Sydney-Day 1

Ahhh, Sydney.  I really really loved you!!

We fell in love the second our shuttle drove us through the city and plopped us at our hotel around 9:30am.  We couldn't check into our hotel yet, so we grabbed a latte (a huge must after long flight) and hoped to ride the high out and get a days worth of activity in.  

The first day was spent in Chinatown, Darling Harbour, the Wharf, and The Aquarium!  I will let the pictures speak for themselves :)

Chinatown

Tumbalong Park

Loved this fountain

Darling Harbour

I felt as if the birds were going to attack :)

Market conveniently located off the harbour

Felt just like Seattle

THE AQUARIUM --

Jordan this was just for you, love you platy!!

The largest shark in the world -- can you imagine!!

Our favorite part of the Sydney Aquarium:

seeing real sea life, through glass!

Had lunch on the patio viewing the harbour .... 

even the sun peaked out after an overcast morning, just like Seattle! 

Funny story about eating outdoors.  Remember the birds I showed you a picture of a few photos up??  Well, we learned VERY quickly after an almost detrimental experience that the seagulls will swoop down and grab your plate-worth of food if you leave it for .01 seconds.  I didn't take the server seriously, oops!  I almost lost my entire meal, which would have been okay this time around as we were underwhelmed by the burger, chicken sandwich, and fries.  The food just isn't the same as back home.  Imagine .... bland!!

After lunch, we walked back to out hotel, which was perfectly located in the heart of the city.  We got checked in, and I took a 3 hour nap as my body clock thought it was midnight 'ish.  Gabe was a rockstar and stayed up to find out Australian TV shows are interesting.  I woke up just beat, hoping to go back to bed, and hubs is wanting to get dinner.  Ummm at midnight (Seattle time)?!  I have never eaten that late before, but I was a very good wifey to go hunt for some local grub :)

A little sidenote ***This is the first time I used Hotel.com and went off the gazillion reviews I read hoping for a ideal location and clean place to stay.  The Vibe Hotel in Sydney was perfect and really modern.  I had read that roaches are a common finding, and my first evening there ... I found one in the bathroom.  Ick, reminds me of TX as we don't have them in WA.

Our hotel had a very smart concept for electricity and required the key to be in the slot for the air and lights to work!  We kept the spare key in while we were at dinner to keep our room cool, so we were apparently too smart for them.

We should do this in the US

Back to eating at midnight .... 

We walked around a bit waiting for the perfect place to catch our eye.

Din Tai Fung .... what is that might you ask??

Only 43 restaurants in the entire world, and I am so glad we stumbled upon it.  The line was out the door (on a Monday night) and completely packed.  Gabe and I had neither heard of Din Tai Fung or what in the world we were going to order, but I knew we had to stop in because that's where ALL the Asians were.

We found out that it is known as a "Dumpling House," and I am so sad I didn't get a picture of our meal and all the people as we were seated at a large round table of locals who got a good laugh out of us, I am sure. The pork dumplings were phenomenal, and it quickly became (and stayed) our favorite restaurant in all of Australia.  Din Tai Fung are all over Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, etc.  Check out the link here!  The only location currently in the USA is in LA, AND, we are getting one at the end of the month in Bellevue!!!  We can't wait and are hoping to go on opening night.


After dinner, we went straight home and I was asleep by 9pm Sydney time.  The best thing about getting to sleep early was waking up at 7am without an alarm (and my body thought I was sleeping in like a teenager till 2pm Seattle time!)

Yes, that really was all one day filled, Day 2 is next!
To be continued ....