Sydney Trip (Part 2)
So, on Monday, Brad and Jon had to go to work, so Mona (Jon's wife) and I were on our own! I got up pretty early and Mona and decided to meet at noon, so I had a couple of hours to kill, so I did some exploring.
I walked down to Hyde Park, which is named after the Hyde Park in London and is the oldest park in Sydney. It was a nice little park and there were all sorts of people around, including some older men playing chess on this big chess board. Also in the park was St Mary's Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Sydney and the ANZAC War Memorial, which is dedicated to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
Then, I walked over to the Queen Victoria Building, which is one of the coolest buildings in Sydney in my opinion. It was built in the 1800s as a shopping area, and has been restored with most of the original decorations. There were beautiful tile floors and stained glass windows and this really interesting clock. The shops were mostly boutiquey shops, (kind of reminded me of Armitage in Chicago), but there were also a couple of places to buy souviners and lots of jewlery stores.
I met up with Mona and we did some shopping at a couple of the department stores, David Jones and Myer's. They were definitely similar to department stores in the states, they were even having the semi-annual sale like they do at Nordstorm's. I bought a skirt and shirt and Mona bought a few things as well, so all in all it was a succesful trip. The one big difference was that in the shoe departmentof David Jones, they had all the shoes out on tables and racks, so there is no need for a shoe salesperson. It was interesting to see them like that. We were both amazed at all the shopping there! The mall that the department stores were part of was called the Pitt Street Mall, and it just went on and on!
The guys came back around 5, and we headed over to Manly Beach for dinner. We took a water taxi to get there, so we got some great views of the city as we were leaving the harbor. The beach was really beautiful and the waves were HUGE!! We ended up eating at this place called Jellyfish, which was great. The ironic thing was that none of us had seafood. It was really nice to eat with a view of the water! On the way back, we stopped for some yummy gelato! It reminded me of being in Europe.
Tuesday, Mona and I headed to Taronga Zoo, so we could hopefully see some Australian wildlife! We got to see some kangaroos finally! The most exciting thing about the zoo was they had a koala exhibit where you could get really close to the koalas and have your picture taken. The eucalytptus leaves that koalas eat are very low in energy and something about the way the leaves ferment make them somewhat drunk, so they sleep like 20 hours per day! Talk about Lazy!!! But they were still cute, and it was fun to get so close to them. We saw lions, tigers and bears (oh my!), and all the normal zoo animals. It was a nice zoo, and it was a hot day. My arms got a little sunburned. It didn't occur to me that we would be OUTSIDE at the zoo. There were also some beautiful views of the city from the zoo, so that was pretty cool!
For dinner, we ate at this place called Fish on the Rocks, which is the CIO's favorite restaurant in Australia. It was delicious!! We all got seafood. I had some wonderful prawns with three different sauces and Brad had some great tuna. Mona ordered a variety of shellfish, and the prawns came whole, with the heads and everything, so that wasn't so appetizing, but I think that's how they serve them over there. Thank goodness mine were tempura, or mine would have come that way too!!
More to come.....
I walked down to Hyde Park, which is named after the Hyde Park in London and is the oldest park in Sydney. It was a nice little park and there were all sorts of people around, including some older men playing chess on this big chess board. Also in the park was St Mary's Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Sydney and the ANZAC War Memorial, which is dedicated to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
Then, I walked over to the Queen Victoria Building, which is one of the coolest buildings in Sydney in my opinion. It was built in the 1800s as a shopping area, and has been restored with most of the original decorations. There were beautiful tile floors and stained glass windows and this really interesting clock. The shops were mostly boutiquey shops, (kind of reminded me of Armitage in Chicago), but there were also a couple of places to buy souviners and lots of jewlery stores.
I met up with Mona and we did some shopping at a couple of the department stores, David Jones and Myer's. They were definitely similar to department stores in the states, they were even having the semi-annual sale like they do at Nordstorm's. I bought a skirt and shirt and Mona bought a few things as well, so all in all it was a succesful trip. The one big difference was that in the shoe departmentof David Jones, they had all the shoes out on tables and racks, so there is no need for a shoe salesperson. It was interesting to see them like that. We were both amazed at all the shopping there! The mall that the department stores were part of was called the Pitt Street Mall, and it just went on and on!
The guys came back around 5, and we headed over to Manly Beach for dinner. We took a water taxi to get there, so we got some great views of the city as we were leaving the harbor. The beach was really beautiful and the waves were HUGE!! We ended up eating at this place called Jellyfish, which was great. The ironic thing was that none of us had seafood. It was really nice to eat with a view of the water! On the way back, we stopped for some yummy gelato! It reminded me of being in Europe.
Tuesday, Mona and I headed to Taronga Zoo, so we could hopefully see some Australian wildlife! We got to see some kangaroos finally! The most exciting thing about the zoo was they had a koala exhibit where you could get really close to the koalas and have your picture taken. The eucalytptus leaves that koalas eat are very low in energy and something about the way the leaves ferment make them somewhat drunk, so they sleep like 20 hours per day! Talk about Lazy!!! But they were still cute, and it was fun to get so close to them. We saw lions, tigers and bears (oh my!), and all the normal zoo animals. It was a nice zoo, and it was a hot day. My arms got a little sunburned. It didn't occur to me that we would be OUTSIDE at the zoo. There were also some beautiful views of the city from the zoo, so that was pretty cool!
For dinner, we ate at this place called Fish on the Rocks, which is the CIO's favorite restaurant in Australia. It was delicious!! We all got seafood. I had some wonderful prawns with three different sauces and Brad had some great tuna. Mona ordered a variety of shellfish, and the prawns came whole, with the heads and everything, so that wasn't so appetizing, but I think that's how they serve them over there. Thank goodness mine were tempura, or mine would have come that way too!!
More to come.....
posted by Jessica at
8:24 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like you guys really got out to see a lot of the city. Really makes me want to take a vacation... In fact, the last time Dana and I went on a real vacation was almost a year ago (when we went to Ireland in February last year). Who knows when we'll get a chance to travel again...
More! More!
By
mark, at 9:51 AM
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