Sydney - beautiful people, iconic structures, terrible smoke

Where did I leave off?....oh yeah, driving to Sydney. One of the many cities I’ve wanted to visit all my life. The iconic bridge, opera house, and the cityscape. It’s as beautiful as I had imagined. We arrived the afternoon of Nov 10th. Unfortunately, after dropping Jos off at the hotel, I had to drive back to the airport, and then take the train back to the City. City traffic was a bit rough, especially after driving in the open country for several days and almost over 2k kilometers (and on the ‘wrong’ side of the road).

The first thing we learned is that very few people live in the city’s central business district, although that is changing slowly as additional housing is built. Because of this, there are not a lot of open restaurants in that area on the weekends. We managed to find a cool little pizza joint with a pretty good bar. The drinks were ok, and we learned from one of the managers the names of a few great bars in the city that we needed to try. The lack of food also carried over to the evenings during the week.

We spent our first day walking around this beautiful city, visiting the sister cathedral to the church we visited in Melbourne (although Jos and I agreed this was not as impressive as the one in Melbourne). Next, we walked through a gorgeous park, with brightly colored trees in bloom (it is late Spring down under!). The park has those cool koala 🐨 statues in all kinds of bright colors & styles. We ended our walk by visiting the opera house. I thought the architecture was amazing. We didn’t get to see a performance, but just the views of building alone and with the harbor backdrop was magic. From the opera house, we could see the harbor, the Sydney bridge, and the entire city. Amazing!

The next day I was fortunate to meet up with a real estate expert that one of my friends put me in touch with. I followed this with a haircut. Unfortunately, even though I picked a well rated salon, it wasn’t a good cut & took awhile to grow out!! 💇‍♂️ 😀😂

The next day, the city started to get inundated with smoke. Jos was up for a rest day and wanted to stay out of the smoke, while I wanted to head to one of the iconic beaches, so I jumped on a water taxi and headed to Manley beach. The taxi ride was right through Sydney harbor...beautiful! I spent a few hours walking around several beaches in the area, and swimming in the rather cold water, all the time keeping an eye on the dark, fog-like cloud coming down from the North. This was a sample from the devastating fires that surround Sydney. Horrible tragedy. My heart goes out to all those affected by the fires.

By the time I got back to the city, it looked like low, brownish clouds had overtaken the place. We wore our masks when we went to dinner.... Jos found a cool little conveyor belt sushi place right down the street from our nice hotel. Pretty good sushi, but tough to follow all the great sushi places we had eaten at in Japan.

Later that evening, we headed out to an amazing rum bar, Lobo Plantation. This place rivaled Smugglers Cove in San Francisco. [Note from Jos: Disagree, but it was very good.] We had a great & knowledgable bartender who turned out to be from Asheville, North Carolina and, with 250+ runs at behind the bar, she made up some amazing rum drinks. Jos even had a few. This place should be on the ’Top 50 bars’ list....just my opinion. 🍹

As for our hotel.. the downtown Sheraton was pretty impressive. Very ‘80s, over-the-top place with marble, huge columns, etc. We were able to get a large corner room. Views weren’t great, but it was roomy and very comfortable.

I forget which evening that I was working out while Jos ordered some room service. All I remember is the smell of kimchi when getting off the elevator. Little did I know the pungent odor was emanating from our room!!! 😀🤢☠️ Yes, Jos had ordered a dish with kimchi, one the most pungent food aromas I’ve ever smelt. I had to leave the room for hours and wear a mask when I returned. Thought I would have to sleep in the lobby! Fortunately, the smell had subsided before bed time. Who created that dish!! 🤢🤮😷😀. I know, millions of people around the world eat the stuff. [Note from Jos: i love kimchi, and the fermented food is good for your gut! In retrospect, it shouldn’t be on a room service menu. But it was one of the only vegetarian dishes!]

The next day I got to hang out with an old GE buddy, Kevin Tucker. Kevin is one of the coolest guys that I worked with at GE. He has been in Australia for over 12 years. It was amazing hanging out and catching up on happenings over the past decade. A very successful guy, with a wonderful family — thanks for hanging out, Tuck. Hope we can do it again soon.

We decided to take a water tour the following day, which included stops at the iconic spots around the harbor, and some quiet little sleepy areas. fortunately, not a smoke-filled day. Although we had not seen the last of the fir smoke during our stay. After the boat ride, we decided to try one of the top 50 bars in the world, Maybe Sammy. Yap, you guessed the theme....think, Rat Pack! It was actually a pretty cool place, with lots of memorabilia and pictures of the crazy Rat Pack. The drinks were not overly impressive, but they did serve these cool little pre-made mini cocktails...those were great. And it was a lovely interior.

The last day, we went on the hop-on hop-off bus tour. We got to see a lot of the city and eventually headed out to Bondi Beach, one of the most famous beaches in the world. More on that in a minute.

We took a nice lunch break, with Jos’ and now my friend, Jesse. We met up at Spice Alley. I had met Jesse during our March trip to New Zealand. We were lucky that he was in Sydney for work when we met up. It was great to visit and catch up on all the happenings. Thanks for hanging out, Jesse! Hope we can see you & Dez again somewhere in this world - hopefully back in NZ at your new place. Congrats!!

Now, on to Bondi Beach. This beach has a perfect crescent shape, powder white sand, and beautiful, blue water. There were some pretty impressive people on the sand. Check out the muscle builder pic that I took. In case you are wondering, no there were no topless girls on the beach. That seems to be a thing from the past. Now, just guys and girls sporting the tiniest of beachwear. Unfortunately, as we were getting toward the end of the day, and as I was enjoying a nice Acai bowl, the smoke started rolling back into the Sydney area. The Sky was dark, the winds picked up, and it started to cool off. Everyone covered up and headed for home. The end of a beautiful day exploring Sydney!! 🌈☀️