by Squage
on Jan 26th, 2007

Sydney – A Quick Catch Up!

Howdy!

Yep, ok, firstly I’ll admit: I’ve been lacking in Sydney-based updates. Mainly this is because I figured the daily update thing was a bit too much… but then I just got lazy.

As it happens I’ve been writing a diary at the end of the past few days, which I’ll be uploading soon, but before that I figured I should fill you in on what Pat and myself have been up to between getting to Sydney and the 23rd (diary writing start time thing).

Saturday 13th

  • Pat and I left sunny Melbourne and headed to Sydney
  • The flight was fine (despite leaving from the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Avalon Airport (hint: don’t choose Jetstar if you want to fly from Melbourne to Sydney and you might get to use the normal Melbourne Airport), and the somewhat bumpy ride down into Sydney)
  • After checking into the Wake Up! hostel Pat met up with Scottish Iain from the Kiwi Experience, had a wander and had a couple of drinks in the evening – including visiting some irish bars (every city must have at least two, it appears) – and then hit the sack.

Sunday 14th

  • Pat and Iain (who seems to like shopping and is therefore strange – that’s the only explanation I can see!) spent the day wandering around looking for a new camera to replace Pat’s “finally bitten the dust” one. After lots of pushy salesmen in shops (“We give you extra SD card if you buy today!”) we went back to the hostel to think about it.
  • In the evening we saw In Pursuit Of Happyness, which is a pretty feel good – if predictable film… and rather shocking in that it included Will Smith actually doing some acting. Seriously, I’m not joking. It wasn’t awful either. I know!!

Monday 15th

  • Pat finally bought a camera in the shops during the morning (at the place which wasn’t trying to force cameras down his neck the day before) – fortunately it was the last in the shop so he got a discount. Unfortunately it was the last in the shop so it’s a girly purple/pink colour. Oh, and even with the discount it’s about as expensive as his old camera – but two models down from it. HOORAY FOR HIGH STREET RETAILERS!
  • In the afternoon Pat met up with Iain and wandered around the town a bit, grabbing a bite to eat at a nice Italian restaurant in The Rocks (near the Harbour Bridge) – oh and checking the views from Sydney Tower:

    Attempted Arty Shot #549990 Sydney.  From Sydney Tower!

  • In the evening Pat and Iain had a couple of bevvies in a few bars: Side Bar (Wake Up!’s bar, which is quite good, if somewhat dark), Three Monkeys (good live music) and Bar Broadway (featuring a quite fit barmaid that Iain spent a while chatting up). Pat wasn’t much in the mood for beers so was on soft drinks most of the evening. Hard core!

Tuesday 16th

  • Pat moved to the awesome City Central YHA today and then spent most of the day chilling by himself in their huge lounge, doing some drawing and listening to chooooons. Twas lovely to not have to wander around shops for a change!
  • Exciting thing of the day: Pat got himself a hair cut! Sadly the “grow hair long” thing he wanted to do hadn’t quite worked – twas more a case of “grow hair into an unmanageable birds nest-style mess” by the time he got it cut.
  • An early night was had too, which was lovely.

Wednesday 17th

  • Following a lazy day on Tuesday Pat decided to get out and about, so set off in the direction of Sydney Harbour Bridge.
  • A veerrry long walk later and he’d walked both ways across it, seen the “disappointing” Luna Park fairground and even trundled to “Hello” Darling Harbour to enjoy the sights:

    Pat And Squage On The Bridge Pat And Squage.  And Some Bridge And Building Thing.
    Sydney Harbour Bridge: Bolted Down Monorail!  Monorail!  Monoraaaaiill!

  • After another quiet evening Pat headed to bed.

Thursday 18th

  • A surprisingly similar day to Wednesday occurred, although this time in the company of Iain – and with some swimming pool action later and another cinema trip – this time to see the tres bonne Pan’s Labyrinth.

Friday 19th

  • Iain left for Byron Bay and in his place Jersey arrived:

    Jersey Has Arrived!

    He’s in the same room as Pat, which is cool.

  • Quite a chilled day occurred today but Pat managed to pay off his credit card in spite of crappy internet banking connectivity, so that was a bonus!
  • Late in the evening Pat accompanied Tim and “Shirtin” (phonetically spelt – it’s actually spelt with some Js, Ks and, frankly, I’ve no idea how to spell it – sorry dude!) for a couple of beers – sans Jersey who was fully knackered (having not actually gone to sleep on Thursday night due to a late night tattooing followed by sitting in an airport for 8 hours… mmm, nice)

Saturday 20th

  • Pat and Jersey went to the glorious Coles supermarket and did a big food shop! The plan is to a) eat healthier and b) save money! How long will it last? (Well, about 4 days. But it’s still clinging onto life now :-))
  • In the evening we all trundled to the Symphony In The Domain, an open-air orchestral concert courtesy of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was brilliant – and packed – complete with a fireworks finale to the awesome 1812 Overture:

    A Better View Of The StageSquage Prepares To Enjoy The Orchestra
    Badly Framed FIREWORKS!

Sunday 21st

  • Highlight of the day: we went to Games Workshop! Wow! Jersey’s a big fan of the Warhammer stuff – to the extent that he didn’t give up buying Games Workshop kit 15 years ago when it all became funking ridiculously overpriced! Now that’s dedication!
  • We met up with a guy called Sam, who Jersey met on his latter leg of his New Zealand trip. Sam’s a fun fella and gets extra points for taking us to the awesome Easy Way Tea for some bizzare yet great tea-based drinks. Pat had a Pineapple flavoured Fruit Milk Tea(!). It was odd, which is not surprising. What is surprising is that it was really tasty!
  • In the evening Pat actually did some cooking (!!!), making a tasty vegetable sauce for some pasta… then Pat dragged Jersey to see Pan’s Labyrinth. Again. Wooh!

Monday 22nd

  • Today we secured our Friday night plans: we bought and picked up tickets to see My Chemical Romance play Luna Park. Wooh!
  • Also, we went to the Museum Of Sydney, which despite being small was really interesting. Particularly cool was the exhibition about the Sydney Harbour Bridge design and construction – loads of interesting designs and the construction of the thing was an awesome feat! Alas photos weren’t allowed, but we got one of the outside:

    Pat At The Museum Of Sydney

  • After that we browsed some cool shops (comics and games stuff), made some more pasta + sauce and spent the evening chilling out doing some drawings…

Tuesday 23rd – Friday 26th
Well… you’ll have to wait and see. There’s some ramblings a’coming, I just don’t know when. :-)

That should do for now, methinks.

In summary: Pat’s enjoying Sydney. It’s a nice city to walk around in with lots of cool sights and loads of things going on. Apparently he’s quite keen to be getting on the road though – which is lucky as he and Jersey are hiring a car on Sunday to take a trip to the blue mountains and down the east coast. Wooh!

Anyways, will no doubt blah on at length shortly… so I’ll leave you for now. Hope all’s well where you are!

Toodles,

Squage

One Response to “Sydney – A Quick Catch Up!”

  1. frostystooon 26 Jan 2007 at 10:25 am

    Sounds like you’ve seen just about every film thats currently out at the cinema. Twice.

    Your missing loads of excitement back in old blighty. BA staff are planning yet another strike, “racist” Celebrity Big Brother reaches its climax this weekend and a herd of cows were blocking the road through a village called Needingworth this morning.