Still Time: A Letter about Sydney

Yesterday and today, a friend came to me talking about his intentions of visiting Australia. He requested some input on places of interest, and I briefly told him what I knew of places in Australia. But for Sydney, it's a special case. Sydney's like my second home. There's so much I could talk about Sydney. Here's what I wrote to him:

Ok! And about Sydney!

After staying there 2.5 years, there are still some places I'm yet to explore. (tho funnily i can't remember what i haven't explored there now) Ah yes..

Now of course, there's the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. If you love sights and have some extra cash to spend, you may consider going for the Bridge Climb. You have to book a spot online, and rain or shine, you gotta climb! There are night climbs and sunset climbs too. I'm afraid of heights, so I didn't try! :p If you don't have the means to climb it, you can still walk on the bridge! There's pedestrian paths on the side, and the view is still pretty awesome! That's what I did, hehe!

There's this beautiful coastal walk I love, from Coogee Beach up to Bondi Beach. If you go really slow, it could take 3 hrs, if you brisk jog, about 1.5 hrs. At Coogee Beach, before the start of the walk, there's also a little rock pool you may wanna jump in. However, it may be cold due to winter, where the waters there are about 12-14 C. You pass many small bridges and places, and also a cemetery on top a cliff facing the sea! It's good to go in the morning, then have lunch at Bondi Beach, Sydney's most famous beach. Other popular beaches there include Manly Beach, located at North Sydney and Maroubra Beach. Around Manly Beach there are also walks like the coastal walk, but I've not tried it before (cuz I liked Coogee-Bondi and lived about 20 mins walk from Coogee). Annually they also have a sculpture by the sea somewhere along the Coogee-Bondi walk, but I checked this year's date and it's at the end of October :( There're also some popular beaches up north of Manly, forgot the name, but heard the sand there is best. Now, that's just beach :P

Sydney has... all sorts of food from everywhere. One rather popular place is the Fish Market. Everything there is like, super fresh. Should go in the morning as well, it gets rather crowded around 11 AM. Then there's those chocolate stores, japanese, korean, i don't know, Sydney's just super diverse. If you want western food like ribs and steak, you could try Hog's Breath and/or Hurricanes. Be sure to make reservations as they're usually pretty full. There's a 24hr place called Pancake on the Rocks, situated at the Rocks, near the Opera House. Ppl love going there too, and the line can be pretty long, but it's 24 hrs! That's just food...

(I'm rather skipping a lot of details :P)

Ah yes, for food, I forgot to mention, a short bus ride from Sydney town towards south, you can also have good fish and chips. The place is called La Perouse, and there's a few fish and chip places there.

Oh yea, I did not even manage to go up the skytower xD But anyways, in terms of places to visit, in town, people like to look at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB). It's a shopping place inside. Darling Harbour is also another place of attraction. Sydney Aquarium and wildlife centre is there, it's quite interesting, I went to the Aquarium at least twice. Across the harbour, there's the zoo and seaworld. The zoo is pretty neat, I didn't go to the seaworld, but I heard from my family who went, that the aquarium is better. If you wanna carry a koala, you should go to Cairns or elsewhere, not sure about Melbourne. Because ppl are not allowed to carry/touch a koala in New South Wales. In Cairns, they allow so, I have a picture of myself carrying one there. In Sydney, you can just stand beside it and take photos.

Of course, I'm not done yet, with Sydney :P more places to visit include Watsons Bay, Port Douglas, Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains. Watsons Bay is scenic, overlooking the harbour and the ocean. Port Douglas is about 2-3hrs drive up north of Sydney, where there are dolphine tours and sand dunes. The sand dunes are spectacular, as it's right next to the ocean. You can go sandboarding there, ride camels and such.

Hunter Valley... is also a short drive out of Sydney, I've never been there myself, but the reason people go there, I can't say here :P

Blue Mountains is also another drive/train out of Sydney to the west. There's a rock formation there known as the three sisters. There, there's also the Jenolan Caves there, which is quite cool. Other than that there's a few quaint little shops that's quite interesting to some =)

That's all for now, I can't think of anything else at the moment :)