Australia Edition - Day 3

 Day 3: 2/14 - Sydney Harbor

Good morning from another day in Sydney! I touched on some things about day 3 yesterday, but after my previous update, we got things in swing. We got cleaned up and decided to head back to Chinatown for some noodles at Mr Chen Beef Noodles, a Taiwanese restaurant that served, surprisingly, noodles! It was pretty warm yesterday but comfortable and not raining so we decided to hoof it to see the sights along the way. 

We headed out from the hotel and took a different route to Chinatown than we had previously, heading along Harbor Blvd. The street name is a bit of a misnomer as we were walking away from the water, but it was still a nice walk. There are “streets” in Chinatown between buildings that are blocked to cars, only allowing bikes and pedestrian traffic and on both sides of the road are restaurant after restaurant with foods from all over Asia. The sights and sounds are amazing. There is also so much greenery here with huge trees growing out of the pavement. 

We walked from our hotel through Darling Harbor, past Sussex Centre, past Paddy’s Market to the Prince Trade Center in the Heymarket where we ate lunch. It was a little hole in the wall. We were looking at the menu outside and a girl came out, gave us menus and ushered us inside. After looking at the menu Valerie decided on a noodle soup with dumplings, I got the XO beef noodles, and we shared an order of soup dumplings. I missed the many signs that said to order using your phone and pay at the counter so we skipped the order on your phone step.

Restaurant culture is very different here. When you go to a sit down restaurant at home, a server usually takes your order. For the meals we have had here, it appears it’s most common to order on your phone. Maybe different types of restaurants have different service levels but from what we’ve eaten so far, phone ordering is far more common. The integration of your phone into everyday life seems far more common here than at home. There are QR codes everywhere. Want to know the fireworks schedule at the harbor? Scan a QR code. Menu, QR code, order food, QR code. Ferry schedule, QR code. I shouldn’t be all that surprised given the focus on conservation here and excess paper and flyers would be considered wasteful, but it is a big departure from home where you might see a QR code in a restaurant but not everywhere you go.

Our food came out pretty quickly after we ordered, and it was fantastic. The dumplings in Valerie’s dish were incredible and the noodles in both our dishes were the best I have ever had. Fantastic bouncy texture, amazing flavor. Valerie’s soup broth was a wonton soup like, light chicken broth flavor but delicious and flavorful, the dumplings were large wontons with a delicious pork filling.  My XO beef noodles were a stir fried noodle dish with beef shavings, cabbage, bell peppers and some other veggies with noodles in an XO sauce. I added some chili oil to the noodles to give it some extra spice and the chili oil was so good! Most of the chili oil in the US is Lao Gan Ma which is fine, but is mostly chili flakes in oil. This was more sesame seed based and really accentuated the flavors in the dish rather than the chili oil overpowering the dish like with Lao Gan Ma.

The soup dumplings were really good as well. I hadn’t had a Taiwanese style soup dumpling before as most of the soup dumplings at home are Shanghai style. These dumplings had a glossy texture on the outside, kind of like an opaque har gow dumpling. There wasn’t a lot of soup in the dumplings either, just enough to get a little soup flavor, but not so much that it squirts out when you bite down on it. The vinegar they had was also different, much darker and a less strong vinegar flavor to what we get at home.

After we finished eating, we decided to head out on a walk one of my coworkers had suggested. We walked from the Heymarket through Chinatown, and back to Darling Harbor. This walk took us through Darling Square and under an overpass. The bottom of the overpass was painted in blue colors, looking like the surface of the ocean from underneath. There were hundreds of these metallic sculptures hanging from the overpass, suspended by a single point at their center of mass. The way they were hung allowed the breeze to move them, so it looked like you were under water looking up at the ocean surface as you walked under this huge overpass. It was beautiful.

On the other side of the overpass was the Chinese Garden of Friendship and a couple of water fountains. We didn’t go into the Chinese Garden but we looked around the outside of it. It looked very serene but we didn’t want to pay $12AUD per person. Past the garden was a huge outdoor amphitheater with a grassy area called Tumbalong Park. On the northern side of the park was a children’s water park. The water was about ankle deep with some different play structures around the outside. Lots of families with young kids were there cooling their kids off in the water.

Once we passed the playground, we went under another overpass and we were back at Darling Harbor. We followed the wharf towards the eastern side of the harbor. This is a touristy area with lots of restaurants and things to see. There were some huge yachts in port and an IMAX theater. We continued following the wharf past the aquarium, wild life park, and Madame Toussaud’s.

Once past the aquarium, we were into King Street Wharf. Here are where cruise tours of the Sydney harbor leave from and more restaurants with harbor views. All the restaurants have huge patios and are smaller on the inside. We continued walking, following the wharf north until we got to Barangaroo, where the ferries and sea taxis are. Continuing north, we saw the most unique movie theater we had ever seen. It was an outdoor theater with an enormous screen facing a sea of queen sized beds. At night, you can go watch a movie outdoors while lying on a bed, with the water to your right. It looked really cool.

We knew our destination was the Sydney Opera House, so we left the waterfront to head further east. We climbed a huge staircase up to the Barangaroo Reserve and headed east towards Observatory Hill and the Rocks. Once we got to the top of the hill, we stopped at a convenience store for water. We had walked about 10km since lunch and we were in need of some water! Continuing on our way we got to Observatory Hill. We thought about checking out the view, but we had been climbing for a while and the clouds were getting a little dark so we pushed on towards the Rocks. 

The Rocks is a historic site for Australia. It was an important city for the indigenous peoples and also the first colonized city center when the British began colonizing and displaced the natives. We walked through the Rocks and at the bottom of the Rocks was the Brilliance of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. We were now in Circular Quay (pronounced Key). As we walked past the ship, we were able to see the Opera House on the other side of the Quay. 

Continuing to follow the waterfront we got to the Circular Quay Train and Ferry station. It was bustling with people hurrying from the trains onto the ferries. There were lots of shops and restaurants, ice cream and gelato places, and we saw our first Hungry Jacks. They don’t have Burger King here in Australia, it’s called Hungry Jacks. It has the same Burger King logo, but with Hungry Jacks in the place of the words Burger King. So much is the same but different. 

The shoreline turned north towards the Opera House and we were able to see the Harbor Bridge and the creepy looking Luna Park. That amusement park is going to give me nightmares for years to come. Why are early 20th century amusement parks so creepy?

We ended our walk at the step to the Opera House. We tried going to the Opera Bar for a drink, but it was crazy busy so we decided to head back to the hotel. We had been walking for about 3 hours at that point and wanted to chill out before figuring out dinner. We grabbed an Uber from Circular Quay. The Uber driver was pretty cool, we talked about US vs Australian politics and some history. We also talked about Greece given he has Greek ancestry and he likes to keep in touch with his roots. It was a nice drive through the city and we were back at the hotel in about 15 minutes. 

Sitting once we got back to our hotel room was probably a mistake. Neither of us had the energy to go back out after our foot travels so we put on the second Hobbit movie and ordered room service. I got a falafel burger with tomatoes, lettuce, and hummus and pavlova with strawberries and kiwi for dessert. Valerie got barramundi fish and chips and some garlic bread. Dinner was delicious, we finished the movie and by that time, it was 10pm. 

The time being 10pm was fantastic as we are adjusting well to the time difference. We went to bed, and I was up right at 7:00am. Valerie is still snoozing as I finish this up. We are planning on either taking the ferry to Manly beach today to check things out in the northern parts of Sydney or we will go check out the aquarium depending on the weather. If we don’t go to Manly we may do a harbor dinner cruise so we get to see the harbor before we get on the cruise ship tomorrow. 

Love you all and hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day. We sure did!