Sydney with the Fam

 Getting around Sydney was as no surprise a huge pain. I ended up picking up dad from the museum so he could check into our airbnb while I circled the block and waiting for a parking space. After the long and arduous journey, I was stoked to finally get to hang out with everyone. The crew is Mom, Dad, my mom’s sisters (Chris and Pat), and my brother Anson. We got a late lunch at a Thai place down the street and hung out in the Airbnb. Everyone was pretty exhausted so we ended up mostly hanging out before an early bedtime for all the overseas travelers. 

The next morning we took the train to the ferry terminal and took the boat across to Manly. The ferry ride was gorgeous and we were able to pass the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. In Manly we went to a fabulous bakery, Nonnas, before going for a nice afternoon walk along the coast. We had some yummy gelato before heading back on the ferry towards downtown. We walked back towards our hotel through the botanic gardens before people’s feet started to hurt and we grabbed the bus home. A few of us went back out to pick up some groceries for dinner and since we are based in China town we wandered through a Japanese style mall, which was full of yummy looking foods. 

The next morning Chris, Pat, Anson, mom and I went for high tea downtown where we had a delicious spread of all sorts of different treats. We wandered a bit and ended up in an Asian grocery where we got a bunch of interesting snacks where we met up with dad. After a bit a wandering we ended up back at the Airbnb for a rest before Chris, Dad, Anson and I headed back out for a rum tasting at Brix distillery. The tasting included a tour of how they make the rum which was pretty interesting. It stared with Australian molasses which we tasted and was rich and delicious. Then it got put into a slurry of yeast and began fermenting. That tasted horrible and mostly like salty yeast. We all hated it. Next we tried it at the end of the fermentation cycle which was also horrendous lol. But then it got distilled and it became a white rum which was good. After that we tried a few different aged rums one in regular oak and charcoals barrels and one in port barrels and then we tried a spiced rum and a mandarin rum. The spiced was my fav, but I also mixed all the rums with lime soda cause I don’t enjoy sipping straight rum unlike some of the others on the tour. It was a fun night though. We came home to play a few games of uno before we all passed out. 

The next day we decided to wander around Chinatown. We saw lots of cool areas and street art and we went to the Chinese Friendship garden. It’s a beautiful chinese garden in the middle of downtown Sydney. It’s a great place to escape the hustle and bustle for a little while. The garden had lots of water dragons, which look kinda like small iguanas, swimming in the ponds and sunning on rocks and we were delighted by them. We spent  while enjoying the sun and the beautifully designed garden. 

After the garden we went to find a snack and it didn’t disappoint. We got Japanese soufflé pancakes which weren’t so fluffy it was like eating a lightly sweet cloud. They are really nice to eat and sweet, but not overly so with a thick delicious cream on top. We also had some other yummy snacks of lycee mango bubble tea, pork belly, and wasabi hummus Avo toast. All were terrific. After our meal we headed back, picking up groceries for dinner at the Asian market and spending the day resting. In the evening we took the bus towards the harbor. We meant to go see the botanic gardens lit up for Vivid and really cool event in the city where they light a ton of places up, but I messed up and went to the wrong entrance. We ended up just going to the opera house and harbor though and it was so cool. Short animated films were projected on various buildings and the opera house and the harbor bridge the area was absolutely packed. The lights were so cool to see and the projections were so skillfully done on the curves of the opera house. We walked to the the opera house where we went to see Kaiit in concert. I’ve been listening to her for a few years and it was so good! I was so excited to see her in concert. After we slowly made our way back to the train and took a few of my sleepier companions back to the Airbnb and then I talked mom and Chris (it didn’t take much talking into) into going back out with me to see more of the lights. We went to Darling harbor where we saw lots of cool light art displays including this really neat on where they projected videos of blooming native flowers on a mist above the water. It was so pretty. We also went to see the wind/water sprites which is a permanent art installation in china town done by an aboriginal/chinese Australian who designed an alleyway which was really pretty. 

The next morning we packed up before heading out of Sydney leaving Anson for his flight home while we head west.