Sydney!

One more sleep and I'll be flying back home (well, half more, seeing how it's 4am here / 2am SG time... waitaminute, it's 5am/3am already?!). I'm sitting here in my hotel room eating my third pear, cos I bought a box of pears at Coles and I'm trying to finish them before I head home.

Arrived in Sydney at about 5am on Thursday, and took a cab to the hotel (North Sydney Harbourview Hotel). Got there at about 6am, which was way too early to check in, but the hotel staff were nice enough to let me use their boardroom which had an attached bathroom so that I could change and freshen up and pump.

Left my bags at the hotel and walked out to find a cafe to have breakfast. Most cafes open at 7am and I managed to find one that was on the way to the office. Had myself a nice hot cup of coffee, and an avocado tomato cheese sandwich. It was still early and I had another hour and a half to kill, so I walked some more, enjoying the cold weather. Stopped at the cafe which was at the office building and had a second breakfast - vegemite on toast because Australia. Lol.

Went to the office and saw P, who introduced me to the office folks and offered to take me sightseeing on Friday night. Spent the day in training, and thankfully the hotel was a 5-7 minute walk from the office so I could head baack at lunch time and pump. There was a Coles on the way so I grabbed some muesli bars and a bottle of coconut water to munch on the way back to the office.

Ended the day pretty early (compared to Singapore) at about 4.30pm, and decided to go for a walk around. The hotel is pretty near Lavender Bay and Luna Park, about a 10 min walk downhill. It was a really enjoyable walk down, passing by a lot of old houses. Apparently one of them was +3's ex-boss's friend's place. Hehe.

Lavender Bay was beautiful with the boats and the view, but being there alone really made me miss +3 and babyAC. The sun was setting and I made my way back (uphill! eeks). Had a catnap and woke up to Skype with the folks back at home. Popped over to Coles again and I picked up some bread, hummus, avocado dip, a box of pears and rice milk for a quick yummy meal in my room.

Slept in and got to the office a little late on Friday but since it was one-on-one time with M, we could be a little bit more flexible with the time. I was chatting with her and she shared that her commute to work was 2 hours each way! OMG and I thought living in Punggol and having to work in town was bad.

Finished early, went back to the hotel to put my stuff down and met P when he got off work. I'm glad I had comfortable shoes on because we walked from the office which was North of the bridge, down the Harbour Bridge to the Sydney Opera House and then to the Circular Quay. It took us almost one and a half hours, and that was at a relatively quick pace.

Fun fact: Ferries are part of the public transport and people actually take the ferries as part of their regular commute!

Not so fun fact: Despite walking for almost 2 hours, I totally forgot to turn on my pokemon go (haha latest fad game) so did not manage to clock in any miles. Sigh.

Anyway.
 

We got tickets for the ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour, and had dinner at a Mediterranean place. We had calamari and hummus and haloumi for starters, and lamb for mains. Also had a nice glass of beer - my first in a while, yum! Took the train back to North Sydney station and got back in time to Skype before the little one had to go to bed.

I have to say this trip was really productive and I'm glad to tick off a couple of touristy things. Was planning to take a walk down to this place called The Rocks but check out time is rather early at 11am, and my feet are a little sore so I might just sleep in and just grab a quick bite at a cafe then walk around trying to play pokemon go or something before heading to the airport.