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.
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!
Hollers in the 'ha 