Continued from yesterday’s Part 1 post. From my recent travels to Sydney, Australia, here are my ‘take aways’ from my trip. Sydney is great! Make sure to check out my first post as well, otherwise you’ll lose the context of this one! Enjoy.

–Sydney is a walking city. It’s like a mini-New York City, but it’s clean and doesn’t smell like a toilet! Everything seems like it’s a half to a mile away. Not quite far enough to get a cab or Uber, but far enough you’re lazy American ass will get tired.  You don’t see many fat people in Sydney! They are in shape and good looking. 

–If and when I return to Sydney, I’ll find out how to spend more time at Manly Beach! It was $7.50, thirty minute ferry ride to the most beautiful little beach town. Plus, the fairy ride gives you million dollar views of the Opera house and the Harbor Bridge. Great surfing at Manly Beach! It’s such a easy trip over, it’s hard to believe it’s that close to downtown Sydney.

–The Harbor Bridge climb. You can climb to the top of the Harbor Bridge. It will cost you about $250 per person. If you’re afraid of heights this isn’t from you. You get amazing views! I was glad I did it. I wouldn’t pay to do it again. Once you do it, you probably never have to do it again. In hindsight, I would probably spend that $250 on more surf lessons at Manly Beach, or a helicopter ride to see the city and great views of the cliffs along the ocean.

–Shopping. If you like shopping, you will like Sydney. You could spend a month in Sydney and never get to all the shops. Yes, many are tourist traps. Uggs are everywhere. Most are knockoffs of what you get in the states and not as good quality. The good quality ones cost about the same of what you’ll pay in the states. “Uggs” is a generic term in Australia, not a brand name. Uggs in Australia refers to sheep skin shoes and boots.  Most American brands being sold in Sydney are 40-50% more than you can buy in the states. Don’t come to Sydney looking for deals. Sydney is an expensive city for shopping, food, drinking, living, etc.

–It’s awesome to have such a big city like Sydney, with a great costal ocean views so close! We did the Bondi to Coogee costal walk and it was great. About 3 mile walk with amazing views and places to stop along the way. It’s up and down, so be prepared. The 3 miles will feel like 5 miles! Well worth it, about a $20 Uber ride from the city. Both Bondi and Coogee have good places to eat and drink, so you can start the walk from either end. The best pictures happen closer to Bondi.

–Darling Harbor is a cool up and coming entertainment district. Ton of shops and restaurants. Plus, there is also the Sydney aquarium and indoor Zoo. So, you can see all the major Australian wild and sea life without leaving the city. $60 bucks to see both. For another $20 you can get your picture with a Kola Bear. You don’t get to hold it, but you’ll be inches from it. Plus, the zoo keeper let us stay in the area and gave us some awesome insight and let us take more pics with our phones. It was well worth the $20!  You can run through both of these in like three hours.

–The Rocks is another great area down by the Opera House. It’s the original landing spot for the Europeans that came to Australia. Cruise ships come here as well. So, a ton of little unique shops and restaurants. It’s all an easy walk from downtown Sydney, and you can easily waste a half day or more here.

–The Hay Market/Paddy Market is a complete waste of time. It’s basically a giant Chinese knockoff market in what is considered China Town in Sydney. If you’re looking for loads of poorly made, cheap crap, this is your place.  If you love Asian food, this is also a place you might want to visit. Although, you will see great Asian restaurants all over Sydney.

–Toast! First, Australians know how to do bread!  We had the best bread everywhere in Sydney. One funny thing, though, were the number of places that sold “toast”. Yes, it’s what you think. Just a piece of toasted bread. But, unlike in America, it’s not some piece of crappy Wonder bread, it’s a big Texas slice of home-made bread, grilled on a flat top. Usually running about $3.50-5 per slice (I told you this place is expensive!), it was well worth it! I had the Banana Bread at least four times at different places and it was always amazing!  I never did, though, get over seeing ‘toast’ on the menu as a main item in so many places.

Did I mention the 14-hour flight from the states is a bitch! Hit me in the comments with what I missed about Sydney!