March 6th, 2015 - Sydney, Australia - Day 202
Our first day in Sydney was a long one and given that we only have 5 days here to explore a big city we knew we were in for another big day today. Stacie and I woke up early again, had our coffee at home and then went to Cafe on Johnston once it opened at 6:30. The kids never showed up so had a quiet breakfast and headed back to the apartment.
Once the kids were up and had eaten we packed up and headed to the bus to go downtown. Our plan was to run a couple of errands (Stacie needed a new watch battery) and then head down to an area called The Rocks for a market and some lunch. We completed the errands pretty quickly and then made our way towards The Rocks. The walk ended up being about 25 minutes to get down there and by the time we arrived at Wok On Inn, our lunch spot, we were all famished. We ordered our noodles and took a seat in the open air courtyard. It was another beautiful day in Sydney and when our food arrived we dug in - it was delicious.
Our lunch spot - complete with musical entertainment
Once lunch was over we strolled through the market. The rocks is a very cool old warehouse district right next to the harbor.
Stacie and Lea found a vendor who takes Eucaliptus leaves and pours gold over them to make jewelry. The results are really cool and they decided to buy them to remember Australia by.
The market was small and mostly food, so we kept moving down towards the harbor. The kids spotted an ice cream shop so we had to stop for a cone.
We then walked over to the opera house. We stopped along the way to get a picture in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
We walked over to the Opera House to have a look. The place is really very cool and there were lots of people sitting around the base of the house because they have free WiFi. The kids were beat from walking so much so they decided to lay down for a little nap.
We read some interesting facts and strolled around taking in the views. Once we got close to the roof we could see it was actually made of ceramic tile - I was totally surprised. Not only had I never heard of tile being used for a roof, but certainly not for one of the most famous roofs in the world. Some things you just have to see with your own eyes, which is one of the major reasons we are on this trip.
One other note - if you ever need to go to the bathroom and you are in Sydney harbor go to the Opera House. The bathrooms there are the coolest public bathrooms I have ever been to. Talk about a useless piece of information.
Once we had finished with the Opera House we were cooked, but Lea is on a mission to find some new sunglasses, so we headed back to George Street to see what we could find. After a while of looking we gave up and headed home. We were all really beat by this point so we laid down for a quick nap.
Afterwards we had a nice eat in pasta meal and a great conversation about the experiences we have been having on the trip. Our dinner conversations have gotten better and better as the trip progresses and are now something I really look forward to.
By the time we were done with dinner it was almost 9:00, in other words bed time, tomorrow would be another big day.