The Sydney Story

Here, some photos from my fairly recent escape to Sydney :)

Starting off with Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is a famous spot among surfers, beach lovers and tourists in general. Though I crammed swimsuits into my luggage, I dared not strip off my clothes because it was freezing! A good friend who's based in Sydney told me that the weather's perfect ("AC + cardigan weather" was how he described it) but it was more like "freezer + cover-ups, and more cover-ups weather". My first takeaway from this trip: never trust your friend. Or "perfectness" of weather is subjective. Haha.


Closed due to family emergency. Thanks for explaining!

When in Bondi, eat fish and chips. And oysters (not in photo).


Bondi Surf Seafood--a charming old lady said this is the best in Bondi

For a seafood shop, it sure didn't smell fishy in here

:D :D :D

Probably Sydney's most iconic landmark is the Sydney Harbour, home of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Prior to my trip, I thought all plays were shown at the Sydney Opera House. Apparently, theatres and musicals are so alive in Sydney and the city is bustling with several other theatres. Les Miserables, for example, runs at the the Capitol Theatre while Matilda the Musical, at Sydney Lyric Theatre. Ironically, cinemas are not thriving here and movies are released much later compared to other regions.


Behind me, supposedly, is the Sydney Opera House. Now it's just Manly Fast Ferry.

Meet my tour guide, aka "weather's perfect" friend

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Just a short walk from the Harbour is The Rocks. You would love this place if you're into bricked walls, cobbled streets, orangey brown backdrops and cozy pubs and cafes.

On weekends, people go to The Rocks for the market. Here you'll find a lot of hand-crafted artworks and jewelry and interesting stuff like organic food and produce, kangaroo bracelets and bean to bar chocolates. The Sunday market fan in me was so happy :)

The best thing about staying at Circular Quay is that everything's walking distance (but then again, "walking distance", like "perfect weather", is subjective. Please consider that I love long walks and my friends and I used to advocate "walking for fitness"/"walking against obesity" by basically just walking around aimlessly after lunch).

After a leisurely tour of the Harbour and The Rocks, I still managed to visit the following: Botanical Gardens, a bit of Governor's House, St. Mary's Cathedral, Archibald Fountain and Anzac War Memorial at Hyde Park, St. James Church, Queen Victoria Building, Darling Harbour (twice), Capitol Theatre and Chinatown.

My friend said that the locals have a thing for photobombing. Hmmm. Like this?

Same friend told me to sing-act out "The hills are alive with the sound of music" and so I did :))

The reflection's just beautiful

His OOTD matched the gate of the Anzac War Memorial

Oh darling... harbour

For a while there, I thought there's Jollibee

Some random alley at Chinatown

That long day of finding our way around, getting lost, being refused entry at a pub after being mistaken as minors with no ID (thanks to the friend's pink shorts!) but ending up eating YUMMY lamb pizza and pasta at Machiatto Wood Pizza, and crossing the bridge sans umbrellas in the pouring rain summed up in one photo:

Despite being highly urbanized, Sydney maintains venues for close encounters with nature. We went to Taronga Zoo to see koalas. Such cute creatures! We were lucky enough to see these nocturnal animals awake and just being cute, jumping from one eucalyptus tree to another. I didn't get to hug them though, but I think there are other zoos that allow that closER encounter with koalas (and kangaroos).

For the wild

The area where they kept the birds kinda reminded me of Jurassic Park...

Nobody wanted to go first for fear of the T-Rex haha

The giraffe dreams of the corporate jungle

View from the cable car that we took to get back to the zoo's entrance

As in the Tasmanian Devil's

We also thought of getting a bit of culture and went wine tasting at Hunter Valley. It's about a 3 hour ride away from Circular Quay which our driver-slash-tour guide made interesting by giving tips on how to look like wine experts. To look like you know what you're doing:
1) Tilt your glass and hold it to the light. Squint as if you know what you're looking for.
2) Smell it. Say stuff like "I can smell apricots, raspberries, kangaroos, surfer dudes" haha!

Kangaroos roamed the vineyard

First wine tasting stop: Ernest Hill

Ernest Hill Wines is an award-winning, family-owned winery. Its wines are named after family members, dead ones, that is. I think nobody really wants their name on that bottle haha.

Our winery host

Applying what I learned from our driver. So, do I look expert enough to you? Haha!

Lazy Monday daze. Hey I woke up extra early for this!

We went to another winery, I just can't remember its name

I had the most fun during my last day, which I call the artsy/poser hipster/immersion day. I wasn't supposed to meet my friend until around lunch time (because he had a class) so I walked to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I especially liked the works of Aleks Danko for their playfulness, humour and depiction of contemporary social values.

Meant to be read aloud

Elephant trunk or a boat?

He's wondering why a living room is called "living"

All about today's Facebook generation

Yep, buy a parrot

Then I took the train by myself (I just had to mention that "by myself" part because it's such an achievement for me haha) and got to Newtown. Newtown reminded me of Maginhawa St. in QC--the place was very chill, the crowd was young and it's lined up with all sorts of restaurants, discount stores and thrift shops. Friends told me that it's the artsy/hipster part of Sydney so I expected random street performances and people spinning poi, or hooping. I did't see any at that time. Well there was a mini theatre for budding actors and comedians.

We had lunch at this burger place called Moo

The diners got creative: "Wagyu talkin' bout!?"

We couldn't think of how to top "What an udder cowincidence" and "Moo-ve to the Moo-sic" haha

Half beef burger with avocado, half kangaroo burger. I must say, kangaroo meat tasted like... beef

There were a lot of random walls like this:

The cold weather called for an even colder gelato. I got to try Cow & Moon. No wonder the line gets really long, their gelato's so good! Plus you can choose half scoops of two different flavors in one cone.

Since USyd, where my friend studies, and his dormitory were just around the area, we went there as well for me to have a feel of university life in Sydney.

Typical apartments in the area

I think this is a salon-slash-coffee shop. They got me at "A Loft Story"

There are 2 ways to get to my friend's dormitory: one's to take a shortcut and pass through the cemetery, the other one's to take the longer, grassier route where people walk their dogs. We chose to pass by the longer route, and then came back to check out the cemetery. Haha.

It's like we're filming "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" in here!

At the dormitory:

His university life in photo: chill. NOT!

View from the roof deck. Not shown in the photo are 3 guys getting tanned.

The University of Sydney was beautiful (and somehow I even got inspired to study there, or study abroad, in general). From what I saw, studying in Sydney can be intense. I used to think that everyone's laid back but apparently, they have one of the best, if not the best, education system and standards are so high that it's difficult to get through one academic level to the next. So I think the university deliberately played on aesthetics, which is like a break from your usual walls-and-ceilings university and put up avenues for recreation. They had several common areas where you can play table tennis or music and cafes (or bars?) that even serve beer!