perjantai 16. maaliskuuta 2018

Down under in Sydney

Sydney - that place you always see on New year's Eve on TV with big fireworks.. that place that seemed so unreachable.. that was our next destination. And to make things even more exciting my mum and my sister were going to visit us also :)

We rented a nice Airbnb place near Bondi junction for the four of us which turned out to be a cool location. It was so easy to reach from the airport via train and access to Bondi Beach was very painless. Me and Matias got to the apartment earlier and got to sniff the area a bit and do some grocery and wine shopping before the travellers aka my mum the birthday girl and my sis arrived later in the evening :) it was so exciting having them there and seeing them after almost three months was just so awesome!
We immediately introduced them to the world of Tim Tams and they brought me soo much Fazer blue and salmiakki ❤️

Tired but a happy gang

To my surprise the time difference and jet lag was not too bad for mum and Henna the next day and they were ready to head to the beach and get some sun action to their semipale and albinopale skins ;)
We spent some hours at the beautiful Bondi beach and it was so hot. The sun was really burning!

😘


Bondi Beach
After heading back to the apartment I felt chills like i was getting sick. I measured my fever and it was almost 39 degrees! I never get a fever so this was weird and my whole body was burning hot. Me and my sis started to wonder could it be a heatstroke or something more than just fever (assuming always the worst in my family 😁)..
I started to take cold showers and then at two a.m. when I was shivering in the shower and my sis kept me company in the bathroom the night had a nasty twist.. All of a sudden there were baby cockroaches appearing from different places like crazy. Seriously! It was like, we killed one and then another one appeared and then we killed that one and another appeared and we killed that and then.. yea you guessed it, ANOTHER one appeared. I am so sorry to say that we killed at least 30 to 40 of those little motherf**kers in that very short period of time. Luckily this was the only big outburst of cockroaches.. and luckily they were the little ones and not the adult ones. We did however have few bigger cockroach visitors during our stay as it's a normal thing in Sydney we heard.. Yikes 😬

The next day was for chilling as we didn't get much sleep that night and even though my fever was gone, we felt that it was better to take it easy. So Mum went to see the sights at the city center, Matias went to take the coastal walk to Coogee, Henna and i mainly chilled and tried to recover from the killing session. Later me and Matias binge watched Stranger Things season 2 from Netflix after he returned from the coastal walk.

Australia day!


26th of January was a big day for Aussies and how lucky we were that we could experience this right there where the magic happened :)
We headed to Circular Quay that day and got to see the famous Opera House finally! Unreal! There was a lot of people gathered around in the harbour area and no wonder, there was a huge event going on with music and dance performances and the show was broadcast all over Oz.
We were just wandering around, watching people, having snacks and following Ibis birds, enjoying the vibe. Mum was gradually getting really worried that we were on the wrong side of the harbour area as she suspected that the fireworks would be nicer at the Opera House side. We didn't think we had such a hurry and just wanted to take things more slowly.
But eventually when we started to walk towards the other end, there was a sign that the Opera House side had reached it's full capacity already and they had closed the gates to the area. Unfortunate, but luckily we could get back to the other side where we were before. Or so we thought until we saw the gates closing before our eyes. Uh oh.. now that was a shitty moment :( Luckily we started to walk to the right direction and found another gate to the Opera House side which was still open and we got in! Hallelujah! We got to see amazing fireworks and listen to cool music at the same time. Though I must add that it was somewhat difficult to enjoy the fireworks as practically everyone had their cameras high up pointed to the sky the whole freaking time.
Like come on people! Take few pics but put the camera or whatever device you've got and away and enjoy the moment and let others enjoy it too! You can get nice pics from Google so might as well take it easy okay? :)

Aussie Day! 
Light snack
Almost perfect 
We were told that Aussie day is like Finnish vappu (Labour Day), so we wanted to have a beer in the city center and see for ourselves how drunk do these people get :D but actually we were really surprised that the city area was kinda not turned up. I guess taking it easy and having a BBQ at parks, beaches and people's houses is more common around here.
But we went to have beers at Cheers anyway :)

Sightseeing 


The next couple of days we wanted to see more of the sights so we started from the city. We had beers at Darling Harbour and walked from there to the Harbour Bridge and got nice views of the Sydney Opera House. It was a good idea to walk because we got to see more of nice places along the way which you would not see if you were taking public transport. The journey felt longer than it appeared from Google maps. My sister's feet were so busted, but she pulled  it through👍 It was cool to climb up the bridge and the views were awesome! My mum is actually little bit afraid of the heights so it was a bit of a challenge for her. Luckily, with a little help she also survived the adventure :)

The views from the bridge

Picture this :) 
And once you get the climbing going and adrenaline flowing nicely you gotta continue,  right?  :) so the next day it was time to do a day trip to the Blue Mountains. The trip took something like 1,5 hours with the train and then we walked from the train station to the Three Sisters lookout point. (There were busses also, but it's nice to walk: it saves money and you feel better after all the Tim Tams 😅)
At the Blue Mountains there are several walking trails (long and short ones) that you can take and see some amazing scenery along the way. The main attraction is the Three Sisters but we were just in awe of the whole place and took so many pics. There was also this cool ledge that you had good views and you basically stand on..  well.. nothing :) I tried to get mum there, all the way to the ledges outer side but that was too crazy for her this time, but someday maybe she'll do it :)
We decided to walk one 1-hour track before heading back to Sydney. The first part of the trail went smoothly and it was so pretty, but dark clouds started to get closer and closer and then like a switch it started to rain.. a lot.
Luckily we were very close to a shelter so we didnt need to take a shower there and then.
All in all it was a cool place and the little city of Katoomba where the train stops was cute also.  We would definitely recommend the place. Just maybe wake up early and head there earlier than we lazypants did (lazypants team = me, Matias and my sis).
Three Sisters

Two sisters 
One si.. Matias admiring the views
Our crew

Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk

One absolute must that our friends from Brisbane recommended was to do the walk from Bondi beach to Coogee. It is 6km long walk alongside the Pacific ocean and it passes by beaches like Bronte and Tamarama.
Breathtaking views seriously! I can't believe that for some these are just a normal day to day hoods.. we kept stopping and taking so many pics :) we also got to experience a magical moment when we saw dolphins play in the water ❤️
Ah, so nice and so burning hot again! Loved it! :)
After the walk my mum hopped on a bus from Coogee as she went to see an opera and we went to do something fancy as well.. we had burgers and beers near the beach 👍





Sydney "home" 

Our whole trip was a cool, pretty chill stay at Bondi junction :) our place was super close to shopping malls and train and bus stations so we had an easy access to everywhere.
Lovely weather, sun, family, Tim Tams & Finnish chocolate and couple of cold ones.. and so many other things to be so thankful and grateful for ❤️

P. S. Australia is btw also known for its tasty oysters. We hunted them during our stay but it wasn't until the last night we (Matias) got to taste some on the last night. There's many places to get them in Sydney, we chose The Morrison Bar & Oyster Room. If you're feeling adventurous and want to try some it's best to head there on Wednesdays. They have 1$ oysters there between 6-7pm.

The oysters

Our next destination was New Zealands North Island with the same crew! Stay tuned :)

- Sini



Our route so far