My Trip To Sydney

On my first day in Sydney, I was just exploring Kingsford area which is where the University of New South Wales is located. I also went to East Gardens to shop for breakfast stuff. Bought really fresh and tasty ham off the bone, Hungarian Salami, button mushrooms, alfalfa, onion sprouts, apple and passion fruit juice and yogurt. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s breakfast. The sandwiches are going to be a blast.

Ham off the bone, Hungarian salami, button mushrooms, cucumbers, alfalfa & onion sprout sandwich

Smoke salmon & alfalfa open sandwich

Premium ham, beef pastrami, button mushrooms, cucumbers, alfalfa, 99% fat free semi sun dried tomatos sandwich

Day 2 to 5

2nd day I visited Paddington Market, this arty farty flea market is located in Paddington (quite a hip place). They have nice handcrafts and stuff. I had lunch there, steak and mushroom sandwich. Though it’s called a sandwich, its foot long like the subway one. I had to share half since it was so big.

After Paddington Market, my friends and I went to Max Brenner for our chocolate fix. After so much walking we need the sugar and chocolate to sooth our muscles. We had chocolate soufflé, cookies shake and chocolate shot. Everything was really good…

After tea at Max, we went to Darling Harbour for a walk. The place was HUGE! There are many things to see and many cafes to eat at. We didn’t finish seeing everything at Darling Harbour and will be back to see the Aquarium, tour the Destroyer and submarine too.

Pity it was a cloudy day at Darling Harbour

One of the few curious water features in Darling Harbour

We walked around Chinatown and finally had good Vietnamese Pho for dinner. Its not the best but better than those found in KL. We are going to eat the best Pho later on Wednesday night.

Chinatown

Wow they have Thai durians here!

Sunday we went to the Rocks (Not the prison) in Circular Quay.

Sydney Opera House viewed from Circular Quay while walking to the Rocks

There is a flea market in the Rocks on weekends and it is similar to the one in Paddington. Then we had late lunch, near Sydney Opera House. Along the seaside walk from Circular Quay to Sydney Opera House was a row of yummy cafes and restaurants. I had prawn salad, wedges and a glass of wine, Green Point Sauvignon Blanc. Imagine having delicious food with some friends overlooking Sydney Harbour Bridge while sipping a nice glass of wine in the afternoon…ahhhh…

My yummy lunch at a cafe along the walk to Sydney Opera House, overlooking the Harbour Bridge

Grand view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Climbers making their way to the top of the Harbour Bridge

After tea we walked around the Opera House to have a closer view of it. In the evening we proceed to Randwick to meet a friend for Italian dinner.

Sydney Opera House up close

Monday we continued our exploration of Darling Harbour, finishing our tour of duty on the HMAS Vampire, an Aussie Destroyer and HMAS Onslow, a Submarine. The submarine was an eye opener. After the tour, my respect for submariners increase many many fold.

Captain’s chair onboard the Destroyer

Torpedo room on the submarine

Don’t ask me how the ang mos fit through the compartment doors or even sleep on the bunks

Before my tour on the Destroyer ended, my camera batteries died! Oh shit I forgot to charge it. I had to use my phone camera for the rest of the day. After the ships, we went to the Aquarium. It was really cool and we spent so much time in the aquarium, fascinated with the under water world. The Aussies really done it well.

I had dinner at Darling Harbour that night at Ice Cube Seafood Grill. The food was good but the pan seared Barramundi was not as good as Ember’s house special fish which was seared to perfection.

Tuesday I visited Coogee beach and Bondi Beach. I wanted to do the scenic walk from Coogee to Bondi but the weather was cloudy and very very windy. Good thing I brought along my trusty Lafuma Shell.

Cliffs at Coogee Beach

Rock pools are built next to the sea, and the water in the pool is recycled by the strong waves washing through the pool every second

I was shocked that the town council provide sophisticated BBQ facilities at Coogee beach. What is most shocking is the cleanliness of the BBQ stove! This is something you definitely won’t get in Malaysia.

This is NOT a new BBQ stove. Look at the shine, makes you wanna cook on it.

When I went to Bondi Beach later in the afternoon, the sun was up briefly but it was really nice. The air was very refreshing and the view calming.

Panoramic view of Bondi Beach

View from Ice Cube Restaurant, restaurant with top 5 best view in Sydney

Day 6 to 8

Wednesday we visited Mrs Macquarie Chair which have a great view of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Ha ha now its Hai Liang’s chair!

This is the most photographed spot of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge combined. Pity it was a cloudy day…

After visiting the chair, we went to the infamous Sydney Fish Market. The fish market has 2 sections, wholesale and retail. Only the retail section is open for public to buy seafood supplies. I think there is organised tour of the wholesale section but gotta wake up really early.

Sydney Fish Market is the world’s 2nd largest seafood market in terms of variety outside of Japan

We had lunch at the fish market, it was value for money and very very fresh. The best is heaps of fresh sea urchin roe! Back home, the Japanese restaurants serve meager portions of the roe in sashimi but we ate lots of it at the fish market.

The Spanner crabs look more like the “face hugger” in Aliens than a typical crab but it looks delicious. I wonder how it taste…

My lunch, clockwise from top right hand corner, mornay lobster, fresh sea urchin roe, grilled lobster set with chips and salad, 6 grilled scallops, 6 fresh jumbo size pacific oysters

Almost can’t fit the jumbo size oyster into my mouth. I haven’t eaten such oysters since I left New Zealand many years ago.

After a wonderful lunch, we travelled to Manly Beach in North Sydney through the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The bridge looks very grand with so many lanes on it, quite confusing for a visitor to drive on it. Manly Beach is the best beach so far. It is so many times bigger than Bondi and of course more nudist sun bathers ha ha.

I’m kicking myself for not taking panoramic shots of Manly beach. But you can look at the size of the beach taken from the left and right.

Thursday is late night shopping night. So on Thursday we spent our time mainly in the city looking at the shops. I got Christmas presents for my parents.

Friday we went to Blue Mountains for a day of bush walks. It was a great day as the sun is bright and sunny. One day is not enough to do all the bush walks and explore the surroundings. I think you may need a week to really explore Blue Mountains and the caves properly.

The walks range from easy to difficult grade, from 10 minutes return to 7.5 hours. We didn’t have enough time so we went straight to Scenic World since it has a cable car, skyway looking at the Jamison Valley, Katoomba Falls and the world’s steepest incline railway.

Bottom of the valley via the incline railway

All the rides were exciting, not roller coaster exciting but it was more of acrophobic excitement. The incline railway decended almost vertically and made you think that you can easily fall head over heels and tumble down the valley. The skyway is a horizontal cable car a few hundred meters above the valley with transparent glass floors. Standing on the glass floor you can see all the way down and it was really scary.

You can see all the way down to the valley and you’ll be too nervous to stand much less walk about!

The 3 Sisters before (left photo) and after they were “transformed” to stone pillars (right photo, bottom left side the 3 pointy thingy) by the magic man

Me attempting to climb up one of the 3 sisters. Difficult to smile properly while climbing ha ha…

The Blue Mountains viewed from Echo Point

The view is really spectacular. I think I understand why the area is called Blue Mountains. But I don’t understand why all the mountains are flat top and almost the same height all around. As if a giant used a giant lawn mower to trim the mountains to same height.

Saturday we made a day trip to Wollongong and Kiama. The lookouts from the various points were breathtaking. Even the pictures can’t show the vastness of the ocean and the bay areas.

Wollongong from Bulli lookout

After fish and chips lunch at a Wollongong seaside cafe, we headed to Kiama to look at the famous blowhole. We had to wait for a long time and trial and error to get a good recording below:

Today is also fish day! We had Smoked Salmon sandwich for breakfast, fish and chips for lunch (battered King Dory) and yes fish and chips for dinner too! Dinner was battered New Zealand Hoki and some calamari (big sotong) rings. Wollongong have lots of good fish and chips cafe and restaurants at the harbour and docks along the Grand Pacific Drive.

One of the lighthouses along the coast of Wollongong that is still functioning today

Sunday we woke up late because even though our mind is willing, our body is really too tired to move. We woke up just before lunch and yum char in city center. The dim sum is quite nice especially those scallops based dumplings.

After lunch, we went to Paddy’s market near Chinatown. Paddy’s market is a rojak of our wet market and cheap flea market. The fruits and vegetable stalls are all manned by asians and I suspect they are mostly chinese from China. There are so many vegetable varieties, much more than back home, bigger and healthier looking too! We got a souvenir for our travel agent aka Super Agent Joyce. She is able to get us flights to various places even though it is fully booked!

For our Sunday dinner we ate at…Doyles Restaurant at Watson Bay! Yay! The Watson Bay restaurant is the first restaurant opened by Doyles himself, the rest are just offshoots. It is also one of the restaurants with top 5 best view of Sydney. Unfortunately that evening it was raining heavily, so we can’t see much. We had the seafood chowder, fisherman’s platter and a braised vegetable on the side.

The seafood chowder is big and we had to share. It had half a blue swimmer crab, mussels, fish meats, prawns, calamaris and scallops. Its really delicious with loads of seafood stuff.

Can’t imagine this platter is for 2 pax. We shared among 3 of us and still can’t finish it. The blue swimmer crab is a disappointment but the rest is really good. The Eastern King Prawns is really sweet. There is unlimted refills of battered fish as well but we can’t even finish the original serving. Oh the best chips I’ve eaten in Sydney is here at Doyles too.

Monday we slept in again and stayed at the apartment because my friend had arrange for a workman to install the insect screens. After the guy finished his work, we only had time to explore the nearby University of New South Wales and then headed to Bondi Junction for dinner at Sushi Train.

Tuesday we flew back to Penang via Singapore. I need to have a bigger budget the next time I visit Sydney. Must try the Harbour Bridge climb and explore more of Blue Mountains and the surrounding caves.