Trip in Review: Sydney Pt. 6: Opera-tion NYE

Wednesday was New Years’ Eve and we took the day pretty easy as we had big plans for the evening. 🙂

We travelled first by bus up to Newton to check out “Brewtown Newtown,” for coffee.

 

Then we took the bus close to Darling Harbour to check out the Aquarium. It was super crowded, but we still enjoyed the fishies and dugongs.

 

Dugong Meals

Afterwards, we had the great idea to go to the Sydney Fish Market for lunch. On the way though we popped into a little pub advertising craft beer.

When we got to the fish market though we were immediately overwhelmed by the crowds. We seem to not have very good luck at fish markets.

Nonetheless, we had some fresh sashimi, cut right off the fish in front of us.

That didn’t exactly fill us up, so we went then to Chinatown and had some dumplings.

By this point we needed to pick up our tickets for our evening festivities, so we headed over to the Sydney Opera House. As you can imagine it was super crowded and security was being very tightly enforced. We had to first pick up a ticket to pick up the real tickets, then walk through 2 check points (past all the people who had been setting up shop since approx. 10 AM), then to the real Box Office inside the Opera House.   The whole “quick pick up” of the tickets took about an hour.

It was late afternoon by this point, so we took the bus back for a little rest and then had a quick drinky on the terrace before catching the train to Martin Square, and then walking to our dinner reservation at Rockpool Restaurant.

The restaurant was amazing- highly recommend! It was definitely a splurge, but completely worth it for both the food and atmosphere. The service was awesome too- they asked us if we had any time restrictions right in the beginning, and even packed us a little complimentary dessert to go! (Which we totes ate on the way to the Opera!)

After dinner we headed to the Opera House and got caught in a bit of wind…

…but we made it in plenty of time, and had amazing seats for the Opera New Year’s Eve Gala show.

Instead of a full blown opera, this show was more like “opera lite.” It consisted of a series of arias and orchestral pieces, all tied together by an entertaining emcee. There was an intermission timed right before 9 PM, so we could grab a glass of champagne and then get near the windows to watch the first fireworks show (it’s a smaller one for the people who don’t want to stay up ‘til 12.)  The show also had a heartfelt tribute to Australians and other entertainers who had passed away over the year. At the end of the show, all of the singers came out on stage and opened up a bottle of champagne for a toast!

I loved it! The singers were extremely talented, and the whole evening felt very elegant and fancy.

 

After the show, we went to the after party on the upper deck of the Opera House. All of the singers were there too, chowing down on these delicious mini meat pies! Around 11:30 we made sure to secure a spot on the outside deck overlooking the harbor and bridge for prime viewing of the 12 AM fireworks.

As expected, the fireworks display was the best I’ve ever seen. I am forever spoiled for NYE.

To conclude our evening, we sat and watched people dancing to the jazz band, had a couple more glasses of champagne, then managed to catch the train home around 2:30 AM.

So as you can imagine, staying up so late (and feeling a little woozy) the next morning, led to us having a pretty lazy last day.  We slept in, got coffee, had some tacos for lunch, visited the PowerHouse Museum, took the bus over to Bondi to walk the beach, and then home to change for a final sunset at the observatory.  We had to be up super super early in the morning, so instead of doing an elaborate dinner, we got take out from a Thai resto near the hotel and ate on our terrace.  I guess in hindsight we weren’t that lazy, haha.

Friday morning we were up at 4, grabbed a taxi, and made our way to the airport where unfortunately we had to check our bags (damn Emirates 7 kg carry on weight limit), and I got stuck with a middle seat in Economy.  Luckily we’re troopers and the flight went on without any hiccups, we finally got our bags, and then made it back to Doha.

2014 was a great year, but I’m pretty excited for what 2015 has to bring!

Trip in Review: Sydney Pt. 5: Contemporary Culture-ing

Tuesday we had planned on driving out to the wine country using another GoGet, but after thinking it over, we decided to stay in the city.  The closest wine region to Sydney is still about 3 hours drive, and it’s not exactly the best, so instead of dedicating the day to wining and driving, we cultured ourselves by checking out not one, not two, but THREE museums! We also had a nice lunch, checked out Bondi Beach, and did yoga by the sea. Busy busy (walla)bees.

We of course first started the day though with a traditional trip to a coffee shop.

 

And then we passed by this neat atrium-esque mall so popped in there for a bit.

The first museum we visited was the Museum of Contemporary Art. This was my favorite of the 3. They were having a special exhibit by the American artist Chuck Close, but since we are not art aficionados, we just opted for the free pass access to check out the regular collection. I don’t know much about contemporary art (and I don’t know ANYTHING about Australian artists), but I picked up on a common theme of “displacement” and cynicism towards the Australian government and society. To see some of the work we saw, you can click here.

There was another interesting “piece,” titled “The One Hour Laugh,” where as the name suggests, 4 people stand around and “laugh” for an hour. Think what you want! An excerpt (only 5 minutes, not an hour unfortunately) is found here.

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After this museum, we went over to the Sydney Museum, which was kind of disappointing.

It jumped from British colonization to modern day very quickly and there were very few actual artifacts- mostly just pictures/photos. I did like learning about the “First Fleet” of 11 ships. Here’s a quick excerpt about that, via the State Library of New South Wales:

“Over 252 days, the First Fleet brought over 1500 men, women and children half way around the world from England to New South Wales. 

 On 13 of May 1787, the fleet of 11 ships set sail from Portsmouth, England. Led by Captain Arthur Phillip, this historic convoy, which later became known as the First Fleet, carried officers, crew, marines and their families, and convicts from Britain to a distant and little known land on the far side of the world.

 The Fleet consisted of two Royal Navy escort ships, HMS Sirius and HMS Supply. They accompanied six convict transports, the Alexander, Charlotte, Friendship, Lady Penrhyn, Prince of Wales and the Scarborough, and three store ships, the Borrowdale, Fishburn and Golden Grove.”

 By this point we were hungry, so we stopped and had lunch at a really tasty Italian restaurant called “Fratelli Fresh.”   The pasta was awesome and the atmosphere was very Italian.

Grandpa needed a bib

Then it was onto Museum #3, which was a bit of a blunder because we thought it was the Museum of Science and Technology, but it turned out to be only the observatory (which was mneh, ok- better to book for an evening visit so you can use the telescope.)

From there we went back and changed into yoga clothes before heading out to Bondi Beach. We took the bus and it was about a 30 minute ride from the hotel- not bad!

I actually liked the vibe at Bondi Beach better than Manly. It just seemed a little more laid back and “kewler.” The whole time we were in Australia though we didn’t really dedicate much time to the beaches- with our milky skin and propensity of skin cancer, I’m over lying out and cooking in the sun.

So we opted for a different type of beach experience- yoga by the sea! Only downside was that being out in the open led to lots of spectators.

The class was great and we both felt refreshed afterwards. So refreshed that we had to have a beer and a burger to revive ourselves.

The night was still young at this point, and since we weren’t going out to the wine country at all, we settled for a visit to a wine bar.  The spot we found was pretty neat- you get a scan card and then make your own “tasting” using bottles of wine that are hooked up to automatically dispense.  Overall I think Australian wine still has some room to grow, but we had some decent Shiraz and Semillon.

We did not try this wine…

So thats Day 5- 2 more days in Aussieland to chronicle, then back to the Land of Sand.