Sydney Day 1

After being picked up from the airport from Mr. Jimmy Lam and his wonderful fiancee, Jana Rohen, we were taken on a very quick tour of downtown Sydney and we say the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and a few surrounding neighbourhoods we were dropped off at our extremely budget hostel, which in Sydney isn't very budget but is very dodgy, we had a nice sleep and then headed out to explore the city. To start the day we had some breakkie at a street side cafe, Andrea had the granola and I had the bacon and eggs...naturally.

Our first stop, you guessed it, was the Opera House. The weather was supposed to be a bit crappy, but this day was really glorious. No wind, no clouds, just all Aussie sunshine. We took many great photos of the Opera House and then followed an insiders tip and climbed the bridge pylon of the Habour bridge, rather than the $250 bridge climb. You could see the entire city from on the pylon and we took some more great photos. After our 200 stair ascent, and descent, we treated ourselves to an afternoon beer and chips break on the rooftop of the Grandin pub and sat in the shade with a perfect view of the Opera House.

Since the afternoon was turning out so splendidly, we decided to catch the ferry to the North Shore and check out the famous Manly Beach. This is also a great way to get a discounted harbour cruise since it essentially runs the same route as the cruise but is infinitely cheaper. The trip was really cool and we got to see the entire harbour and the massive sprawlness that is Sydney. It ended up being so sunny and warm at Manly that we went a little Canadian beach crazy and almost bought swim suits and towels right there to jump into the ocean! But cooler heads prevailed and we just rolled up our pants and sat on the sand.

In the evening we enjoyed a little Chinese food down in Chinatown at the Superbowl where we sat next to a girl and her guy friend who told an extremely lame story about how his sister almost burned down their house when she was nine. Snoozefest. I almost burned down the house when I was 2. It was no biggie. I was high fivin' the firemen as they ate the burnt eggs and bacon I made.

At any rate, we ended the evening with a pint at the 3 Wise Monkies pub, which has three sculpted monkies above the door. It's a cool three level bar with a stage on the third level, and that night was a 90s cover band rockin' the night away. They were really good. Scary good. I didn't realize how good the guitarist was until he went a little nuts during one of the covers and his hands were lighting up a storm on his guitar. Good times.