The Harbour City

We have finally arrived and settled down at our pitstop-Melbourne for about 3 weeks. In those 3 weeks, we caught up on our sleep, ate tonnes of home cooked meals and did some laundry. (Ahh the feel of clean clothes cannot be any better)

During two of those three weeks, we were planning our next trip out to Sydney and to the Great Barrier Reef. This time, we decided not to lug our huge luggage but instead get some travel packs to use. And let me tell you that those travel packs are a lot better to use in comparison to the luggage. You can’t pack as much but at least you won’t break your back when you are trying to go up the stairs. It was a lot lighter but after awhile of carrying a 75/80 liters bag on your back, you can start to feel a little sore on the shoulders. Maybe I am just weak and can’t carry such a heavy bag on my back. Kenny had no problems. I am still contemplating on whether to use the packs for our next leg of the trip out to Asia. I won’t be able to pack as much but it will be a lot easier to maneuver around in the city and we won’t be targeted as much by the criminals. Hmmmm……

Sydney was great. Kenny and I both liked Sydney a lot better than in Melbourne. It is busier and there is more night life action in Sydney. It was not like in Melbourne where at 7pm, the streets are deserted.
We were living in the heart of Chinatown, so we had great access to food all the time and to all of the main attractions. The first thing we hit in Sydney when we arrived was the Darling Harbor. It was a beautiful harbor. We just sat around the harbor doing people watching and it was just relaxing. We think it is one of the best harbor out of all of the cities we have been to. Here are some pictures of the Darling Harbor:

We also went to the Sydney Aquarium (acclaimed to be one of the world’s best aquarium). It was fun and there were definitely a lot of different species to see at the aquarium. They had these underground water tubes that you can walk in so that you can see all of the sharks and the sting rays they had. Seeing the sharks up close was pretty amazing. You can see how big they actually are. See if you guys can guess what animal this is???? (Answer: Found at the bottom of this blog)

Sydney Opera House was stunning. It is again another attraction that I think pictures does not really do it justice. You have to see it in person to realize the size of the opera house. We actually went to attend a Beethoven musical inside the main concert hall. It was great. The acoustics of it was amazing. There were never any microphones used on the stage and the music still sounded perfect-clear and crisp. I have to admit that I fell asleep during one of the performances. One of the songs that they were playing just sounded like it was repeating the chorus over 15 times. (hey I don’t know how to appreciate classical music, and plus there were two other people in front of us that fell asleep too, so it wasn’t just me)….

We also did other tourist attractions such as walk along the Harbor bridge, go to Paddy’s market (it was like a huge flea market but it actually sells good things not junk), go up the Sydney tower, went to a Chinese Garden, go to the Sydney Olympic stadium, and went to Bondi Beach (Kenny is sad he didn’t get to see any topless babes there. It was a weekday, not a lot of people were there) We did see a couple of surfers, it was kind of cool. So in general, we liked Sydney a lot better than in Melbourne. We find that there were a lot more of things to do in Sydney. Melbourne is more like Calgary and Sydney is more like TO.

Answer: Sting Ray