la lala lala la: Sydney- Day 1

Day 1

After blogging about our Bkk trip in August, I can now clear the posts on the trip to Sydney we took in April! : ) The 9-day trip was the big trip of the first half of the year. It was also my first trip to a Caucasian country, right after tendering my resignation to an asshole Caucasian. Grr.

The trip was also the most complicated one that we have taken together and we only had three or two weeks to plan it before setting off. It was a pretty long trip- nine days in all. We wanted to visit Sydney, Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley and Port Stephens. So you can imagine there were quite a few accomodations and driving logistics to settle. Lucky Dear pitched in a lot (muacks dear) and helped to source for a lot of the accomodations. We are pretty picky about where we stay, haha.

Here are the trip details:

Scoot flight: $1149.18 for two persons
AirBnB booking: Euros 73 for one night
Treehouse in the Blue Mountains: Euros 155 for two nights
Adina Vineyard:$190.17 for one night
The Nelson Resort: AUD 130 for one night
Meriton Serviced Apartment Campbell Street: AUD 570 for three nights
Exchange rate: 1AUD to S$1.3

Our flight was a red eye flight, so we met after work and headed to the airport from Dear's place. Halfway while packing at Dear's place, I realised I had left my newly bought jacket at home : (

I wanted to live with it but Dear insisted on sending me home - all the way from east to west and then back to the east- to get it. So touched!

After reaching Dear's place after the hiccup and packing everything into the luggage, we finally left for the airport with Dear's brother's car.

Supper time at the airport before boarding

Good old hearty local fare, just in case we have to eat burgers and fries everyday for 9 days.

Finally we reached Sydney! Waiting for the airport shuttle bus here. I slept most of the time on the plane. Think too tired working during the day, haha.

We took the shuttle bus to the King's Cross area where we supposed to put our luggage in the room that we had rented for one night through AirBnB.

We thought we can make do with a cheap room since it is only for a night and the location of the apartment was pretty good. On hindsight, it was a bad choice.

The owner turned out to be quite a horror. We stood here, with our luggage, at the ground level of the apartment building and rang his house. No one picked up. We called his mobile and it was routed to voice mail.

It was very exasperating, especially since we had informed the owner we would be arriving in the afternoon. After a full 10-15 minutes, the owner called back and tell us that he is working in a backpacker's lodge three streets round the corner.

So Dear, my hero, went to look for the guy and after a long 10 mins (because I was anxiously waiting for him), finally came back with the keys which we have to return him again after putting our stuff. GRRRR.

This was the owner's bedroom which he rented to us. We only realised when we were sleeping for the night that it felt sandy inside the covers of the bed and the bed smelled like the owner. Don't think he changed the bedsheets and pillow cases lor!

We ended up sleeping on the bed without any blanket. There wasn't a aircon in the room so we opened the windows slightly for the cold air to come in. I didn't sleep very well, and got a little flu-ish the next morning which bothered me for the next two days of the trip. The first few days of my trip was quite affected because of the flu. Sian lor. So making your booking wisely if you are using AirBnB!

Back to the happier things of the trip since we have to move on to maximising the trip: at the famous Coca Cola sign in King's Cross. First item on the agenda of the day was to walk to Harry Cafe de Wheels to grab a bite of their famous pies.

So we walked to their outlet art Woolloomooloo. It is also the original outlet where the history of "Sydney's best pies" started.

The signature Tiger Pies: Mashed peas on top of mashed potatoes, drenched in gravy. Beef gravy oozed out when you poke the insides of the pie and you can find chunks of beef in it. I suppose it is comforting food to the Caucasians after a late night's out. But it is nothing astonishing to my Asian tastebuds.

After eating the pie for our late lunch, we walked opposite and took the bus to the Rocks Market.

The place turned out to smaller and quieter than I expected. Didn't get shots of the stalls as I thought it would be too intrusive to be brandishing a camera around in close proximiy to the stalls.

We then walked over to the Sydney Opera House area for a stroll before heading back to the rocks for dinner. Finally I visited the Sydney Opera House in real life.