Sydney at last!! Merry Christmas everyone!
Trip Start
Nov 11, 2007
1
14
26
Trip End
Feb 11, 2007
Sydney,
Australia
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Wow can't believe Christmas is over and done with for another year! To be quite honest it kind of passed me by without me really noticing as it seems that Christmas isn't really a big deal, they are totally bigging up New Years instead.
So to catch up to where I am now, we arrived in Sydney in the early afternoon of Saturday and we managed to use a map to find our way to the hostel without too many glitches - the road our hostel is on is conveniently not on many of the maps of the city so we had to use a bit of guess work. We checked into the tiniest room aver for 4 people - it has a TV and fridge though so that made up for it slightly and the internet is free here too so I can't complain that much. Basically we spent saturday walking around the area near Central Station to get our bearings - and went to the supermarket to stock up for a few days. It was a normal day really, we shopped, cooked and went to sleep.
Sunday we had planned ahead and had decided to walk and find the famous Paddys Markets in the Haymarket area of Sydney and we were then going to head for Darling Harbour. The markets were easy to find and only about a 15 mintue walk from our hostel. The actual market is not on everyday but it takes up the whole lower ground floor of a shopping centre called Market City and above it are shops, supermarkets and even cinemas. They were mentally busy, people were moving in every possible direction, possibly because the stalls weren't really in lines but in lots of different criss cross patterns. We realised that we were retracing our steps quite a lot and looking at the same stalls over and over. Or maybe it was because the stalls all sold the same stuff over and over again! Lol!
After the markets we headed in the direction of Darling Harbour. This is a really lovely area of the city full of restuarants, bars, shops and museums plus the aquarium (oh and the compulosry fast food outlets and ice cream parlours). The sun was shining and we spent a few lovely hours wandering around and taking some photos of Cockle Bay Wharf on the eastern side of the harbour, the sky rise building and the boats. On the way back through the area we stopped and watched this bloke doing some street theatre. He was really funny and only had a few tricks with whip cracking, big sharp knives and axes that were interspersed with comedy and picking on the people wandering past and not stopping to watch him. It was all very off the cuff and made us laugh quite a lot. After a busy day we headed back and watched a film. It's so nice to have our own tv in the room.
Monday was Christmas Eve. We set out quite late from the hostel because the weather was crap. We had planned to visit the Opera House but changed our plans as we didn't want grey, cloudy pictures! So we decided to go to the Aquarium instead - I really wanted to see some big sharks! It was a great day, it only cost us $20 to get in and we saw loads of stuff we haven't seen yet like a platypus (which was worth the $20 entry fee on its own), massive sharks, cool reef fish and massive turtles. The displays were very impressive and I'd recommend a visit if you're ever in the area!
The evening was a mental one!! We planned to meet up with some people I had been chatting to on Facebook for months in a group called "Drinking session in Sydney for Christmas and New Years". We got ready and went to their hostel to meet them armed with a box of Goon (wine). It was so weird to meet them in person - they actually do exist lol! Putting actual people to the messages and photos I had been chatting to was very strange but cool all at the same time as they're great people! We sat in their hostel and drank the box of wine between the 3 of us cos melly had vodka and we all got a little bit drunk! Consequently when we finally decided to go to a bar I didn't spend any money as it was free to get in and I didn't need any alcohol as I was already a little worse for wear. A very cheap night! I was very disappointed with the bar we went to though. They only played one christmas song the whole time we were in there, the rest was booty shaking stuff along the R'nB lines! Crap! So we left about 2ish to walk home in the torrential rain. Lovely. We arrived back to the hosel a little bit drenched at which point I laid on my bed, pretty much passed out and yes I was still fully clothed! Classy lady that I am!
Needless to say on Christmas Day I woke up with a bit of a headache and a light feeling of death about me - bloody white wine! We opened our presents from each other, we each bought one present by picking someones name out randomly, and Melly bought mine. I got a lovely little Billabong handbag from her which is lovely. After the excitement we feell back to sleep to sleep off some of the nastiness and then woke again at 12 when Jack called me. It was so nice to hear from him on Christmas day, we've spoke a lot over the past few days and I really enjoy our chats. I still felt very very ill but nothing a good fry up couldn't cure as that's what we had planned. I felt much better after that and then we made our christmas lunch sandwiches to take to the beach. The weather was crap but we were still determined to go to Bondi Beach as that's what we'd planned. We made roast chicken, stuffing and cranberry sauce baguettes - yummy and walked miles to the bus stop to catch the bus to Bondi. It was so cold lol! Couldn't believe it it was such an anti climax after we had been expecting a boiling hot day. But we managed to spend an hour on the beach before we got too cold and I ate my sandwich sat wrapped in my towel! Felt very much like an english beach trip! Plus no sign of GMTV. Boo! After freezing to death we had a quick poke round the few shops that were oepn and then caught the bus back to spend the evening contacting loved ones. A very strange day, not a bad one but I felt very weird all day. No idea whether that was the hangover or the situation!
On Boxing Day (weds) the weather was so much nicer - so hot in fact I got burnt oooops! This was the day we decided to go to the Opera House and Bridge to get great pictures in the sunshine. We walked down to Darling Harbour to catch a water taxi to Circular Quay. On the boat we got some great pictures of the bridge, the opera house and the surrounding area and the trip was great fun if a little choppy! We got off at the Quay and headed towards the Opera House preparing ourselves for our photo shoot hehehe! The place was packed with tourists and it was so hard to walk around without getting in the way of someone's photo or video. God knows how many I'm in! We took all the photo's we wanted to and then wandered around the place. We even went inside which was very strange, all concrete and not at all fancy like I thought it would be. The actual structure is a mean feat of architecture, but smaller than I thought in real life. It's covered in small white ceramic tiles which gives it this weird patterned effect close up. But from far away it looks as though it's made of something metallic and it was glinting away in the sunlight wuite brilliantly. The tour of the inside would have cost $150 - very expensive so we setttled for a look round the shop and a visit to the very strange curvy toilets. Seriously with all the concrete around I thought I could have been in an underground car park, not one of the structures that makes australia famous!
After we got our fill of the place we headed for the area known as The Rocks. To do this we had to walk around Circular Quay which was so busy because this is where you catch all the transport links to the other side of the harbour and the rest of the city. The Rocks area of Sydney on the western side of Circular Quay is the place where the first settlement or village was erected in Australia, basically it's classed as the birthplace of the nation.
After spending sometime walking around the area and admiring the old buildings - Sydney's oldest pub is there - we went into the tourist info place to decide where we want to spend New Year's Eve. We think we have decided on a plabe called the Illoura Reserve or Peacock Point, a small headland in the Balmain area of the city. Apparently it has great views of the harbour bridge and the opera house, plus we have a fireworks barge directly in front of us. We should also be able to see the Darling Harbour fireworks from there too so all in all it should be a great vantage place. We're going to take a picnic and some booze and basically spend the day there and hopefully have a great night. After this we decided to treat ourselves before the long walk back to a drink in a pub. We found a lovely little place in area called The Orient Hotel and I had a very refreshing pint of cider after which we set off up George Street and back to the hostel. We spent Boxing Day evening as we thought many an english person might and that would be having a glass of fizz and playing cards before watching a film!
Today (thursday) I chose to spend some time on my own. I love the girls to bits but spending all day everyday with them and especially in our tiny room I can start to feel like I could do with some downtime just for me. I had a great lie in and then just chilled out all day, checking the internet, sunbathing in the park and reading my book listening to my Ipod. The girls did their own things too, I think it makes for healthy realtionships if we spend sometime apart as well as together. So I now feel all refreshed and chilled and we may even head out to a pub tonight for a cheap meal we've heard about.
So that's me up to date - god that's taken ages to write, I really need to stop leaving it so long between posting!
I hope you all had a fab christmas!Sending lots of love from down under!
Love Smiffy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PHOTO UPDATE!!
Rest of Brisbane: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15282&l=cc09c&id=510031269
Australia Zoo and a few from Surfer's Paradise: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16493&l=4c69f&id=510031269
Byron Bay: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16549&l=d2f0b&id=510031269
Sydney - the beginning: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16551&l=1263f&id=510031269
Sydney Aquarium: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16601&l=7c9c4&id=510031269
Christmas eve night out: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16494&l=d6e0c&id=510031269
Christmas day and Boxing Day: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16609&l=0ba62&id=510031269
