Sydney Day 2

On Day 2, we explored Sydney much more. Sadly, I forgot my camera in the hotel for the first part of the day, so no piccies until the afternoon :-(

I wanted to wear my new Roxy skirt, which is red with white flowers. I paired it with my gray pocket-in-pocket t-shirt, a pair of gray tights, and my thick, mustard yellow cardi. With my lacy oxfords, it turned out to be a very autumnal outfit, which was perfect, because the weather was very October in Seattle-ish. We walked down to the Rocks, the historic district of town, for coffee and breakfast. It being winter, and a weekday, it was pretty quiet down by the water. I loved the terrace of Campbell's Storehouses, where one of the trendy restaurants set the masts of a tallship into the pavement. From this vantage point, the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were splayed out in front of us.

All my guidebooks raved about the Harbour Bridge, calling it stunning and breathtaking. With all this talking-up, the actual thing was a bit of a let-down. It was a bridge. Both it and the Opera House were smaller and less imposing than I had imagined. I think my expectations were just too high. But we decided to take a ferry from Circular Quay to Watson's Bay, and then I understood why people rave about Sydney Harbour. This harbour is unbelievably gorgeous. It's lush and green, with miles of picturesque inlets. Watson's Bay was a cute little village/suburb with pretty private beaches every now and again. We walked around South Head, where we passed a fully-exposed nude beach (complete with fully-exposed nude sun-bathers), watched a seal body surf, and looked for whale spouts off of North Head. Braving a bit of rain here and there, we decided to catch a bus to Sydney's most famous beach, Bondi (pronounced bond-eye). By the time we got there, the rain clouds had moved off and we walked along the beach in full sunlight. It was like a mild summer morning in Seattle. The beach was beautiful, with gorgeous blue-green waves rolling in. We meandered slowly, by foot and by bus, back into the city over the course of the afternoon.

In the afternoon, we visited the Chinese Garden and walked through China Town. The Chinese Garden was nice, but it was surrounded by concrete. It seemed odd, in a city with a huge botanic garden, it seemed like the Chinese Garden should be embedded within that. Anyway, I made up for my lack of a camera earlier in the day by taking lots of boring pictures.