Sydney - 11 to 19 May 2008

It was certainly a good break for us and as you can see Brain was so eager to show the world the pictures that he took in Sydney. Jeremy was a dream toddler to have when it comes to travelling on a plane. His terrible twos did not rear its ugly head during the entire trip to and from Sydney. I must say that the 7 hr 50 min flight didn't seem very long when you are travelling with a toddler. Besides, Sydney is great place to bring kids to if you can afford it (at the time of this post, the exchange rate is about RM3.13 to AUD1, which is far cry from the days when I was student. In those days, the exchange rate was only RM1.60 to AUD1 ! Brain reckons that it will hit RM4.50 by the time Jeremy is in his teens. It just goes to show how weak our currency is). We got everything we need for Jeremy in Sydney: Milk powder, vegies, fish, diapers and etc and our service apartment is located just above Coles Supermaket which is located in its basement! Anyway, here's a detailed rundown of what we did during our 7 day soujourn Down Under!

Day 1: Departed for Sydney
It was a 10 am flight and we finally got our one-way upgrades to Business Class via the redemption of our Enrich Miles! We almost didn't get it no thanks to the botched up job that the personnel at the Enrich Customer Service Centre who doubled booked us on the same Economy Class using our miles. It took me a day and some serious ranting to their hotline to get that sorted out.. otherwise, I would have written something on the Citizen's Blog on The Star Online. We had breakfast at the Golden Lounge where you could see all the planes lined up on the tarmac - Jeremy was really excited seeing those planes although he has yet to fully comperehend the full meaning of flying in one! They had a really cool baby changing room at the Lounge which also doubles up as a nursery - it had everything you need right down to diapers and hot water. When we boarded the plane, you could see that the flight attendants were apprehensive about having an almost 23 month old toddler in the business class section which was filled with weary business travellers hoping to get some peace and quiet on the plane. In fact as soon as we ascended the skies, Jeremy was already fast asleep and I had to recline the seat 180 degrees to provide a flat sleeping position for him (yeah - he had his own seat). I made him seep some water during the ascent as I was worried about how the changing air pressures were affecting his ears. Fortunately, he appeared to have no symptoms of ear aches or anything close to it unlike me! While he slept, we tuned in the inflight entertainment while refreshments were brought to us almost every half an hour. Despite the comfortable seat, pillows and silk blankets, Jeremy woke up about an hour later and we started having a bit of fun with him. I got him his doodle board which he played on and off. Then he played with his cars for a bit. I got him some sticker books - so we started sticking stuff into the columns in the book. He enjoyed some inflight entertainment as they had cartoons like Bob the Builder. This was essentially how we passed the time during the entire journey. He didn't scream or yell and throw any tantrums despite being confined to his seat the whole time except several occasions when he went over to Brain. The flight attendants were pleasantly surprised and even praised him for his remarkably good behaviour. By the time we touched down and disembarked from the plane, it was already late evening. Since it is autumn, the sun sets around 5.30 there. We got a taxi and headed to Meriton World Towers located on the corner of Liverpool and George Street. Jeremy was very tired when we got to the apartment and was fast asleep in no time.

Day 2: Darling Harbour: Sydney Acquarium and Sydney Wildlife Park.
After preparing his lunch for the day, we walked to Darling Harbour which was just a stone throw away from our apartment. Despite being autumn, the weather was suprisingly hot with the only indication of the season being the cool breeze. The intense sunlight meant that I had to lather my boy with sunblock lotion everyday and make him wear his sunglasses and hat everywhere we go. While he enjoyed himself immensely at both places he was eager to move quickly through the exhibits. It can be tough keeping up with an exuberant toddler! We took him back to the apartment for a nap after we completed our visits in both complexes. He napped for 2 hours before we headed out for dinner at Circular Quay. We had some of the best bay rock oysters there so it was well worth the dinner even though Brain thought that the main meals were not as great as Rockpool.

Day 3: Manly Beach,North Shore
We took Jeremy on a ferry at Circular Quay to Manly Beach. He had fun watching the seagulls and enjoyed the sea breeze. Despite it being autumn, there were many surfers out there strutting their stuff even though it is a work day! We took a ferry back to Circular Quay and a bus back to our apartment in the afternoon. Jeremy refused to nap and we had to have an early dinner that evening. We went to Kylie Kwong's famed restaurant in Surry Hills called Billy Kwong. The place was packed to the brim and the restaurant given its popularity do not accept reservations in advance. We waited for like 30 minutes before we got a table. It was cold outside and Jeremy entertained himself by kicking around the dry leaves scattered on the pavement. Food is indeed good and inexpensive! If you ever get to Sydney, this place is worth visiting.

Day 4: Trip to the Blue Mountains
It was day trip that we booked with FJ Tours and we started from Sydney at 7.15 in the morning. We had to wake Jeremy up early but he managed to nap quite a fair bit on the bus. We stopped by the Featherdale Wildlife Park located in Blacktown, a surburb outside Sydney. Jeremy went wild when he saw wallabies and kangaroos hopping freely around the park - he went " Roo Roo - jumped, hop hop hop!" It was so cute. They had a menagerie of wild animals there including farm animals like pigs and fowls. There were Koalas, Kookobara, dingoes, wombats and every type of marsupial that can be found only on the continent of Australia. There were also lots of birds like the Emu and Kasawari Bird (supposedly the most dangerous bird in the world) as well as black swans. By the time, we reached the Blue Mountains, the tour company had prepared a sumptious buffet lunch for us at a bed and breakfast place in the town of Leura which was also the place where our tour guide cum bus driver reside in. The tour included a trip on the skyway, the cable car and the scenic railway (which is the steepest railway in the world). Jeremy even went along for the 30 minute walk around an elevated walkway through a Jurassic rain forest. He was determined to walk and was quite excited with the flora and fauna that the rainforest offered. After that he promptly fell asleep on the bus when we on our way to Wenworth Falls which was closed due to roadwork. We took tea at Leura and visited the candy store. The tour guide even gave us a demonstration on how a boomerang works! Our trip to the Blue Mountains was completed with a trip back to Sydney's Olympic Park and a river cruise from the Parrammata river into Circular Quay. From there we took the public bus back to our apartment. Jeremy was exhausted by now and was ready for bed in no time. We wound up having dinner at Macchiato, an italian pizza eatery which also has a delivery service to the apartments.

Day 5 - Powerhouse Museum
Brain will tell you that the only reason that I wanted to be at the Museum was becos they were running a special exhibit there on the late Princess Diana. The exhibit ended on 18 May and we caught it just in time. They had showreels on her during her growing up years. Her books and dolls and the to-die for cocktail dresses and not to the mention her wedding dress made by the Emmanuels. I caught the exhibition when I was at Althorp (the Spencer family seat) in 2002 but just wanted to see if there were anything new. Apart from that the museum is Sydney largest museum with over 400,000 over artifacts. Jeremy enjoyed himself in Zoe's world - play area for kids in the museum. They had sponge bricks and wheelbarrows as well as attire for the kids. He looked like Bob the Builder together with the other Aussie kids in there. We had Yum Cha in Chinatown and since Jeremy was still tired after the trip the Blue Mountains on the day before, we tried to get him to nap before dinner. We had dinner at Rockpool, one of the world's top restaurants owned by Neil Perry who designed meals for Qantas. The food there is still by the far the best food we had in Sydney throughout our holiday there.

Note: Jeremy turned 23 months on this day. He can now:
a) Count 1 to 3
b) Recognises the alphabets and know how to pronounce them except W which he says" due due".
c) Knows the following colours: Black, White, Blue, Green, Low Low( Yellow) and Red.
d) Can say 2 letter words like "peacock", "dry leaf", "lighthouse", "TV"

He is very attached to his doggie, carrying it around everywhere we went in Sydney. He didn't like it one bit when it had to go through a security check at the airport.

Day 6:- Grand Pacific Drive (South Coast)
We rented a car, a child seat and a GARMIN GPS system for the drive which turned out better than we expected. The Grand Pacific Drive was opened only to motorists in December 2006 and the stunning ocean views were something one should not missed. In many ways it reminded me of the Pacific Coast Highway which runs from San Francisco right up to San Diego. The scenic drive and the beautiful weather made it a truly relaxing experience - although Brain took quite a lot of important calls from home due to work. For me - work was either on another plane or dimension and I could not be bothered to think about the crisises going on in the office at that point in time. We drove onto the Seacliff Bridge, past the town of Shellharbour where we had lunch by the harbour with the pelicans and boats bobbing about. After that we went onto the Jamberoo scenic road which was so picturesque that we thought that we were in Scotland or something. We had coffee at Kiama where the famed blowhole is situated. As it was low tide, we couldn't see the blowhole in action which during high tide looks like a geyser. Jeremy was busy running around in the parks situated at the blowhole. It's funny how we don't take him to parks here due to the humid weather and mozzies. He tend to sweat a lot in KL when we are out and about and always looked flushed. He took a two hour nap in the car and we finished our day with dinner in Chinatown as we couldn't get a table at China Doll, another top restaurant which attract celebrities like Jennifer Hawkins (Ms Universe 2006) and other Australian Celebs. Since it was late night shopping we hung around QVB window shopping.

Day 7:- Hunter Valley (Northen Coast)
The scenic route to Hunter Valley wasn't scenic at all. We wasted 1.5 hours travelling on a route which had nothing on both sides of the road except gum and eucalyptus trees. I felt cheated. We could have gone on to Port Stephens and seen more things there. We wound up at the Hunter Valley Gardens which had different gardens with the different themes i.e Indian Garden, Roman Garden, Chinese Garden, Story Book Garden and etc. Jeremy loved the Storybook Garden cos it had his favourite character - Humpty Dumpty. By the time we reached Sydney, traffic was already clogging up the streets and Brain took a wrong turn and we ended up going onto the Harbour Bridge using the E-pass lane! As soon as we passed it, I saw a camera at the corner of my eye snapping our number plate. That was it - Avis is going to charge us extra when the fine for the traffic offence goes to them. That night we went to Garfish, a restaurant at Kiribilli which required us to use the Harbour Bridge - Brain was careful to avoid another boo-boo. Luckily we managed to get to the cash lanes which are like right in the middle of Bridge. Food was good and Jeremy amused himself with the coloring book and pencils given to him by the waitress.

Day 8: Final day in Sydney
We spent the day shopping and hunting for souvenirs. We went the markets at the Rocks and bought macadamia nuts. We walked to Pitt Street, stopped at Myers, got our PS2 games, bought some CDs from the Virgin Music Store as well as books from Dymocks. We had Malaysian food the whole day from Malaysian House in QVB during Lunch and Chinta Ria at Cockle Bay Wharf in the evening - the latter was chosen as I was told that it was Keanu Reeves favourite restaurant in Sydney while he was here filming the Matrix trilogy. The food ain't that great and it is best to have Malaysian food where else but in Malaysia!.

Day 9: Back to Malaysia
We were in cattle class but Jeremy behaved impecabbly although I must say that food in the economy class sucks. All in all - it was worth the trip despite the rising exchange rate and Jeremy enjoyed himself very much. Whenever he sees the photos, he remembers the things that we did at the places we went and he even remembered how our rented car looked like as Brain took a picture of the carpark overlooking the sea at Kiama. Well - we will be back in Sydney in 2010 again hopefully but maybe this time we will spend more time in Melbourne. Brain may be going to Sydney in August this year for work so he's not looking forward to another Sydney trip this year *lol*.

Pictures