Sydney Itinerary Day 1 - Paddy's, Darling Harbour, Queen Victoria Building, and Bondi Beach

Finally, it's time for a good long break!!! Started it with a visit to Sydney, the busiest city in Australia. Very fast pace, multicultural, and offered so many beautiful places!! I went there with hubby. My sister came from Melbourne joining us for the first three days.

Both of us took midnight flight from Singapore by Singapore Airlines. Reached Sydney the next morning. We immediately put our luggage in a friend's place - Virny and Hadi had agreed to put up with our stay there for the whole week. Thank you both!!! After resting for a while, our journey  was finally begun.

Day 1: Paddy's (Chinatown area), Darling Harbour, Queen Victoria Building, and Bondi Beach

c

Lunch at Chinatown area :)

It'd been seventeen years since my first visit to Sydney, back in 1999. I was still a college student.. Stayed there for 1.5 months during a school holiday, visiting many cities across Australia. This, would be my second time revisiting Sydney. Many things had changed although some remained the same. I could only recall a little bit memory from the past.

For first timer, Paddy's (Chinatown area) was definitely a place to go. We had our lunch (Cantonese food) there at one restaurant famous for its dumpling (however, it wasn't available when we ordered :P). Well, there were hundreds of restaurants available though. Chinese (Emperor's Garden, East Ocean), Indonesian (Podomoro), Thai (Chat Thai), Malaysian (Mamak), Japanese (Kura, Wagaya), Vietnamese (Pho Gia Hoi, Pasteur), and so on. If you could not decide what to eat, go up to Market City's building 3rd floor to find variety of food available at the food court.

Darling Harbour - Sydney, Australia

Once lunch done, we had a good walk towards the Darling Harbour. It was only five minutes walk from Chinatown area. It had changed a lot. Few big buildings were being built. There was Chinese Garden, Cockle Bay Wharf, shopping malls, rows of restaurants, hotels, cruises, museums, playgrounds, and so on. It was perfect place for dating, like what I had many years back ;P

Queen Victoria Building (QVB) - Sydney, Australia

From there, we walked again towards Town Hall train station passing by the Queen Victoria Building or QVB - built in a late nineteenth century, right in Sydney Central Business District (CBD) area. It was shopping malls with shops and restaurants inside built beautifully and classic. There my sis and I tried the delicious Zumbarons (at AUD$2.80 each), macaroons sold at pastry shops by Adriano Zumbo - one of the Australia's most celebrated patisseries. We had Salted Butter Popcorn and NY Passionfruit Cheesecake flavours. Hhhmmm.... nyummy!!! They were delicious and not too sweet!!! Perfectly melted inside my mouth... :)

Bondi Beach - Sydney, Australia

We moved on to Bondi Beach this time round. Taking train to Bondi Junction station and bus no. 380/381, stopped at the beach. It was cooling sunny day! We were lucky to have such a weather because just the week before, it was reported that it rained almost every day. I removed my shoes and socks, folded my pants, and walked over the sand. It was cold sands! Unlike the usual tropical summer hot sea sands that I stepped in. We were staying there for a while. Too bad sunset was located at the other side though.

Do Dee Noodle Bar - Tiffany Plaza at Bondi

At 5.30 pm we took the bus back and headed to Tiffany Plaza. We had dinner appointment with a friend that I'd never met for 20 years, and my sis-in-law's cousin with his wife and 6.5 months old baby girl. We ate at Do Dee Noodle Bar and tried their noodles. It was famous for its spicy noodles. There were 7 different levels of spiciness, Harpin already warned me that the spicy noodle level 1 was spicy enough for him. However, the "Do Dee Devil"'s name had intrigued me to try. (AUD$9.90 for the large size bowl). True enough. I found it very spicy until I had to ask for extra soup to make it less spicy :P Harpin himself ordered the Do Dee King noodle to be shared with his wife. It was put in giant bowl with so many fillings, costs AUD$23.90 per bowl. The Giant Pork Ball noodle (AUD$9.90 - Large) and Do Dee Pepper Pork noodle (AUD$11.50 - Large) were not spicy though, So if you can't eat spicy food, you still have many choices of food to choose. We had a great chat, updating each other, asking about their feeling staying over there, and so on. It was a pack and fulfilling day. Time to get home and have a good rest. Continue later...