Friday, July 26, 2013
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| One of our first day attractions, the Sydney Opera House. |
Location, location, location. James booked our hotel rooms at the
Radisson Blu, and it was in the perfect location to be able to walk to all the main sites in Sydney. Although a bit more expensive than we had wanted to spend, the convenience to walk to restaurants, shopping, and attractions was well worth it!
By the time we had finally arrived to our hotel and checked in, it was already past 9am. The kids had already been up since 5am from the flight, so we went across the street from our hotel to the ACE Coffee Shop to have some ham and cheese croissants, fancy PB&J, and flat whites. (Flat whites, which are similar to lattes but smoother, became the new drink of our trip). After full bellies, we put the kids down for naptime for a couple of hours... and the adults had naptime too!
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| Ro Ro naptime. |
Thankfully, the kids have an internal clock and after 2-3 hours, they are ready to get up from naptime (whereas the adults probably could've slept until nighttime and would have become really jetlagged..). 1:00 pm, and we were ready to go explore Sydney!
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| Birds, birds... a lot of birds!!! |
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| And not always just the normal birds we see... what is that?? |
In just about 10 minutes, we were able to walk to the must-see Circular Quay. The Circular Quay is a major transportation hub with trains, buses, and ferries. It is quite a magnificent sight to see the famous Harbour Bridge on one side and the equally famous Opera House on the other.
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| Never knew how close the Harbour Bridge and Opera House were to each other! |
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| Although it was technically Winter, we lucked out having really beautiful and warm weather (during the day). |
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| Great first day attraction to let it sink in right away that we're really in Australia! |
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| A view of downtown Sydney behind us... very similar to San Francisco feel. |
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| First family photo with Zaydee looking in the camera! |
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| Chao family photo with a better view of the Harbour Bridge. |
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| Inside the Opera House checking out the
schedule of performances. If we didn't have kids, we would have loved
to attend a show! Too bad... |
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| Finally letting the kids out of the stroller! Also, one of James' co-fellows from USC who is originally from Australia, Scott, met up with us. |
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| Nice large space to run around outside of the Opera House. RUN RUN RUN RUN... FALL. |
Right next to the Opera House is the Royal Botanical Gardens. We took a nice stroll through the Gardens, enjoying the sunshine and space for the kids to run. There were lots of people just reading or sleeping throughout the Gardens and you really appreciate how the city keeps the environment clean and well-taken care of.
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| Zaydee exploring one of the construction areas in the Gardens. |
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| Imagine Central Park in New York, but much much cleaner. |
After walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens, it was approaching sunset, so we decided to have dinner at one of the outdoor restaurants in front of the Opera House. Opera Bar is the popular spot and where we wanted to go, but they didn't have room, so we went to Opera Kitchen next door. Our first dinner in Sydney turned out to be our most expensive and worst dinner because of the bad service, ridiculous prices, and the aggressive birds!!! The only thing that made up for it was the incredible views of the Bridge. Go to Opera Bar instead!
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| Yes, Opera Bar. No, Opera Kitchen. |
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| The start of dinner. Notice the seagulls behind us, and that is after shooing away several VERY AGGRESSIVE ones already! |
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| The end of dinner. 5pm AUS time = 2am CA time. Zaydee can barely keep her head up. And I ordered that martini thinking it would be $10 or so... no. Didn't know until afterwards that it was DOUBLE. Expensive!!! |
Our first day in Sydney concluded around 6pm, but it was a productive afternoon visiting Circular Quay, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and the Royal Botanical Gardens. Good night Sydney, we love you already!!!
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| But we don't love you, seagulls. Find your food elsewhere!!! |
