day 5 in sydney

Come to the last day of our Sydney trip. Was deciding if I should do a Bondi Beach or Taronga Zoo, and we went to the zoo in the end. It didn't feel right not to see a koala if you go to Australia.

We had breakfast at the Museum of Sydney. Since we didn't have much chance to eat really good stuff during this trip, so I thought maybe should at least spend some AUD on a good breakfast. Classy place, but I wish we had time to check out the Museum itself.

We next passed through the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was a pleasant walk where you could see the Government House which kind of resembles a castle. I know it may sound mad to go to another country to visit their park, but isn't that a good way to experience the local life?

From the Royal Botanic Gardens it was also a good route to check out the behind of the Sydney Opera House. Talking about the landmark of Australia, enough said I guess? When up close it seemed less majestic, so it's still better to look at it from afar.

The most common way to go to Taronga Zoo was to take the ferry from Circular Quay, which would take you to the back gate of Taronga Zoo. You can choose to take the Sky Safari (basically a cable car) if there isn't a queue, or to just walk up which isn't that difficult since there are elevators and all along the way. Just a tip, there is a Taronga Zoo coupon in the English version of the tourist guide which you might have gotten at the airport. It admits one only, though. You might consider harming the trees but saving your wallet by getting each member one English tourist guide. Back to the zoo, well I would say it kind of pales in comparison to the Singapore Zoo. Many animals were repeated in different zones of the zoo. But somehow the atmosphere was different. You see lots of kids and toddlers which kind of brings joy to yourself too.

Not much time left before our flight back, so back in Sydney CBD it was last minute shopping time. Shopping for local products at supermarkets like Woolworths or Coles won't cost a bomb and you can't get more authentically local than that. Of course if you are looking for jewellery or handicraft, it's a different story. But we got a fair bit of Australian fruits and candies.

So that's the Sydney trip. While not high on my next destination list, I won't mind going back if I have some spare cash.

day 4 in sydney (hunter valley)

Another favourite check-out when in Sydney is the nearby Hunter Valley. Australia being an important wine producing country, and Hunter Valley is one of the major wine regions of Australia, naturally you go for a wine tour when in Hunter Valley.
If you drive, you theoretically can visit the wineries on your own and have free tasting. Lindemans, Rosemount, Wyndham Estate are some of the brandnames which you most probably have seen in supermarkets back home and their wineries are in Hunter Valley. But we didn't visit any of these (kind of wish we did, though). We signed up for a local wine tour which brought us to 3 small boutique wineries.
So the tour zipped around the region in a Toyota van. Not the best of comfort, but I realized you can't possibly manoeuvre around with a big coach. To add to the unique experience, there were no more seats behind and so I had to take the front seat beside the driver/tour guide. The tour guide made me "assistant tour guide", and I kid you not I got tipped at the end of the tour! (just so happened I was able to act smart on the topic of wines)
As a wine tour, logically we talked a lot of wines along the way. Like the concept of region, cork vs screw cap, shift in culture, etc. We visited the behind the scenes (I won't go wrong visiting the factory), learned the differences in process between red wine and white wine, wine appreciation techniques, etc. We ended up tasting about 30 different wines, and bought (only) 2 bottles back.
To top up the wine tour, we spotted some wild kangaroos!

While I think it was an interesting experience nevertheless, I find the wine tour not as spectacular as say Blue Mountains or even our DIY city tour in Sydney. Unless you are a wine lover, the day and money could have been spent elsewhere.

day 3 in sydney (blue mountains)

If you think Sydney is just a city of skyscrapers, then you are missing out the goodies in the wilderness. On day 3 we went to the Blue Mountains, a region some 1 hour's coach journey away. Initially I was considering riding the CityRail to Katoomba and explore Blue Mountains on our own, but that could be a bit tricky if I wanted to check out the nearby Jenolan Caves too. So in the end we signed up for a local tour. By the way not all Blue Mountains tour operators do Jenolan Caves.
The "trade mark" of Blue Mountains probably is to look at the Three Sisters Rocks from Echo Point. An interesting but sad story behind, but also don't forget to look at the sceneries beyond the Three Sisters. They say the "blue" comes from the eucalyptus oil of the forest.

We went to Scenic World next. From there we rode the Scenic Railway, supposedly the steepest railway in the world. It was great fun, riding this old mining rail which was functional as well as thrilling to bring you to the bottom of the valley.

At the bottom is Scenic Walkway, where you can choose which path to take depending on how much time you have and how much energy you have left. Then we made our way to Scenic Cableway which brought us back up to Scenic World's main entrance.

The coach took us to Jenolan Caves next. There is only one eating place there and there was a long queue, limited choice of food. It probably would make sense to BYO (bring your own) lunch which many visitors did. At the entrance there was this huge cave in the hill which the coach could barely pass through (and it did).

We had a guided inspection of Lucas Cave. The natural formations inside were awesome. The guide explained to us the history and background of the cave, how it used to be a chapel, etc etc.

To that's our day 3 in Sydney.

day 2 in sydney (but went to canberra)

To spend almost 8 hours flying over (and not forgetting the airfare), it does make sense to visit another nearby city. And so I slotted in a day trip to Canberra on the second day, the capital of Australia.

We did it the traditional way, took the CountryLink Xplorer train from Sydney Central to Canberra Kingston which took about 4 hours. Now thinking back, the train journey was equally, if not more, enjoyable than in Canberra itself. We passed by old towns, old train stations, farms, windfarms (which are still farms), very nice scenery from the Southern Highlands. Breakfast was from the train's buffet bar (and man I thought it was a buffet line!) and let's call it the Oz version of train bento.

Our first stop in Canberra was Parliament House, a must-go in Canberra. Maybe I should highlight that it was Christmas Day, so everywhere we went was pretty quiet. Of course, we didn't have the chance to check out the inside of the Parliament House.
Then we crossed the Lake Burley Griffin over to Civic. Seriously most of the shops were closed and we had to have Chinese fast food for lunch, unless we were willing to pay big bucks for Christmas lunch at an Indian restaurant.

We subsequently toured around the Canberra area on a public bus and that's about it for our day trip in Canberra.

I probably should mention that back in Sydney, the street was kind of crowded and we checked out the Christmas projections at the Town Hall. It was pretty cool to see the animated projection on the 100+ years old building. Glad that I caught it.

On day 3 Boxing Day we would be going to the Blue Mountains.

day 1 in sydney

We took an overnight flight to Sydney. So when we reached Kingsford Smith Airport, coupled with the timezone difference, it was just past 7am. Good timing to start the day.

It was a Saturday, so probably the only chance to catch the weekend markets. Our first stop was Sydney Sustainable Markets at Taylor Square. There are a few farmer's markets in Sydney and I was deciding between Taylor Square and Eveleigh Markets but decided on Taylor Square because I thought we could check out Oxford Street along the way as well. There were 20 odd stalls selling fruits, vegetables, bread, honey, etc. On afterhought probably farmer's market may not be that great a stop for tourist, unless you have ample of time in Sydney.
The next stop was The Rocks. Before that we would pass by Customs House and Circular Quay. Any tourist guidebook would say The Rocks is a must go, and so is The Rocks Market.
My sense of the Rocks Market is that it is one of those doing tourist business. But anyway if you are looking for Australian honey, there is an outlet of Superbee at The Rocks.

From The Rocks you can see the Sydney Opera House from afar, and also you are just next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. So we crossed the bridge to the opposite side at Milson Point, where the Luna Park is. Milson Point offers quite a nice vantage point where you can see both the Bridge and the Opera House in one frame.
We then went to Sydney Fish Market. Monster crabs, giant lobsters, cheap oysters, they've got them. My advice is, don't get the platter, you'll probably be drown by the fries and fried calamari.

The next stop was relatively nearby Market City (aka Haymarket) and Chinatown. "Skip-able" in my honest opinion but you have to see it to believe it. Nevertheless, Chinatown offers Chinese food (duh!) if you need rice and noodles.
Then we went to QVB (Queen Victoria Building). Must-go, no question asked. It is a shopping mall, very old one. I'm not a shopaholic but I really like the old tiles, the 2 old clocks and the old elevator.

We checked out Westfield and Myer, bought some stuff at Jurlique (good gift idea to bring back). Wanted to go up the Sydney Tower Eye but there was a long queue.

It was Christmas Eve and there was a Christmas Eve Carols and Fireworks at Darling Harbour. We had dinner at Harbourside, one of the few places in Sydney where you can have night shopping (not even talking about late night!) We also strolled along Cockle Bay on the way back to the hotel.

Right, that's about our first day in Sydney. Tiring especially considering the lack of quality sleep on the flight and the number of places we checked out. I was a bit of overly ambitious to pack in so much in the itinerary, and in fact I wanted to check out Bondi Beach on day 1 as well.

Day 2 would be day trip to Canberra on Christmas Day!

sydney 2011

Hey mate! Yours truly here just visited Sydney over the Christmas period. It was quite an impulsive decision to go, didn't avoid the high season and didn't check the balance in my bank account. It was only a week or two before the trip that the air tickets were bought. Anyway 2011 had been a roller coaster ride for me and I thought why not go for a walk.

I am grateful to all the blogs that I've browsed through which had given me invaluable inspiration on planning this trip. So I thought maybe I should chip in my bit to share my trip, just so in case someone bumps in.

At the airport
Make sure you grab the free official Sydney tourist guide at the Sydney airport. Not the Chinese one, not the Korean one, but the English one, and one for each person. Cos only the English version has discount coupons at the back and each coupon admits one person.

Phone
I would have loved to chuck my mobile phone aside and stay primitive if not for all the planning I've done on Google map. And also for getting around which I will elaborate later. Roaming costs bombs and I needed a local number to arrange for local day tours, so before the trip I actually bought a 'yes' Optus prepaid SIM card. The card itself costs AUD$2, of course would cost more if you need it sent to you before the trip to do the necessary registration et al. Don't activate it too early cos it expires a few days after activation if you don't charge up the credit, which itself also has expiry date. And then you can sign up for which ever prepaid plan that suits you. I chose the 2 Dollar Days plan which basically costs AUD$2 per day for unlimited data and local voice. Oh and my phone almost went out of juice. Better to bring extra battery if you don't want to buy a travel adaptor.

Getting around
If you are a public transport freak like me, you'll love Sydney. You'll need a degree of street-smartness to be comfortable commuting on the various rails, buses and ferries of Sydney. For example, Central Station has dozen odd platforms, even the station near my hotel has 6; But with a mobile phone and data plan, the NSW Government's Transport Infoline website comes in VERY handy. If you want convenience of not having to buy tickets every time you take a ride, I highly recommend getting the MyMulti weekly pass. It allows unlimited rides on buses, rails (except monorail) and ferries. By the way I love the CityRail experience and I shall write on this separately.

Shopping
Depending on what you are looking for, for me it was the local products experience. Checking out the mainstream supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths was great experience for me. This may sound odd for people on trips, but I think this is one close experience (besides the public transport) of life of the locals. Do check out the fruits :) By the way, shops close pretty early, so grab the goodies (same goes for dinner) before they close for the day.

Sun protection
I can't emphasize this more. If you don't wear sunblock, at least wear a hat.

Festivity
This is not really a tip, but a little reflection. It was my first time spending Christmas in a western society (erm, also the south-most and east-most, if you go by longitude and latitude). The festive atmosphere was great, people in the service industry greeted people merry Christmas, even policemen wore the Santa hat on top of their uniform cap. And I think I saw a giant inflated Santa on a navy ship. The bad thing is, almost everything closes on Christmas day. Some even close from Christmas all the way to next year. Inconvenient? But hey we Chinese also take long break during Chinese New Year.

Hospitality (or rather, the people)
You can't beat the Aussie's hospitality (maybe minus the hotel staff I met) Be it supermarket cashier or bus driver or train conductor, they chat you up and they looked like a happy bunch. Happy, relax, friendly, efficient, but definitely not laid-back. At first I was a little uneasy when the supermarket cashier asked "how are you", but subsequently I greeted back and a short but wholehearted conversation began. Almost everytime every counter I went. Now compare this with the hello-welcome-without-glancing-up attitude that some of the service staffs we have in Asia. Man, I think these people really love and respect their jobs!

Maybe I'll share my itinerary another time :)

one A short of being SMART

As a commuter I always think that SMRT runs buses better than SBS Transit. The reverse is true for trains.

2 train disruptions within a few days. I narrowly escaped the North South Line episode (darn, I have never walked in the tunnel before!) cos I was on the North East Line which is operated by _the_ other transport company. But I was stucked on the earlier Circle Line disruption, resulting in me reaching office late by half an hour. Damn you, you cut short my tea break.

Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I could have avoided being stuck on the Circle Line. When I transferred at Harbourfront station, the display screen did not show the departure time of the CCL train. That was a sign, which I didn't care about. Everything looked normal, even the SMRT staff at the platform looked normal, telling people not to rush through the closing door and what-not. Then when the train reached Telok Blangah station, it stuck there for I dunno how long. (was pretty fun seeing people running down the escalator just to board a stuck train.) Then some passengers couldn't wait and alighted, and then the train doors closed behind them and moved on, bad luck for them :P

Throughout the whole experience there were only those standard pre-recorded message about how sorry they felt about the disruption. I was expecting them to at least dispatch some free shuttle bus. None. And I pity those of us who reached work late. I read somewhere before that in China, if the train (subway or metro) was disrupted, the train staffs will distribute official letters at the station to the affected commuters so that they can show it to their bosses about being late at work.

When you talk about fare increment you don't even blink an eye. Now something goes wrong and you just say sorry? If sorry is enough, what's the use of policemen?