Thursday, November 1, 2007

Sydney Part 1

Howdy from down under!

After more than 20 hrs of traveling we arrived in Sydney on Tuesday morning. The trip over was relatively uneventful in the whole scheme of things, but of course had many of the irritants to remind you why you don't do this sort of thing all the time.

Sydney was sunny and gorgeous when we arrived. After getting settled we decided to head straight for the harbor area (think 'the bridge' and the 'opera house'). This didn't disappoint at all as we found a very nice stretch of waterside bars, ice cream stands etc. all with great views of the harbor.

After getting Julie her obligatory ice cream :) (I abstained of course, beyond eating 3/4 of hers...) we decided to screw the outrageous prices and do a harbor cruise regardless. This we enjoyed beyond the obnoxious asian tour group that boarded at the last minute and insisted on carrying on a loud dialouge in japanese so we couldn't hear the english commentary. Ah yes, anyhow, it was great to get out on the water and get a sense of the city.

Sydney itself stretches over a huge area, with a ton of waterside bays and little communities. I should pause here to say Julie is reading over my shoulder and berrating me about the length of this blog post. "sigh" Ok, so you our faithful readers will have to make do with a summary.

Sydney's tourist locales are extremely pretty and quite nice - elsewhere you could be in any random city in the US. The city is also insanely, ridiculously overpriced - wow are things expensive here. $26 fish and chips are common - and the fish you are eating is actually shark by the way - weird but true.

So after the day down at the harbor we tackled Bondi beach (as described, much like a cali beach, but they had a cliff walk that was nice...plus a few topless women bathing...) on Wednesday. Today (Thursday) we hit the Sydney Aquarium (described as one of the best in the world). This is perhaps a bit of hype, but we had a good time regardless - they had a few underwater tunnels which were fun, plus we liked the platypus (julie grinned and nodded as I wrote that one...).

We are going to try for the Blue Mountains and perhaps the zoo over the next two days, but unfortunately we are a bit slow due to the combined effects of jet lag and what seems to be a cold. So far we have been ok with it - just having to move slowly and take a long afternoon siesta - which my dad always told me was the way to go regardless. Julie thinks she has a fever and I am poo pooing her - I just tell her she can't end up in a hospital again or I won't let her travel abroad any more. Relax moms, we are both fine...

Ok, off to dinner (Julie for some reason doesn't want to stay at the hostel where they are about to fry up some Kangaroo burgers...). A few pics below. Cheers!!

D & J

Jules down at the main harbor in Sydney on our first day in town

The opera house from out in the harbor - great to get out on the water!




The stud out at Bondi Beach - topless ladies are just out of the frame about to throw themselves at me...or maybe the sun was a wee bit intense...

Jules at the Aquarium with a seal swimming right overhead.

1 comment:

The Olde Guy & His Young Wife said...

We are just delighted with your Blog Site Dan & Julie! We feel like we are living large right along with you. Please keep writing and no it's not too long, as I don't believe that we are going to be in any of the places you have recently been anytime soon and we're glad to hear about places that we have only seen on TV or read about.

We do see that your wife is long suffering through all of this, but then what the hey! it's the nature of all of the family wives to be long suffering; just ask them.

We are anxiously awaiting the next segment of the jaunt with the "Dan & Julie World Tour" featuring the "Down Under Segment" this month.