Sydney 27-29 March 2008 - Part 1

Pre Sydney

It was my week long Easter break this week, and I HAD no plans…until Val suggested I fly down to Sydney to visit Sheng. Great idea, thanks Val! Haha. Oh, a lil digression: at the supermarket on Monday night, I bumped into a couple of ex-RJC guys. I walking down the rows with Ray (S’porean friend who just joined the Athletics Club) when 2 guys stopped me and said “Were you from RJC?” haha yup they were from my batch, chatted with them a lil and realised they’re Sheng’s course-mates in UNSW! And a few moments later, a tall Eurasian guy jumped in front of me and shouted “HELLO!” I was a lil stunned haha. He was my batch mate from RJC too, I think he thought I was Val. Anyway, he went on to tell me who else from our batch are here in Melbourne but as usual, I dunno who anyone is!

So late on Monday night, I chatted with Sheng about the Sydney trip and he was enthusiastic about it and so I booked the JetStar flight and my accommodation—Surfside Backpackers on Coogee Beach. The trip was from Thursday morning to Saturday night.

Fast forward to Wednesday evening. I went for raining in the freezing rain—tough session, but had a nice dinner with Iylia and Ray afterward. Ray kindly offered to drive me to Southern Cross Station for my bus ride to Avalon Airport at 7.30am on Thursday morning.

On Thursday morning, I was late to meet Ray coz I was so sleepy, and my watch was 5min slow! Anyway, it was pouring and shitty. Got to the bus station and…I missed the ONLY bus to Avalon airport. I had to take a cab down which costed me a BOMB!!! Argh!

Thursday in Sydney

Reached Sydney at 11am and Sheng kindly came to pick me up. He briefed me on our itinerary for the day, which he’d carefully planned.

We took a cab to UNSW where he took me on a campus tour! Haha. UNSW is bigger than Melb Uni, and the architecture is generally more modern. The main entrance was really grand and beautiful. The school was nicely decorated with carefully pruned lawns and gardens, sculptures, etc.

The Quadrangle

Then we walked to Coogee Beach and I saw my PATHETIC backpackers…It was not like the ones I’ve stayed at. It’s in a small building along the road, opposite the beach. Ground Floor was Macdonalds, a pub on Level 1, and the backpackers on Levels 2 and 3. The view was awesome but the rooms were not.
View from the balcony.

I booked a bed in the all female dorm, Dorm 3. Dorm 3 was a large room with a living room and a toilet, 3 double decker beds and 2 smaller rooms with 3 double decker beds each. I was sleeping on one of the beds in the living room. The room smelt funky and was cluttered, messy, old and dirty. The toilet was dirty and v dark. Ugh, I though I could survive just 2 nights there…and I barely did. Haha.

After dropping off my bag, Sheng n I had a pizza picnic on the beach.

It was great sunny, warm weather! A great escape from Melb’s wet and cold weather this past week! Ahh…the life.

We took a stroll up a cliff, Dunningham Park on Coogee Beach.



View of Coogee Beach from the cliff.

Anyway, Sheng had to get his camera to snap photo for me (coz I don’t have one) or (in his words) “I feel like you will be missing out a lot”. Haha that was true. So we went to pick up his camera from his college—v nice n cosy, with a little backyard garden, warm dining hall…v nice. We met his friend, Zhang Qi and took a bus to the city.

Sydney is so unlike Melbourne. There’re no trams, it’s buses just like Singapore. The road system is similar to S’pore, there were hardly any bicycle lanes and no silly hook turns.

The city was HUGE! Very densely packed, very crowded, fast paced. It reminded me a lot of Hong Kong, and some areas were similar to S’pore. The buildings were an eclatic mix of grand Victorian architecture and modern office towers. Some streets had bright neon displays and advertisements, and near Circular Quay there was a peculiar monorail track overhead (for sightseeing).

We alighted at Circular Quay and walked towards the famed Sydney Opera House. The quay area looked a lil like Raffles Place, but busier and more posh. We could see Sydney Harbour Bridge on the left and the Opera House on the right. Very beautiful.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Opera House

Zhang Qi and I, at Circular Quay.

Actually, Sydney Opera House looks better from far. Close up, we realised the arcs are actually slightly off-white tiles. And under the arcs were dull brown glass. It’s quite small, and most of the theatres/facilities are “underground”, under this huge stone steps. So the arcs are just the roof. Sheng insisted we had to touch the bricks, steps, all parts of the Opera House. Haha. But the view was panoramic. We could see across to North Sydney, look back at the city skyscape, and the Royal Botanic Gardens.

We took a walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Some cute ducklings in the pond. Reminds me of how when we were young, we used to feed swans at the botanic gardens in S'pore some Sunday mornings before church.

Map reading Sheng guided us through the city
Check out the crazy expression on Sheng's face!

across the Pyrmont Bridge to Darling Harbour
Zhang Qi and I on Prymont Bridge, outside the Darling Habour Monorail Station.

Darling Harbour is a more bustling and bigger version of Clark Quay. There were many cafes, pubs and restaurants there.

Sheng and ZQ on Darling Harbour.

We checked out Lindt Café, the famous Swiss chocolate brand.

They had chocolates, macaroons and mouth watering cakes at $9 a slice (minimum).

But it was too pricy, so we settled for an early dinner in a pub. I had a steak and cheese burger, YUM. We then went for some gelato to cool down in the heat.

We strolled around the area then took a bus down to The Rocks near Circular Quay and had famous Pancakes On The Rocks, a pancake restaurant.


Devil's Delight (chocolate pancake with fudge, choc ice cream and strawberries)

Blueberry Heavan…truly heavenly…haha. They were devoured in 10minutes.

After that, Sheng sent me back. It was really fun chatting with Sheng and ZQ. Funny and nice chaps. Back at the backpackers, I took a bath in the dim bathroom and tried to fall asleep. The group of European girls were chatting loudly in one of the rooms and then in the living room. I overheard their conversations and I can only say: They have screwed up values.

Friday in Sydney

I was awoken at 7.45am and went for a 70min long run along the coast. I’d planned to run to Marouba Beach, which I did. It was a great cool run.
View along the coast

Some rich person's private pool with an awesome view, on a cliff edge (The mansion is blocked by the bush).
Marouba Beach. It was deserted. Perhaps it was early. in my opinion it wasn't spectacular, but this photo makes it look worse than it really is. haha.

This is Mahon Pool. They're natural pools modified by man to become kinda like a sea water swimming pool by the sea, sea water can rush in and out.

Another seaside bath near Coogee Beach.

View from my run along the coast.

Then I took a bus down to Bondi Beach for some surfing!!!

I booked a 1.5hr private surfing lesson with Bondi Beach Surf School.
Luke, my instructor, and I in Bondi Beach Surf School.

It was fantastic, I’m a natural! Haha. My instructor, Luke let me progress super fast and by the end of the lesson, I’d completed what most other people do in 15 lessons! He couldn’t believe I’d never surfed before, but said my athletic background, ability to swim, good sense of balance, flexibility and intelligence helped. Haha I sound so thick-skinned saying that, but it’s true.

It was high tide and windly so the sea was choppy and waves rather strong. He said we’d practice lifting my torso up on the surfboard for 15min, but after 1 practice, he said I can go straight to attempting standing up on the 9ft hard foam board. On my first attempt, I already managed to stand up and surf all the way to the beach. Impressive eh?

Haha. After a couple more surfs, he said he’d do sth he’s never done before, that is to “upgrade” me to a 7.6ft board. Beginner students usually go from 9, 8.6, 8, 7.6ft. He said it’d feel really different and I might not be able to stand up, but we’ll see how. I stood up on the 2nd attempt.

It was fantastic, I surfed a couple more times, all the way to the beach. The most difficult/tiring bit is fighting with the waves to get out deep enough to start surfing. He taught me how to choose where to surf by looking at how the waves crash. The sea slopes down, then there is a sandbar about 70m out, where its shallow. But, due to my height, I had trouble getting the surfboard out to the sand bar, while most other people would be able to walk there, coz I couldn’t reach the ground. Also, the surfboard is big and difficult to drag out coz of the big crashing waves, which throw you around and washes you towards the beach.

But I told him I wanted to paddle out instead of him helping to pull me out, otherwise next time I can’t get out to catch waves on my own. Yup, it’s tiring coz have to paddle hard, and when waves come, you have to push down the end of the surfboard to get on top of the wave, then quickly paddle the moment it sweeps under to prevent getting swept back to shore. But the waves throw you around so gotta try to stay on the board and paddle straight.

Once, while I was paddling out, we saw 1 large wave catching up with another (so 2 waves crashing together). I was lying face down on the board paddling out, so he got behind the board, held the end of it near my feet and pressed his weight on it so that the front of the surfboard could tilt up high for the wave to pass under. But no, it was enormous! The waves crashed on us and we both flew off the surfboard.

Yup, then he taught me how to turn while surfing, and I successfully tried backward and forward turns. It was so fun! But after the lesson, my left thumb was swollen and my right elbow hurting, from struggling with the surfboard (getting out to sea). It was quite funny coz the waves are strong and they flap the board around and throw you all over the place.

After the very fun surfing, I took a bus to Bondi Junction and did some shopping. It’s a really nice place with street mall and big shopping malls. Then I was tired so I took a bus back to the backpackers intending to sleep. BUT…


to be continued...