After a fun four nights in Honolulu, the pals and I made our way over to Sydney. Best way to make a normal 20+ hour flight over to Sydney bearable? Spread it across Hawaii and Sydney – all direct flights on Hawaiian Air with no transfers (plus a 5 hour or so layover on the way back to NYC in case you’re craving a poke bowl on the way home!)

 

Day 1 – City Day!

If you’re a young, abled body, you can definitely do all the main touristy sights on the west side of the city. We took the train from Hornsby early in the morning (about a 40 minute commute outside of the city) and were able to see almost everything.

Getting off at the Wynyward subway station, we made our way around to the Dawes point area to get a look at Luna Park and take some rainy day pictures near the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which also had some great views of the Opera House.

From that area it was easy to make our way down a little bit south, walk along the Circular Quay area, and take a brunch break at the Opera House.

 

My boss is an Australian native and insisted I have a meat pie, a flat white, and try the Asian food, so of course I did!

After taking more than enough #selfies at the Opera House, we made our way through the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Afterwards, we hit up a few more touristy destinations including the Sydney Eye Tour, Hyde Park, and the Queen Victoria Building.

By the time we got to the Queen Victoria Building (which had THE BEST wifi out of all the public places in Sydney), it was time for second lunch, so we grabbed a bite to eat at Miss Chu‘s which was along the way to the Chinese Garden of Friendship. Great, cheap Vietnamese food and was really cool and funky to eat at because we were basically eating on an ironing board.

Unfortunately by the time we got to the Chinese Garden of Friendship, it was closing for the day, but the outside looked pretty!

And we did manage to cause some mischief (for a while actually) at this really fantastic park at Darling Harbour.

 

Darling Harbour was probably my favorite area of the city. And not just cause I got to have gelato.

Afterwards, we did some souvenir shopping in Chinatown, but we were POOPED. Sweaty, starving, and exhausted from walking all day, we took the train from Central Station (which has an express line to Hornsby, thank goodness!) and treated out my best friend’s aunt who was hosting us for most of the trip!

Plates. And plates of delicious Thai food.

Also decided to do a brief Google Map search of how far we walked. It was over 9 miles. NBD.

Day 2 is Nature Day (featuring the Jenolan Caves and my Katniss outfit)!