Sydney, Part I [5/27-5/28]

Sydney!  My flight touched down in the early afternoon, and after clearing customs I hopped on the train to my hostel.  Conveniently, the place I was staying was located directly across from Central Station; inconveniently, apparently the airport owns the train stops at its terminals, so they're able to charge more to and from them... $16.40, compared to ~$5 for any of the other routes.  Oh well.

View from my hostel at night

I got settled in, grabbed a map, and headed out on a walk.  Sydney was a misleadingly walkable city.  On the map none of the bits and pieces looked that far from each other, but it took a fair while to get from Point A to Point B.  I actually used my first stop, Hyde Park, to try and time how long it might take me to get to other points in the city.

ANZAC Memorial

Hyde Park takes up a pretty decent chunk of land in the middle of downtown Sydney.  It's got plenty of large grassy areas, an ornamental garden, and a few fountains.  It's also home to one of Australia's ANZAC Memorials, and I stopped by to pay my respects; the timing seemed fitting, since it was Memorial Day back home.  Alongside the park is St. Mary's Cathedral, a fairly impressive piece of architecture that unfortunately doesn't allow pictures inside.  There were plenty of people ignoring that rule, but I'm not that guy.

St. Mary's Cathedral

After I finished wandered the park I continued on my way down to the harbor.  Not counting my wandering time, I'd say it was about a 45 minute walk (mostly level or only slightly sloped, luckily) from the door of my hostel down to the area between the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.  I got there just in time to catch part of the sunset behind the bridge, and snapped a few pictures of that, before doing a circuit of the Opera House.  I could've waited a bit longer for the Vivid stuff to start, but decided to get back to the hostel and off my feet for awhile... I knew there would be other opportunities to see it, and plenty of walking in my future.

Sydney Harbour Bridge at sunset

I ended up reading for a bit before heading up to the rooftop lounge for one of the hostel's regularly organized events: Pizza Night!  Considering how expensive everything else around the city is, this was a ridiculously good deal.  $5 got you four slices of pizza and unlimited "goon" (cheap boxed wine)... if that's not a good ice breaker, I don't know what is.  For those so inclined (i.e., less old or more hardcore than me), it also got you entry to a local club, your first drink while you were there, and a shuttle to and from the hostel.  People were getting back to the room late enough that I probably should have just gone for it anyways, but I decided to hold off.

Day two was exploring day.  Unfortunately, I was a bit overenthusiastic, and ended up costing myself a bunch more walking.  There's a free shuttle that runs from a couple streets over from my hostel down to Circular Quay--at the base of the cove between the Opera House and Harbour Bridge--but my plan to get an early start on the day backfired: it didn't start running until 9:30.  Rather than waiting for it, I decided to just walk down.

At the Royal Botanic Gardens

First stop: The Royal Botanic Gardens.  The Gardens form a sort of U shape around Farm Cove; at one point of the U is the Opera House, and at the other is Mrs. Macquerie's Chair, where the first governor's wife used to enjoy sitting to view the bay.  The tropical section was closed for renovations, but the rest of it was still very impressive, and I highly recommend stopping by if you're in the area.  I spent about three hours wandering through them and still probably managed to miss a decent amount.

Sydney Opera House & Sydney Harbour Bridge from the area around Mrs. Macquerie's Chair

Second stop: The Opera House!  I had about 45 minutes until the next tour started, so I grabbed a quick lunch (a tasty but horribly overpriced [surprise!] salad) and worked on some postcards for a bit.  The tour itself was quite interesting, and I learned several things about the Opera House that I didn't know before; for example, the winning design was actually in the pile of discards, but one of the judges showed up late and insisted on going through all of the submissions again.  You weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the actual performance halls, and I'm not sure it was worth the $37 price of admission, but it was one of those things that I couldn't not do.  I think it also got you a discount on some of the shows that were going at the time, so if you've got some money to blow and were planning on seeing something there, I'd say go for it.  Plus, free Wi-Fi!

Inside the Opera House

Third stop: Sydney Harbour Bridge.  I looked at doing the bridge walk, but they wanted $248 for that, so I said "yeah, nah."  You can also walk across the bridge at street level; it may not get you up as high, but it still offers some great views, and doesn't cost a penny.  It takes a bit over 15 minutes to cross on foot (more if you're stopping to take pictures like I was), and there's a small park on the other side that also offers some good views.  I got some pictures, relaxed there for a bit, then headed back across and called it an evening.