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Sydney // Presence Conference Never in my life would I thought that I would be able to go to Sydney so soon. But I guess that city really lived up to its expectation in my mind, and in some cases, it is even better than I thought. I spent a good 8 days in Sydney and really, it is not a hard place to navigate around. If you're comfortable traveling in Singapore, Sydney is just like Singapore with a splash of rustic/hippie/old english vibe to it. I went on my journey from 11th of April to the 19th. It's autumn season and it's pretty chilly. But it is bearable. There are moments where I just wanna take off my jacket too. It's definitely awesome to be in such cooling weather after melting under the Singapore sun. I was praying hard that it doesn't rain, and thankfully, it didn't throughout the time I was in Sydney. And even if it did, it was like while we were doing something else indoor or while we were asleep. So basically everyday is a good weather day! :) First Day: We arrived in Sydney at 11am. It's kind of like the perfect timing. Then we had a quick brunch at the airport before taking train down to our hotel. I'm glad I have good direction sense because I manage to find the hotel based on google map memory. So after we checked into hotel and stuff, we went out on a typical tourist walk through Hyde Park, took photo of St. Mary Cathedral and walked past National State Library of NSW and Botanical Garden, and eventuall leading to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge view.    
By the time I arrived at Opera House, it is sunset time. And this means that the view immediately becomes 10000x more beautiful than it is in the broad daylight. So we hung around Circular quay, walked a little and took more photos. then went to The Rocks area for dinner at this super nice place (that serves good food) and then we went back to hotel for an early night. Here's a picture of Sydney Opera House at night. I think my camera did a not bad job capturing the beauty! :D
 Day Two: After posting photos of my presence in Sydney, I've received a few instagram comments suggesting me of places that I should go visit. And so I picked one - Sydney Fish Market. And really, that place wasn't a disappointment. The only regret was that we ate breakfast before going to that place and that place has good and fresh food!  
On the day that we were there, they were celebrating some Anzac Week (Or is it Anzac Day?) so there were quite a commotion going on and on weekend, that place has got live band and this girl sings really well! People can also just sit down and eat the food the bought indoor and pray hard that the seagulls and other flying birds dont come and attack your food. We got some Cheese baked scallop with rice, and while I was eating, I am literally just filled with terror and I am so scared like every single second. The birds are so scary, it is like they are not even scared of humans at all.
Here's my super shiok scallop. I didn't know that the scallop was raw until I bite it and I'm like.. "Hmm.. Raw scallop, that's a first" but it was so fresh that there's no weird fishy smell at all! :) If you're looking for the rice, it is UNDER the scallop, so you can't see it in this photo. So anyway, after going to Sydney Fish Market, we went to Paddy's Market. It's like Singapore's Bugis Street.. without the heat.
    
It was definitely a good shopping time! Got a few typical Sydney t-shirt.. HAHA. And after this, we took a light rail and went back to hotel. Oh, I don't think I've showed you a picture of the trains in Sydney. They are like the most interesting thing I have ever seen.
This is the trains of Sydney. It's two level, YES! And the other fascinating fact.. YOU CAN ADJUST THE SEAT TO MAKE IT FACE BACKWARD OR FORWARD. Cool or what? Imagine that in Singapore, people would just fight over the direction of the seats and it'll be all over stomp. Anyway, we took the train from Central back to Circular Quay again and visited The Rocks market because the day before when we wanted to walk there, it was already closed. So we managed to walk around and got ourselves a corn each and ate it in the Sydney cold. :) It was really shiok. So after that, I wanted to walk the Harbour Bridge but we only manage to walk halfway before we turned back.
The buildings along The Rocks are beautiful, like everything is so picturesque. I feel so blessed to be able to see all these with my very eyes. It's really stunning.      
After going to The Rocks, we had dinner and we went back to hotel!
Day 3:
Today, we took the boat and our trip for the day is basically revolving around the boat trip and the places that it brings us to. The first stop for the day is Taronga Zoo. An oh-so-famous place for visitors of Sydney.    
In order to get to the gate of the Zoo, you can either walk UPHILL or you can take a cable car. And of course, we took the cable car. It has been ages since I took a cable car, now that I think of it. So we went up and walked around the zoo. It was pretty good to walk around and not perspire like mad, you know what I mean? Anyway, it was my first time seeing SHEEPS. yes I think I sound so kiasu but this is the FIRST TIME i see these furry creatures. Besides that, it is the first time I see a Wombat! :O Hahaha. The walk around the zoo is super tiring, but after that we went on the boat again to our second stop - Watsons Bay!
We stopped for a quick lunch then I went to the lookout. IT IS BEAUTIFUL! It reminded me of what I saw in Jeju Island.    
Big waves against the rocks and the strong wind. It is super shiok. We only stayed here for a short while before taking the boat again to Manly, another suburb of Sydney. And I finally went to a beach! There's nothing much to walk around Manly, so I bought a few things and then we left to go back to our hotel.
Then from Day 4 to day 7 it is PRESENCE CONFERENCE!! I'll have a separate blog post about Presence Conference because it would be too long to write in this post. But here's a few pretty photos I took from the conference itself! :)
         This pretty sums up about the trip! And also partially cause I'm lazy to type more. But anyway, I definitely want to go back to Sydney again! It is like so pretty and all! If you're considering Presence Conference, DONT NEED TO THINK ANYMORE. JUST GO. It's a decision I didn't regret! :) |