There Could Be No Other Title But.....SYDNEY!!!

We're in Sydney!

We flew Tiger Airway, which after we booked it, everyone's initial  reaction when they asked what airline we were flying was a scrunched facial expression between disgust and sympathy. Apparently they're known for older planes and overall just not a good total experience. But seriously you can't beat the price and just suck it up for an hour long flight. If we had  left on a Thursday instead of Friday, each of our one way trip to Sydney would have been $28!!! No frills for an hour long flight, come on, you can't beat that. We take the Skybus from one of the large train stations in the CBD to the airport. It runs every 10 minutes and is $16 per person round trip to and from the airport to the train station. We get dropped off and after walking all over the building to find the terminal for Tiger, we soon realize it was in a separate building a bit of a walk away. It was at as if Tiger wanted to fly out of this airport well after it was built and wanted it so badly that they'd take the ugly stepchild building that nobody wants. Their coffee shop was out of a sheet metal shed box plopped down right outside the front door of the so called terminal.

Forget getting on the plane in an orderly fashion. We had assigned seats but they just opened the gates for an all out cattle call regardless if you were in seat 1 (like us) or seat 70. It takes a solid 3 minutes or so to walk out to the plane because apparently this terminal also has no connecting walkway. So we stroll on up to this jumbo plane from the outside and walk up the metal stairs wheeled up to it. It was interesting for sure. Wonder what happens if it was raining. The flight wasn't so bad and being only an hour long, we were soon descending. We made our way to get the rental car (they gave us a burnt orange Toyota Aurion Sportiva, how'd they know we were from Austin??) and I soon learned what Anthony had said about the way people drive in Sydney. Compared to Taiwan or Shanghai, the driving pales in comparison but hailing  from the states and especially Texas, they drive like lunatics here! It probably doesn't help that none of the roads seem to be able to go in a straight line for long and looked like a spaghetti bowl.

Sorry, it's so blurry!


Our friends have a really nice house on a great size lot in Cronulla so it's a bit of a drive from the city but you gotta love that it's incredibly close to countless beautiful ocean beaches.

On our drive to our friend's house. For a moment there, it looked like we were back in the states!!


After dinner and some beers, we crash hard. Our hosts are parents of a 2 year old and an 8 month old daughters and we woke up to a mantra that I'm sure many parents have heard, "I want to watch Dora, I want to watch Dora" she goes on a couple of times. The Dad, Sergio, is running the show solo since the Mother, Sharon, went out for a morning run. Brave Dad!!

Our friends take us to the beach to have breakfast and there's already a bunch of people out on the beach. Group exercise like running, swimming, and surfing seem to be very popular here.

Hopefully Anthony is asking for some parenting tips! 

The water temperature was posted as 20 C, which would make it about 68 F.

 We ate at a beach side place called Zimzala. Beautiful view of the beach and the food was delicious!

Kind of a bad shot since I was in a bit of a corner but to give you an idea of the view. Notice the windows were all open. Very relaxing!

Anthony had their "Big Breakfast" and it was really good. The sausage was lamb though, which is pretty big here, so I didn't much care for it but the rest was great.

I had an egg and bacon roll in a tomato type of sauce. It was delicious!!! I personally thought it was better than the Big Breakfast.

We all had a big mug of coffee. I had my usual latte with soy, which may have been my demise later that evening. Everyone else also had the Big Breakfast and Anthony ate about a quarter of my roll so I don't think it was the food but promptly after dinner, I excused myself to the restroom and it was on like Donkey Kong. I was as sick as a dog. I didn't even get to have the wonderful sounding dessert that everyone else got to have. So I could only suspect that maybe the soy in my coffee was bad. But I paid dearly for it that night.

Extremely adorable ball of never ending energy. I don't think we ever saw her stop moving when she wasn't sleeping!

If you know Anthony, you also know that he afraid to handle babies. Our friend Sharon, was quick on her feet and plucked the babe out of the stroller and in one fail swoop, placed her in Anthony's arms. I think Anthony was just reacting because he automatically reached out and the mother let go immediately. Anthony was caught! Fortunately, Gabrielle took an immediate liking to Anthony so she just smiled the whole time he was holding her.

The beach crowd now after we finished breakfast.

Fortunately we got several hours of beautiful weather that afternoon when Anthony and I did the obligatory Sydney Opera House visit. We hadn't expected to walk so much or for so long. Aside from REALLY sore legs, we finished the day a few shades darker and some new feet tan lines from Anthony's sandals and from my shoes that had a crisscrossed strap.

Here are some pictures from our walkabout.

On our way to the Opera House area. Two insane roadies!! We're on the highway!

Heading into the tunnel where there is NO shoulder!!

Our friends told us to park near the Royal Botanical Garden then walk across to see the Sydney Opera House, so the first parking spot we came to had this parking meter for it. If you can make out the text, it's $6/hr for a max of 4 hours.

We ended up parking in a parking garage for a $15 flat rate for the day, then walked across a big park to get to these pearly gates of the Royal Botanical Garden. I dunno why Anthony took the picture when I wasn't looking.

Walking through the Royal Botanical Garden was really nice. It's well maintained and really big!! I won't bore you with pictures of plants and flowers but these were a surprise to see. We saw a guy set up with his camera pointed upward on a tripod and just sitting there. So obviously, we looked up too. Who would have thought you'd see these out during the day in the middle of a big park! And there were LOTS of them!!

BATS!!! They were pretty big too!

This entire tree was covered with them! I forgot what kind of fruit they were after but apparently that's why attracts them. We watched some heated chasing of some by some of the birds, it was fascinating!

Our first view of the famous Sydney Opera House! The Harbour Bridge in the background is the one where people can walk to the top of it along the arch.

In case you were wondering if Anthony was really there. He's been to Sydney before but was being the good husband and taking me out for the obligatory tourist sightseeing.

He made me do it!

There was this HUGE cruise ship in the harbour which was cool to see but it also blocked a good chunk of the view.

We walk allllllllll the way to the other side of the harbour and along the way there were a lot of street entertainers like the aboriginal didgeridoo music, musicians, face painters, and a lady shoving herself into a small box......

Menu from a restaurant with a really nice view of the Sydney Opera House and the harbour.

We came across a really big outdoor market near The Rocks area. I think this was a one off event like maybe once a month or something. Some really nice stuff but we couldn't buy anything because we're already pretty maxed out on our suitcase space/weight to not have to pay.

We walked to the bridge then up and along the highway to get to the start of the bridge. I couldn't muster up anymore energy to walk up all the stairs just to get up to the top of the tower or to where the walking of the arches began. We'd already been walking almost nonstop for an hour and a half in the blazing sun! AND we still have to walk back!

But we did get this shoot off the highway bridge. Still was pretty. I'm sure it would have been nice to have gone up the tower but I imagine it would have been the same view.

Look what pulled up next to us on our way out of the harbour area to see Bondi Beach. I think it's about a $400,000 car. Too bad the highest speed limit I've seen so far is 80 km on the highway or 50 mph. 

 Bondi Beach! Suppose to be a bit of a hot spot. Just across the street are tons of food and shopping stores. It's funny that later that night the news mentioned that overseas visitors thought Bondi Beach was overhyped.

We were in a 30 minute parking spot (it was all we could find) so it was just a whirlwind visit to the beach, grabbed a fish and chips to go...I mean, take away, as they call it here. Then back to the house.

Next blog is on our trip the next day to.....Chinatown! Although the weather is suppose to be really crappy.

- julie