General Thoughts

I thought it might be interesting to put a few thoughts about Sydney.
A compare on contrast between it and the UK if you will.

THINGS SYDNEY DOES BETTER

• SO much more choice at Macdonalds, KFC, Hungry Jacks (Burger King). There's more than double the amount of burgers and ways you can have your burgers it's quite incredible. Also, it's very cheap.... which could be a bad thing as it's more tempting.
• PETROL!!! - the price of petrol is literally the same in dollars as it is in pounds! i.e. less than 50% of the cost.
• BEACHES - i've gotta mention these, every one is fine white sand and clear ocean! - the waves have differed from beach to beach.... relatively calm at Cronulla and Bondi... to the hugely insane and slightly scary ones at Manly and Coogee.
• STREETS - they are regularly cleaned and you rarely see anything on them.... the odd cock-a-roach... but they even seem slightly clean as they are kinda reddy-brown. The Sydney streets also feel really safe for some reason - we've never felt unsafe walking around at night even on our own. - London on the other hand I prefer not to do this!
• AIR - it's alot less smoggy and poluted here, even in Sydney Central. I havent used my Inhaler for about 2 months which is very cool!
• SWEETS - they seem to have numurous selections of every make of sweets you can imagine, like the Skittles for example have about 7 different varieties of packs. - my favourites are the 'fairground' variety with candy floss, toffee apple, bubblegum etc etc.
• CINEMAS - the seating is beyond luxurious... practically armchairs some of them. It really feels like you have your own space to watch your movie!! - Sydney also has the biggest screen in the whole world... the IMAX - which we plan on visiting tonight.
• WEATHER - it's not quite what was expected... it's like a psyched up version of London weather really, in the respect that it can be hot as anything one minute... then a full on thunderstorm and then in a matter of hours; hot and sunny again! truly crazy.

THINGS SYDNEY HASN'T GOT

• SPIDERS - seriously what a load of nonsense! - I've seen no spiders at ALL in Sydney, which might be because we're on the 51st floor, but otherwise there are FAR FAR FAR more spiders in the UK.... yes ok less than can injure you... but far less.
• CHINESE FOOD - well ok there is a chinatown... but they serve nothing at all like what we're all used to from british-chinese take-aways... no crispy duck (no duck at all from what i've seen), hardly any spring rolls, no chow mein, kung po chicken.... prawn toast.
• CHEAP MENS CLOTHES SHOPS - it's getting quite annoying that there are quite a few of these type of shops for girls... but for men you either have to spend alot... or just not shop at all. So i'm missing top man, river island, burtons, next, new look, esprit. I did splash out on 2 new tops from "YD" which is an upmarket river island... only to find them both in the sale today at 50% off. great haha.
• HARVESTERS TYPE RESTAURANTS - we've been craving the salad carts and carvery style food places.
• CHEAP PUBS - where are the weatherspoons?! - this is why everyone here relies on 'gooners' which is basically boxes of wine... or our recent discovery *passion pop* which is $6 for a champagne sized bottle of reasonably tasting alcohol

On a more general note about Sydney, we've renamed it little Tokyo as it's maybe 90% made up of asians... it's sort of a joke that you won't find an aussie in Sydney. - so we're anxious to get away really.... no offense to chinese and japanese...but I signed up for some AUSSIES! Otherwise it's very nice... although I have to nit-pick about the quality of clothes... the material is great...but the stitching!! - I've had to basically tidy each item up... and on my shorts.... have pinged off 3 out of the 4 fly buttons!!! - Luckily I have an excellent little sewing kit with me!! :)

The following week.....

here's what i can recall about 2nd week

Basically we spent the next week or 2 getting very panicky about

finding a place to live. we stayed at various hostels... the Bondi Beach house YHA, which

seemed rubbish compared to the luxury of Sydney Central YHA, then tried 'NOAH'S BACKPACKERS' which seemed kinda cool from the outside - it's on the top of a hill overlooking

the Bondi Beachfront... but it was slightly grotty and dirty. more than one cock-a-roach (which is the fun way we say it, so it sounds slightly spanish and less creepy).

We shared the room with 3 israeli guys which were very friendly and chatty.

The bunkbeds were literally piled on top of each other, so not much room to manouvere.

the first day when i was coming down from the top of the bunkbed, the locker door decided to open. Which i did see...but as i was already on the way down, gravity prevailed and the corner of the door ripped my jeans... calvins... and arse cheek. (i'll refrain from adding the photo that i just HAD to take of it).

During this time Gemma was visiting Sydney with her work, so we met her at the beachouse and then later had a cheap but nice meal in Coogee which was at the end of *the walk* that we insisted Gemma had to do also. We also went out the next day to a social event that a friend was throwing. - check out the Bondi Back-drop:)

During the next few days we all went to the botanic gardens where we saw the worlds largest fruit bats (actually) and various crazy birds lol.

It was around this time that my Camera decided to die on me :( But with all this bad fortune (arse and camera) we miraculously found an excellent apartment on the 51st floor of the 'WORLD TOWER'. We were initially quite scared of this prospect as it does sound scarily similar to world trade tower.

Here are some gorgeous landscapes I've taken from the balcony :)

Next up it was the turn of Michelle Harris to come visiting. We met her and her friend

Laura in a bar near the Central YHA

And then the next day arranged to meet at Taronga Zoo, where we saw a great amount of Kangeroos, Koalas, Giraffes etc etc i'll just put a few pics here.

Next post will be a more general update and thoughts of Sydney life etc etc.