11 days in Eastern Australia - Sydney Day 1

11 days in Eastern Australia - Sydney Day 1

You must be wondering if this is the follow up to my post about Perth.

Well, its not. The Perth trip happened a good 9 years ago and given that time frame, many things which we've enjoyed would have changed. So instead, i'm bringing you guys to something much more recent. 

This is a trip we took almost 1 year back which covered both Sydney and Melbourne. We did all this without renting a vehicle and instead, chose to use public transport and get local tours to bring us around. 

All is not sunshine and rainbows which i will be highlighting later.

Flight: SQ231 via Singapore airlines

This was great as always. Flight was at around midnight and we arrived Sydney in the morning with enough time to check into the hotel, wash up a little before heading out to explore the city.

Hotel: Parkroyal Darling Harbour Sydney

We found this to be an excellent hotel to stay in the city and for a better write up, you can find my review on tripadvisor here.

Exploring Sydney

So first up to exploring Sydney city, we left the hotel and just walked up towards the main street. Elizabeth and George Street. From this street, you can get a free city bus which does a loop between central station and Circular Quay which is where the must visit attractions are at.

Bus 555 runs every 10 mins for this loop and its free!

Pie Face Butter Chicken Pie

We were positively starving from our journey and walk and just had to eat this when we passed by. Butter chicken in a pie! With mashed potato! Its heavenly and just the thing for a cool weather.

Sushi Rolls from Asahi Sushi

Along the street, this little gem popped up at us as well. At $1.50 AUD for a pretty big and generous serving, this is something you just had to order at least once!

Having staved off hunger, we walked ever onwards towards the Sydney Harbour bridge and Sydney Opera House.

We were still a distance aways but you can get an idea of the scale of the bridge from here. Its positively huge.

 The Opera house was a local and international icon so its inevitable for us to at least get a shot of it like the tourists we are.

 Obligatory shot.

 Having achieved our objective, we went to through the park nearby which was a good walk and continued to walk back towards the city and through shopping malls.

 By this time, it was almost time for dinner and i'd made a reservation while we were in Singapore at the very popular Hurricane's Grill at Darling Harbour.

Service was great, atmosphere was comfortable and family friendly. You get a good view of the harbour and the portion size was very generous.

We had the Mussels ($19) served in a creamy soup and nice toasted bread to start off.

Then finished our dinner with a Chicken and Ribs Combo ($49.50). This came with half a portugese chicken, slab of pork ribs and fries. The picture might look as though the serving is rather small but do not be deceived. Its a good size and we finished it pretty full for the night. We did find the portugese chicken better tasting then the ribs because of its tangy sauce on tender flesh but the ribs weren't half bad either. 

And with that, our first day in Sydney ended with a walk back to the hotel. Its a simple and relaxing day, one that we enjoyed and one that we figured was a precursor of good things to come for this trip.