gardenofwine.com

Hotel Stellar, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Click here for pictures

“G’Day Mates”, as you can tell we are down under, where the folks speak Australian, a fun and lively version of English. We have spent 4 days in Sydney, the largest city in the country and the business and entertainment center as well.

We got here on Wednesday after leaving Fiji very early in the morning. Since all our Pacific flights were booked with Air New Zealand, we had to connect trough Auckland, NZ, which was a bit of a bummer because instead of just 3 hours, it took us most of the day to get here.

Happily for us, Paola’s parents were waiting for us at our hotel, having arrived a day earlier. The reunion with the grandchildren was grand. Ron remembered his grandparents and was ecstatic. Shir is very easy, and had no problems being taken in Alfredo’s arms. Orr on the other hand was a bit shy, hiding behind my legs. However, it took her just 24 hours to warm up.

Our hotel, Stellar, is a lovely boutique hotel situated in a great place in downtown, right across from Hyde Park. We are sharing a 3 bedroom apartment that has lots of space for us and the kids. The kitchen and appliances make it easy to have breakfast and supper with the kids here in the hotel. And the best feature, we have a washer/dryer right here. We (read Paola) have been doing laundry every day.

Our first evening in Sydney we celebrated Rosh Hashana , hoping the next year will be as happy for us as the past one. Raquel cooked us a great dinner and the kids enjoyed the apple with honey.

On Thursday we walked down to Darling Harbour to see the famous Sydney Aquarium. The whole area is beautifully designed with lots of fun things to do. We came across a playground and spent an hour with the kids, letting the grandparents get a taste for chasing 3 little ones around. Nearby was a photo expo with a Green Earth theme. They had amazing shots of various themes like water and trees shot from planes of all sorts of interesting places on earth.

We had a hearty lunch in a nice meat restaurant along the harbor and then headed to the Aquarium. The focus of course is on Australian wildlife, and there is plenty. We started with the water loving duck-billed platypus, which defies the laws of categorizing by being a mammal that lays eggs. We saw lots of fish from the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), and the most amazing display was the shark tank, which we walked under inside see through tubes. Boy they have nasty teeth. The same tank also had some huge manta rays the size of a Persian rug. Ron was afraid at first to go to see the shark tank, having seen the Nemo movie, but after a bit of coaxing and hand holding he was chasing his sisters up and down the tubes, looking for incoming sharks and rays.

After the aquarium we walked through busy Market street at rush hour to see the city from the top of Sydney Tower. We got to the top just in time for sunset. I took some nice shots as day turned into night.

Friday was a cloudy and at times rainy day. We visited the Australia Museum, only 10 minutes walk from our hotel. They had a nice, politically correct story of Aboriginal history since white man arrived. They had a nice children’s section as well where the kids played with a skeleton. Another part had a gemstone exhibition, and another had a photo exhibit of Africa. What’s with Africa here?

After the museum we had lunch and visited the Sydney Tower again to see a 3D movie about Australia. Kitsch, nothing special.

We took our chance and walked the streets of Sydney until it started to rain. We found shelter in a quiet covered shopping lane where we sipped some coffee till the storm passed. It only took 30 minutes and the sun was out again. We then walked to Circular Quay and the famous Sydney Opera House.Very impressive. A 35 minute walk and we were back at the hotel.

Yesterday we went to Taronga zoo. To get to the first exhibit we had to take 3 modes of transport- a taxi to circular Quay, a ferry across the harbor, and finally a gondola to the top of the hilly zoo. The ferry passes right by the opera house and harbor bridge providing excellent views. The zoo is huge and magnificent. Half is dedicated to Australian animals. Because the Australian continent has been apart from the rest of the world for so long, many unique animal types have developed solely here – kangaroos, wallabies, emus, Tasmanian devil, meerkats (funny little guys), and of course koalas.

We spent most of the day here. An added bonus is the great view of downtown Sydney.

Needless to say, the children were very pleased with the day.

 

In the evening, Paola and I got an evening to ourselves. Alfredo and Raquel minded the children as we went out to a nice French brasserie in Darlinghurst. It was a very tasty meal and our waiter was a very entertaining former Parisian.

Today was laid back with not too much happening. We went to the “Rocks”, the sight of the first settlement in Sydney, and now a bustling tourist area with small cobblestone streets. It was a gloriously sunny day and we enjoyed walking around and window shopping. We had lunch in a German restaurant that was like a classic Bavarian drinking hall, live music included. The food was surprisingly good, even the ApfelStrudel for dessert.

It seems like the last four days whizzed past us, and we are sad to leave Sydney tomorrow morning. But “no worries mates”, further adventures await us in Cairns. As they say here in Oz, “Catch you later”,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 2:39 am and is filed under Australia, Big Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.