Day 15 = Sydney: Chinatown, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Bridge and Tower

Friday, August 9, 2013

For our last day in Australia, we wanted to make sure it was packed with activities that we still hadn't done in Sydney.  After all, this was our last chance to enjoy Australia before heading home!  So early in the morning, we head off to explore and started by enjoying our last flat white and ham and cheese croissant at Workshop Espresso.  Then we walked over to checkout Chinatown.

Our breakfast stop.
Strolling along to Chinatown.
It's the cleanest and least congested Chinatown we've ever seen!
Of course we had to get some Dim Sum to-go!  Zaydee was very happy with the pork bun!
Now you're getting into the spirit, James!
A closer-up look at the pork bun being devoured by Zaydee.  Clearly, she misses Chinese food!
Off we go!
 After walking through Chinatown, we decided to go checkout the Powerhouse Museum.  The exhibits change in the Powerhouse Museum, but we had heard that there was currently a Wiggles exhibit!  Zaydee doesn't really know much about the Wiggles show since she doesn't watch TV, but she sure knows all of their songs, especially the Monkey Song!  The Wiggles exhibit was so AWESOME, creative, and interactive so Zaydee loved it!!!  Ro Ro didn't know the Wiggles, but he loved all the transportation vehicles - planes, trains, cars, boats, etc - throughout the museum.  This was a great place to go for our last day!

Let's go inside!!!
Ro Ro was in transportation heaven!
Just like the Mars Rover?
Cool shot by Kevin with Ro Ro walking through the space shuttle!
So much fun for all of us!
Zaydee, it's the Wiggles exhibit!
Trying to point her finger too...
The layout of the exhibit.
Loved learning all these facts about the Wiggles and how they got started!
This was a talking house.
The Wiggles have a popular "Fruit Salad" song, so how appropriate to have a fruit salad cutting table!
This was an interactive game, like the Xbox Kinect!
You have to try to catch the falling fruit (the blue blobs on the screen are us!)
"Wake up, Jeff!"  You have to literally scream that until the meter goes to "Loudest!"
Wags the Dog!  Pretty impossible to get Zaydee to look at the camera now!
It's Dorothy the Dinosaur!!!  Yup, no eye contact whatsoever.
Zaydee loving Dorothy's rose house and the tea set inside.
They even had a craft table teaching you how to make tissue roses. 
By far, Zaydee's favorite was watching this "concert" of the Wiggles performing the top songs!  She's dancing...
Henry the Octopus and an underwater dance party!
On to the big boat, Zaydee steering the ship!
Big boats, little boats...
Lots of different "red cars."
But there's only one Big Red Car!  Interactive screen like you are driving on the path.
A few more of the other exhibits...

This was a tidepool simulation that was also interactive when you stepped on it.
Electricity!
There was even an outdoor playground with lots of cool play structures!
 What a fun morning!  We still had a long walk home so that the kids could take their nap, but we made sure to stop by the Westfield shopping center to pick up some more Din Tai Fung to-go for the kids to eat for lunch.  We couldn't resist getting it, even though we knew it was way too expensive!  Some things you just sacrifice because you want your kids to eat well!

After naptime, we decided to take a closer look at the Sydney Harbour Bridge by walking on it!  One of the popular tourist activities is to do the Bridge Climb, where you literally walk on the top of the bridge arch, but we decided the views from the bridge itself would be good enough for us since the kids wouldn't be able to climb the top.  So we headed to Circular Quay and climbed the steps to check out the bridge.

Lots of stairs to climb.
Somebody's still tired from the nap!
Climbing higher, and higher, and higher!
On the bridge now, and almost to the arch!
Here is one of the lookouts you can take to go even higher.
You can see people who are doing the Bridge Climb walk!
Ann Ming and Ro Ro enjoying the views.
Great views of the Opera House!
Sydney is so beautiful!
We didn't walk across the whole bridge.  Now we are turning around!
Bye Bridge!
Another popular tourist spot is to go to the Westfield Sydney Tower Eye, where you can get 360 degree views of all of Sydney. 

The Sydney Tower from ground level.
Taking the elevator to the top!
Yes, we are in the highest point of all of Sydney now!
Zaydee checking out all the lights below - who has a fear of heights?  Not her!
A better photo taken by Kevin of Sydney from the Tower.
 For dinner, we yelped good places to eat, and found a popular ramen place called Menya Noodle Bar.  We sat outside with the heat lamps, and it was a perfect meal to end our trip!

Yummy... ramen is always so delicious.
Cheers!
 Since it was our last night and all of us were sad to leave Australia, we decided to continue our fun after the kids went to sleep.  Both the places we stayed at in Cairns and Hamilton Island were 2-bedroom apartments, where the adults could hang out in the family room after the kids went to sleep.  But in Sydney, since we were at the Radisson and staying in a hotel-layout, we had to be really quiet in our rooms when the kids went to sleep, and it would be dark too.  Many of the previous nights in Sydney, James and I hung out in the bathroom with our computers because that was the only place we could have some more light!

So us adults decided to hang out in the hotel hallway that night, leaving a crack in the door of our hotel rooms.  We brought out our Tim Tams, our potato chips, our James Squire SunDown lagers and stella for the boys, and our Rekorderlig ciders for the girls, and had a little last-night party in the hallway.  All the neighbors who walked past us gave us weird looks and kept asking if we were locked out, until we told them that our babies were sleeping inside... and then they all became nice and understood =)  Haha, the joys of parenthood.

Our flight home the next day is a blur... it was a bit more challenging because it wasn't a red-eye, and the departure time was in the early afternoon, but the kids eventually slept and did really great considering such a long trip is hard on anyone!  Our only group photo will end this blog... unless we come back Kevin, Ann Ming, and Ro Ro!!!  10 year reunion?  =)  Thanks for reading everybody!  Goodbye Australia - thanks for such a wonderful vacation!!!

Hamilton Island, Australia - 8/6/13