Travels

Wow, I cannot believe that my time working in Sydney has come to an end. My coworkers had an amazing farewell party on Friday night in the office - and then at The Australian Hotel for some dinner. Some of us stayed out dancing till the early morning. I'll share photos later on.

Sameer gets here on Thursday and we go straight to New Zealand. As we're not sure of computer / internet usage, this may be my last post for a month, but I'll be back with more after we're done travelling!

Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains are not quite mountains and weren't very blue, but they were a beautiful expanse of lush, rolling hills. I did a Blue Diamond tour with friends a couple weeks ago, which picked us up in the city and drove the 1.5 hours or so to the Blue Mountains. This tour company was great and personal as we only had 11 people and it’s run by a husband and wife team – would definitely recommend it for anyone! It was nice not having to worry about logistics and all that jazz.

The weather looked ok in the morning but started to rain the minute we got to our first destination - Flat Rock. Next, after getting a bit cold and wet, we were all happy for our morning tea stop, where we had coffees and delicious scones with jam. 

Scones here are really more like biscuits. Biscuits here are cookies. Confused yet?

We reached the scenic area after tea, where we rode a few funky rides to see views of the Three Sisters and the rainforest. Despite the rainy weather, we were really lucky that the fog was confined to grazing the hills rather than engulfing the whole scene.

Here are some photos of the Three Sisters and the fog.

Here’s a bad picture of our guide walking us through the area that demonstrates the old coal town of the Blue Mountains. 

We walked through this beautiful rainforest – no better time to see it than when it’s raining!

This picture came out really dark, but shows the awesome twisted tree branches.

Waterfall.

Here’s me and Kali (our first picture together!) at Echo Point with the Three Sisters in the background.

Next, we went to an aboriginal centre where watched aboriginal men dancing and singing – it was great but unfortunately we couldn’t take any photos of the performance.

For lunch, we went to a sports club which is kind of like a country club of sorts but without the golf course or tennis courts or whatever. I had fish and chips – but forgot to take a photo.

After lunch was possibly the most horrific part of the day. We went to Featherdale Wildlife Park, were there are areas that they let kangaroos and wallabies roam free and have food you can buy to feed them. These aren’t the big kangaroos (as they would probably really attack you) but small kangaroos however it was rather scary having essentially large rats swarm you for food. 

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Here's Daniel feeding a cute wallaby.

The best part, however, was seeing some of the kangaroos with joeys in their pouches. So cute!

The wildlife park is actually pretty cool as it has only animals indigenous to Australia. We saw a few other animals, including wombats, little penguins, dingoes and koalas. The dingo ate my baby (literally)!

Sleeping koala.

They took photos of us petting a koala, which is pretty special considering people aren't supposed to touch koalas in New South Wales – it’s against the law. Here's a photo of my koala photo.

This was a really nice day, great company and lovely getting out of the city into the fresh hill, er, mountain air. 

Pyrmont Market and Bowling

Every first Saturday of the month is the Pyrmont market, in the neighbourhood of Pyrmont which is right by the bay. I really wanted to go to these markets because I heard they are the best farmers markets in Sydney. And oh boy, they were. The only downside is that they are from 7 – 11am, so it was a bit of an early morning for Saturday.

I ventured there with Dionne from North Sydney. Chris and Kali met up with us, but I don't have any photos to prove it. 

Here are some shots of produce and pretty sunflowers. 

Coffee time.

Cabbage flowers, these were so pretty. We asked if they were edible and I think the answer was a casual 'sure.'

I got a bacon and egg roll with tomato sauce for breakie, but ate it too fast to take a picture. Ugh I do that all the time!

Afterwards, Kali and I attempted to go to the Glebe markets, but it was too rainy for that. We grabbed some coffee and banana bread with mascarpone and honey at Twenty Two. I learned a new thing from Kali - that mascarpone, despite being sweet, is actually a cheese. 

Afterwards, we decided to be cultural on a rainy day and headed over to the Art Gallery NSW, where we wandered around for a bit and then went home to dry off and rest. 

That night, I was so proud of myself for actually going out! Sarah was moving to Dubai for a new fabulous work position, so I met up with her, Pilar, Ben, John, etc. for some good ol’ bowling. I have really lost my bowling skill. Also, this bowling alley was super swanky.

I loved these bowling shoes. Velcro.

It was hard choosing the right ball.

Afterwards, we went out to a couple bars in The Rocks, which was really fun. Great way to see Sarah off to her new exciting life in the middle east!

Love Pilar and John's faces in this one.

Dinnertime

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Christina’s last night in Sydney by the Opera House in order to view Vivid Sydney, which is a really cool annual light show. Here are some photos of Vivid – wish had gotten some better photos and maybe one of the image on the Opera House, but this year's Opera House image wasn't as cool as it's been in the past here, here, here and here (in my opinion). 

Then, we went to a German restaurant, Lowenbrau, in the Rocks – yum yum.

Christina freaking loves meat. Get it girl!

A few nights later, Kali and I went to Sushi on Stanley, a really cute little hole in the wall sushi place. The price was amazing for the quality of the sushi and the fact that it’s in a great location in Sydney. For 4 rolls, a miso soup and salad, we only paid $26 total and were very sufficiently satisfied.

I’ve already been to Miss Chu’s multiple times, but I just love it so much! Pilar and I met there for dinner a couple weeks ago. We tried the duck pancakes, then a couple dumplings and delicious vermicelli salad. The hot tea topped off a great meal. 

Now, to the main event. A few coworkers and I planned to go to a Cuban restaurant ages ago – I made reservations more than a month ago! The restaurant, La Bodeguita Del Medio, was so great in many ways. The food – especially steak – was absolutely delicious as were the mojitos. The ambience of the restaurant was wonderful, with a great Hispanic feel.

Dan and Dionne made sure to get their ‘ole’ on.

Me and Dionne.

Mojito!

Appetizers – taquitos (which were more like open chimichangas / tacos) and pork belly. Yum yum!

Here’s my delicious steak…before…

And after. Yummm.

As we were leaving, we popped into the downstairs area of the place, which is a bar with salsa dancing – one of my favourite atmospheres! We definitely plan to go back to drink mojitos and pretend we can dance.