time in Sydney who wants to maximize their fun/sightseeing.  I'll split the two days into two posts, because I'm lazy and you don't want to hear me droning on for too long, anyway.

To build our energy for the day we started off with breakfast, right in the center of Sydney's universe, at the Sydney Opera House.

Opera Bar is one of the food and beverage establishments located in (actually under) the Opera House.  Usually dining at such a major tourist attraction is expensive, filled with clueless tourists, underwhelming and above all else, ill advised.  But I was so impressed with Opera Bar!

The food was perfectly fine and the prices were no more than you'd pay at a brunch spot in Brisbane.  Heck, I'd argue even less.  We were there about 9 a.m. and we virtually had the place to ourselves.  I don't know why the heck it wasn't packed!  It was raining a bit, so outdoor seating wasn't an option for us.  This is what the outdoor area looks like in good weather:

So nice!

After our breakfast and tiny coffees (my one gripe about Opera Bar) we took a hike through the Botanic Gardens so we could get a view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge together.  When Martin and I visited previously we took a shot of us with just one of them:

Had I known a better angle existed I would've made the hike for our iconic shot!

The best view of both the opera house and bridge lies in the Botanic Gardens, close to Mrs. Macquarie's Chair (a.k.a. rock formation surrounded by Chinese tourists):

That view is only about 10 minutes walk along the harbour if you're not doddling.  Such a spectacular view!

We saw a bit more of the gardens in search of more coffee.  They're nice - and freaking huge!

Sus is obsessed with the Sydney Opera House, so it's a miracle she's been there 4 months but hasn't done a tour of it yet.  But she hadn't!  So we did it.  Yay!

Every Opera House tour is different, because where you can go depends on what events are happening in each theatre at the moment.  I didn't know before the tour that there are five theatres within the opera house, two big (Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre) and three small (Drama Theatre, Playhouse and Studio).

We got to see two of the theatres - one big, one small - but couldn't take pictures in either one because there were people warming/setting up on stage.  So here are some pictures I pilfered off Google of the two we saw:

Big: Concert Hall

Small: Playhouse

One of the foyers had hilariously hideous purple carpet:

But I loved it!  I thought it spoke to the era when it was built (it opened in 1973).

We also got to go into a small, private function room called the Utzon Room (after the dude who designed the building, Jørn Utzon):

I would get married today if I could do it in this room!  It was amazing!  And can you imagine saying you got married in the Sydney Opera House?!  It's my new goal in life.

One last thing I will say about the Sydney Opera House.  This is what it looks like up close:

1. It essentially made of bath tiles (but only 1 tile falls off every other year)

2. It's not really white (because if it was it would blind you when the sun hits it)

The area where the Opera House and bridge is located is called Circular Quay, inexplicably pronounced 'key'.  After our tour we left there and headed to Darling Harbour, another pretty, tourist-friendly, must-do area of the city.  When Martin and I were in Darling Harbour together we didn't get a single picture of it because it was raining so hard we literally couldn't take our camera out of our pocket for fear it would get ruined.  But not today!

Thankfully the light rain from earlier had stopped by this time so I could enjoy Darling Harbour in all its blue sky glory!

After a leisurely lunch (with wine!) we indulged in what can best be described as a Sydney (and Melbourne, but not Brisbane) institution: Messina gelato!

I don't want to embarrass anyone here, but one of us (ahem, not I) ate gelato three times in the 48 hours that I was there.  Now that's love!  I tried three flavors: salted caramel & white chocolate, milk chocolate with chocolate peanut fudge and pecan pie.  #beetus

Messina is located in The Star casino, but we didn't do any gambling while we were there.  We came back later that night, for Susanna's second fix of gelato for the day (and other reasons, I suppose).

After putzing around Darling Harbour for a while the sun was preparing to set so we prepared ourselves for the best sunset vantage point in town: the Shangri-La Hotel.  On the 36th floor they have a restaurant/bar called Altitude with an amazing view of the Opera House.

The sun sets in the opposite direction of this vantage point, but it's still an awesome view.  Pro tip: The elevator to that floor doesn't open up until the bar opens (5 p.m.) but there were already people up there when we got there right at 5.  I recommend trying the elevator every minute starting a 4:45, even if you look like an idiot, so you can be, as the Aussies say, "first in, best dressed".  That means the early bird gets the worm, and in this case the worm is sweet window seats.

After our fancy drink with a view at the Shangri-La it was time to hike back to The Star for more gelato...and our evening entertainment:

I had never heard of Strictly Ballroom the movie before.  Was I living under a rock in the 90's?  It's a 1992 movie directed by Baz Luhrmann, who also directed the Claire Danes/Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge.  These three films together are called The Red Curtain Trilogy, but the only connection I see between them is that the same dude directed them.  The other two movies were huge in America, but I don't know if this one ever made it big.

Anyway, they've turned Strictly Ballroom into a musical and it's been all over TV, billboards, buses, you name it, even in Brisbane though it's only showing down in Sydney.  When I told Susanna this she suggested we go, and I've never seen a musical I didn't like, so I agreed.  It was campy, over-the-top, theatrical fun with ballgowns flying all over the stage in perfectly choreographed manner.  They even had the theatre itself decked out, which I'd never seen before:

Sequined seat covers!

So much fun!  From what I can tell by hearing my colleagues talk Australians love their Strictly Ballroom, so I'll count this show as a cultural immersion experience.

By this time we had been out of the house for, oh, about 15 hours, so it was time to get on the bus back to Susanna's campus and crash hard.  Our feet and legs were killing us, and Day 2 would prove to be just as jam packed and fun filled as Day 1!

Sydney

First things first.  This was the view from our hotel in Sydney:

And do you know which hotel provides such an amazing view?  Ho-tel, mo-tel Holiday Inn!

I'm going to come out of the closet and proclaim my love for Holiday Inns right here, right now.  We always stayed in them growing up (in the big city: Fargo, North Dakota) and it had the deepest pool of any hotel I'd ever seen (9 feet deep!) so the seed of my love of Holiday Inn was planted early.  I lost my first tooth at a Holiday Inn.  Fond memories.

We stayed in one in Edinburgh when we returned there for graduation, and I chose it solely because it was near our old apartment, and I couldn't fathom staying anywhere else than where I used to live.  It blew me away, it was a great hotel in Edinburgh.  Holiday Inn 4 LYFE!

This kick ass view is from the rooftop, which also features a rooftop pool.  $200 a night adds up quickly, but if you're looking for a reasonably-priced-for-Sydney place to stay smack dab in the center of town I recommend the Holiday Inn Old Sydney.

The first day we got to Sydney (Christmas Day) the weather sucked.  It was pouring rain and quite cold.  Cold I can deal with, but wet socks plus cold?  No, thank you.  It sucked.  So we spent our first evening holed up indoors staying dry, drinking beer and eating two (count 'em two) dinners.  We didn't get any usable pictures of Darling Harbour because we were scared our camera would drown, but it was a really awesome area.  Had I seen it in the sunlight I suspect I would like it even more than the Sydney Harbour.

Thankfully the day after Christmas (Boxing Day to you crazy Commonwealth countries) the weather cleared up, just in time for our planned day of beaching.  We started off by taking a 40-minute bus ride to Bondi Beach:

Which was legit not worth the cramped standing-room-only bus ride.  I've heard nothing but blah things about Bondi, however I've only heard amazing things about the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk.  My advice to future travelers is only bother to go to Bondi if you have the time and energy to do this (or a similar) coastal walk.  We just gawked at washed up jelly fish, old men working on their fitness and MILFs.

Everything that Bondi lacks, Manly Beach more than makes up for.  I stupidly didn't get a panoramic picture of the beach, but trust me, as far as areas of interest are concerned, Manly is far superior.

Martin and I have this ridiculously annoying knack for getting lost and winding up in the totally wrong/boring part of town, which of course happened in Manly.  Pro tip: Once you land in Manly with the ferry walk straight from it with the terminal at your back.  In that direction you'll hit the promenade and beach, and you can find Ben & Jerry's brownie sundaes, $5 beers and African food like we did.  Manly is awesome, and to get there you have to take a ferry through Sydney Harbour.  It's super scenic, especially at dusk (so you can save yourself the expenditure of taking a harbour cruise).

The next day we went out of the city and in to the Blue Mountains.  In theory we could have rented a car and done this ourselves, but in my old age I've realized that's just not how I roll.  I want to find a good tour company, fork over my money, and kick back to enjoy the scenery, which is exactly what we did.

We learned about Aboriginal history and culture and went to a "wildlife park" (somehow different from a zoo) where we saw native wildlife like koalas, kangaroos, dingoes, crocodiles and a gigantic, murderous bird I had never heard of before moving here, a cassowary.

This thing can and will kill you by ripping open your torso with their gigantic, sharp claws and ramming you with the sharp bone on the top of their head.  This continent is killer, man.  Literally.  So many things are lethal.

The next day we had to catch our flight to Hong Kong, and with business lounge access (I still need to tell you the story of why Cathay Pacific is the best airline ever) we wanted to get there in plenty of time so we could enjoy the fruits of the high life.  And believe you me, the high life looks good on me!