Day one - Sunny Sydney

Well, not so much. Sunday, our departure day, was somewhat overcast and miserable. But I'm not paying $2 an hour to talk about the weather. Anyhoo, after an ill-advised big-ish, late-ish night on Saturday we were up and about at sparrow burp and finishing off some very last minute packing. The rest of the morning went pretty much to plan, with the only item of interest on the flight itself being some bag behind us ordering a Bundy and coke at the gentle hour of 9:00am. Amazingly the flight was only 5 minutes late and we stumbled onto the aiport train a collective weary mess. Air travel takes it up the jaxie, that's the summary thus far and we haven't even commenced the 10 hour nightmare tomorrow.

Moving on, we got a train into Town Hall station, having been advised that this was the closest station to our hotel in Ultimo. My limited knowledge of Sydney confirmed this, but alas, I was wrong. We had a galactic mission across sky platforms and chaotic roads, fighting our way through the concrete jungle that is Darling Harbour's conference precinct. When we finally arrived at our hotel, pretty much dripping with sweat and heaving after lugging bloody great bags across this distance, we were dismayed to discover that there was another station far closer. Oh well, if that's the worst thing that happens...

After settling in we quickly began an epic walk that started out as a mission to find lunch. We ate at a little place oddly named Crocodile Senior Thai; it rocked, but it was so damn hot that Bec claims an out-of-body experience. We were also amused by our water bottle, emblazoned with "the happy reading art bear". That breaks my head.

With uncomfortable stomachs we set off along George Street examining the sites of capitalism at its best - there can be no greater concentration of take away and clothes shops in this country. Bec tried her first Krispy Kreme and was suitably disappointed, for an American chain. Damn Yankees.

For want of a plan, we decided to just keep on walking and actually made it the whole way up to The Rocks. It was my plan to get to a great German bar, Lowenbrau, that I'd visited on a previous drunken junket, but our power walking got us to The Rocks far quicker than expected and, surprisingly, we didn't feel like drinking just yet so we settled in at The Rocks Cafe for a coffee. We then did the obligatory tourist thing and took photos of the Opera House from across the Quay and then walked under the Bridge, passing countless meringues (AKA brides) looking resplendent (read: ostentatious) and a groom in a gangster-mode white suit, complete with white rose in lapel. Bloody joker.

The need for a drink began to develop and, knowing the area slightly from our Bridge Climb a few decades ago, began looking for The Lord Nelson Hotel. Failing to find it we slumped into the Lowenbrau where we had echos of our Europe tour with steins (mass) of awesome beer.

I'm being given hints that I'm going overboard with details, so here's the wash up: George got drunk and silly, we caught up with John Lam and hit more beers at the Lord Nelson then The Australian Hotel, where we had fabulous pizzas (at least in my drunken state they seemed fabulous) and left a bit worse for wear. Bec had to get us back to the hotel with me leaning on her the whole way and constantly restating my need for ablution facilities. Needless to say we made it and despite being stuffed I stayed up to watch Rupert Murdoch crapping on about something. Actually, I tell a lie; I was apparently asleep in 5 minutes.

Today we're heading out to Bondi to take a long walk along the coast up to Bronte Beach. We've had a suitably slow morning including the requisite greasy breakfast. That said, we actually did exercise this morning!

Must go, today is looking beautiful weather-wise, and sitting downstairs is depressing me. See you on the other side, probably from Ho Chi Minh City.

George