Picspam: Sydney
December 10, 2007 | Filed under Travel
This past weekend has been fun. Truly truly fun, though not without its disappointments. Sydney is a truly beautiful city in some respects – Circular Quay and Darling Harbour are absolutely stunning in good weather. The exhorbitant public transport prices, as well as the mediocre shopping however, detract from what is otherwise quite lovely.
The Train Trip(s)
While the economy seats on CountryLink trains are undoubtably more comfortable and spacious than economy seats on most plane services, the sheer time factor may be enough to put most people off. A train from Melbourne to Sydney, and vice versa, will take approximately twelve hours. Acceptable if you take a night train so you can sleep on route (if you’re lucky enough to be blessed with the ability to sleep anywhere, anytime, which I’m unfortunately not), but if you were to take a day train, you’d be bored out of your mind.
Prices however, are much cheaper than plane tickets – I paid $154AUD for a round trip, while airlines like Qantas list one-way flights from Melbourne to Sydney at $124AUD, or $248AUD for a round trip. The scenery you get to see via train travel is simply stunning – travelling over fields of grass, large forests, and the like, is definitely preferrable to travelling over grey clouds. Watching a sun rise over empty fields with the lone tree silhouetted against the cocktail of warm colours in the sky is the most incredible sight you’ll ever see.
If you’re looking simply for a better deal, and have no time restraints or a need for sleep, train travel around Australia is probably the best option for you.
Bridge Climb
The essential flaw to climbing the Harbour Bridge I think, was not only in the exhorbitant price tag ($180AUD per person is a tad pricey), but in the extremely safe precautions they take. Half the fun of climbing the bridge I think, should be in the knowledge that there is the possibility of danger and death. That you know you could die.
When an hour and a half of the three hours of the climb is allocated to the safety precautions prior to the climb itself, the psychology of these safety routines allows you to slip into complacency – you know that nothing can go wrong, so you don’t get the adrenaline rush that you get from being in dangerous situations. It becomes nothing but a tedious two hours of exercise, however beautiful the views may be from the top of the bridge.
If you do decide to go through with the climb though, I highly recommend that you specifically ask for a group led by Sal. She’s an excellent guide, with a great personality and she’s great to chat with. We spent half the time on top of the bridge exclaiming over how hot the guide of the group behind us was. She’s also a DJ and drummer in addition to being a Bridge Climb leader, and has heaps of interesting stories to tell.
Homebake
Words simply can’t express how awesome this festival was. I mean…even the Porta-Loos were of a semi-decent, semi-clean quality, even by the end of the day. That, more than anything, is a measure of how successful a music festival is.
Most enjoyable was the introduction to new music acts. I don’t mind admitting that I can be very mainstream in terms of the music I listen to – I simply turn the radio to a Top 40 station, and don’t bother to seek out music outside of the mainstream. I found some new acts though, which I think I’m going to be buying albums of soon: Angus and Julia Stone, Art of Fighting, and to a lesser extent, Gotye and Architecture in Helsinki.
Then there were the perennial mainstram fan favourites: Missy Higgins (wow…she put on an amazing show, the lighting was incredible), Josh Pyke, Sarah Blasko, Operator Please, and Kisschasy. I may have fallen asleep briefly whilst lying on the lawn during Kisschasy…but I blame that on my lack of sleep, not through any fault of their own.
I was particularly impressed by the recycling initiatives taken at this festival. It’s no secret that tons of recyclable trash is left scattered over the grounds of most overage festivals – crushed beer cans tend to dominate the landscape, along with abandoned shoes, vomit patches, and unconscious merry-makers. It’s an environmental nightmare. Thus, the organisers this year came up with the deposit scheme – the initial drink has a dollar deposit value – if you bring back the empty can to a recycling station, then you get that dollar back, either in cash value, or to go towards your next drink. Of course this led to some people collecting empty cans from around the grounds (I saw one guy with a garbage can full – enough for about twenty new drinks free of charge) to save on buying drinks themselves.
I’m working on getting some tickets for other festivals coming up in Melbourne – Summadayze on New Years, Big Day Out next year. I have the music bug!
Asian Foursome Take On Sydney
Whereby I meet Tracey, Xuan and Belinda in a long day of shopping, extreme weather conditions, and extremely delectable meals. I am unsure of what else to say that hasn’t already been covered by either Xuan or Belinda, other than “Yes, those boobs are real”, and “I was actually wearing a push-up bra to accentuate the cleavage”.
Shall we just say…they are all weaklings. Here I am, walking around shopping as per my usual method of in-and-out-within-a-minute, and by five o’clock that afternoon (after only six hours of walking!) they were exhausted and collapsing into the nearest seats. That’s simply unacceptable behaviour guys, unacceptable behaviour. Here I was, having spent nigh upon two hours climbing a bridge two days previously, having walked the equivalent of a hundred kilometres in the previous two days, as well as having spent all day on my feet at a music festival the day before, and yet I had more stamina than all three of them. For shame!
For future reference listeners – stamina is essential to marathon shopping, and training to build up this stamina is best done whilst wearing high heels. That way, your feet will be prepared for any eventuality, and long periods of time on your feet won’t be an issue.
…oh yeah, we talked about porn and sex. A lot. Mmm.
Shopping
I was initially excitement personified, believing that as a city that has a particularly cosmopolitan reputation, Sydney was bound to be more in the fashion forefront than Melbourne, boasting countless little chic boutiques where I could find the specifically European imports that Melbourne lacks. Apparently not.
Though I spent countless hours trawling the streets of Sydney CBD, I found it nigh upon impossible to find anything that wasn’t: a) easily found in Melbourne; b) incredibly bad quality. Everything was extremely mainstream – one street would have exactly the same stores as the next street over. In fact, within a hundred metre radius of the apartment I was staying at, I counted no fewer than three Cue stores. Is that type of concentration really necessary?
To be fair, I did find one gem of a vintage clothing store in St. James Arcade of Castlereagh Street. Unfortunately, as they were housed amongst the ‘big players’ in couture fashion (Prada, Chanel, LV, etc.), their need to mark up a simple 50′s-style silk nightgown to $250AUD was a tad offputting. But even with this one vintage store in mind, its glow is heavily diminished when I remember that there are at least three fantastically well-priced vintage specialists in the Melbourne city centre.
All in all however, in fashion terms, Sydney seems to be divided heavily into the ‘haves’ and the ‘havenots’. I was living literally minutes from an entire street filled with couture shops for the middle-aged. Ten minutes down the road, was a street filled with the cheap $5AUD a piece stores that are aimed at pre-pubescent teens. Specialist (non-chain) stores for the discerning twenty/thirty-something was next to non-existent. Sydney simply doesn’t appar to cater for subcultures and individual clothing styles as neatly as Melbourne does – it’s all very homogenised.
Even with the equivalent of what must have been almost 24 hours of shopping over that three day period, I ended up only with:
- One pair white short shorts – a necessary purchase as I’d been soaked during the jet boat ride and couldn’t climb the bridge in damp pants. $10AUD, but somehow not worth the money – they’re a cute style, but they’re also of the type of quality that’s bound to give way after a couple of wears and washes.
- One black Esprit sundress – purchased from Myer for the purposes of having a light summer dress that’s appropriate for work…with the right type of coloured bandeau underneath of course, to cover the ample cleavage. $30AUD from Myer, down from about $90AUD.
- Two grey pinstripe waistcoats from Events, one for my cousin, one for myself. I’m gradually trying to build up a formal working wardrobe before I officially begin to start a ‘real’ career after my graduation at the end of next year. If I can grab some good quality items over the next year at discounted prices, it’ll save me time and effort from purchasing them after graduation. $29AUD down from $99AUD (each).
- One red knit cardigan, again from Events, again for the working wardrobe that I’m building up. It’s dressy enough to be worn over a shirt (+ work skirt/pant) for the semi-cool, semi-hot weather that characterises the seasons of spring and autumn. Also $29AUD down from $99AUD.
- Four Chinese music concert DVDs, consisting of Jay Chou, S.H.E., Jolin Tsai and Jacky Cheung. Purchased from Paddy markets at $5AUD each as they were last-ofs and the seller was trying to clear them. It’s rare to find imported Asian concert DVDs for a price as low as that – they usually retail for about $20AUD each from the usual Chinese media stalls in Melbourne.
…and that was it. Shopping dreams, gone. Evaporated, as a result of the decidedly mediocre shopping offered by Sydney. Here hopes future trips to suburban malls will offer a greater range.
Nightlife
Let it be known that I am unimpressed with Paddy. I exacted a semi-promise on Saturday that he would make it into the city that night for some unbridled sexy revelry with yours truly. Needless to say it didn’t come to pass – and I for one don’t accept “the last train already left!” as an excuse. Unimpressed Patrick, unimpressed!
Perhaps it was because I didn’t have a native Sydney-sider to show me around (still blaming you Patrick!), but I was left uninspired by the little nightlife I found in the city. Although the music and lighting in places like Cargo Bar are up to scratch, the clientele were less than satisfactory. I’m a keen upholder of equal girl/guy ratios in clubs – to have significantly more of one sex can change the atmosphere of a place to something predatory, rather than something light and social. Management at Cargo however, clearly don’t believe in guy/girl ratios, as the place was full of middle-aged men in suits, rather than the young and hip.
Even with a short period of pub hopping along one end of George Street (main street in Sydney) left me cold – the calibre of the drinks weren’t quite up to scratch (call me biased, but Sydney bartenders don’t know how to pull a proper beer), and they were overpriced as well.
I think I need a proper night life guide next time I’m up in Sydney, to really show me where the younger generation hang out. Otherwise, I’ll have to come to the same conclusion as with the shopping scene – everything’s homogenised, and there’s really no room for subcultures and people with tastes that don’t run in the mainstream. Where’s the clubs and bars dedicated to death metal, punk, emo? The jazz clubs, the teenybopper clubs? I’m disappointed.
And Thus…
And thereby concludes my tale of epic proportions. It may well prove to be an ongoing tale – chances are I’m going to be regularly visiting Sydney over the next eight months or so as my cousin moves up there for a six-month work placement, so chances are, I’ll:
- Do more touristy things that I didn’t have the chance to do this time around (Taronga Zoo, Luna Park, Opera House, exploring the surrounding suburbs)
- See les amigos semi-regularly
- Eventually find the younger nightclub crowd
In addition to these future trips to Sydney, chances are that I’ll also be visiting New Zealand at some point early next year (February?). My (other) cousin and I are contemplating a two week long trip around both islands, indulging in extreme sports like bungee jumping off the highest cliffs and white water rafting. A prime opportunity for another blogger meetup eh?
20 Responses to Picspam: Sydney
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Hey, you try not getting out of the house enough for seventeen years, and then spending the day with three other e-Asians trying to find a discount greater than $150!!!1!!oneone~
Oxford Street, Amanda. We’ll go there next time (at night, mehbeh?) you come back up here. Taronga Zoo’s a nice place to get utterly lost in, by the way.
I still can’t get over that horse video, just for future reference. And you mark my words, I’ll be ten times more energetic the next time I see you! Shall consume three cans of V and a cup of tea. But no way am I training myself in heels.
Sounds like a fun three days you’ve had. And to think I could’ve missed out on the inevitable porn discussion if I’d stayed in bed yesterday!
Xuan on December 10, 2007 #
“full of middle-aged men in suits, rather than the young and hip” – is that not EXACTLY what I told you it would be!?
NO JOKE, Laura arrived at mine at 1.10AM, the last train leaves Lindfield at 12.33AM! I COULD have caught the night-rider bus into the city, but as that takes an hour, I would be arrived at 2.30AM, seeing you at 3, going out ’til 5 at earliest, returning after 6 making my 10AM shift the next morning very difficult. You see Amanda, not ALL of us get leisurely weekends like yours!
(However I’d like a leisurely weekend in your chest sometime).
NEXT time you come to Sydney, instead of Castlereagh Street, I’ll take you shopping on Oxford Street in Paddington (I have a surprising amount of not only stamina, but patience for a male). I’ll get Laura to take us to some bars in Kings Cross (she knows it far better than I, and can also get us free drinks in one of them!), you’ll catch a plane and fly first class home because you would’ve won billions at the Casino and you’ll invite me (although not a fully bred Asian) to your next Asian meetup.
That is what will happen.
I am, however, glad you had a great weekend. And despite how unimpressed with me you may be, I will see you for sexy time very shortly.
Paddy on December 10, 2007 #
Oh my Amanda!!!!!! I’m AM STILL jealous because it seems that you had a super duper quality time OMG. I wanna go out with youuuu guysss.
Juice on December 10, 2007 #
Don’t go to auckland. There is nothing there whatever you do. I lived in Auckland for 2.5 years and it’s bad.
Mish on December 11, 2007 #
Scrap the trip to New Zealand and come see us Brits! :P
Amber on December 11, 2007 #
Sounds like an awesome trip even though shopping was a failure. I find this to always be true when I get excited about going some where new. I’ll shop and shop and find absolutely nothing I like, come home, and find five new shirts I want to buy in one store.
Kimmie on December 11, 2007 #
I agree with Mish, even though Rilla lives in Auckland!
Fly into Hamilton, the airfare is cheaper, you’ll have somewhere to stay for your trip and we can take you to touristville (Rotorua).
Rhiannon lives four to five hours south from here and Rilla lives an hour north. We shall have to convince Rhiannon to make a trip up and then “road trip” to Auckland to visit Rilla. :P
Nellie on December 11, 2007 #
… P.S. Sam said he’s keen for a threesome. :P
Reply: Nellie, you’re making me horny. :P
Nellie on December 11, 2007 #
Fourgy? Can I come?
Paddy on December 11, 2007 #
Sam’s not too much a fan of the male sex organ, except for his own, but I’m sure if you tuck it back, he’ll let you join in.
Inappropriate comments FTW!
Nellie on December 11, 2007 #
Tuck is back?! Hahah you make me giggle and fart.
Paddy on December 11, 2007 #
Aww that sounds such a fun summer! Four Asians… Can’t imagine you guys all talking about porn and sex. I don’t get such conversations with my Asian friends. :P (Even though I want them)
But yes, yes yes! Blogger meeting in NZ! :D
Rilla on December 11, 2007 #
Auckland btw. :P You can’t come to NZ without visiting the largest city in the country -.-
Rilla on December 11, 2007 #
FREE BOOB PORN!
Jem on December 11, 2007 #
I like Xuan’s post better :-) more cleavage shots :-D
Reply: My private collection of cleavage shots resides on my memory stick. :P They show a lot more than what Xuan’s did…
Vera on December 11, 2007 #
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@Rilla: Oh believe me. You’ll be talking about porn with Amanda, it’s inevitable. Wait, would you believe that it might’ve been Belinda who started the whole porn discussion? My memory’s fuzzy already. It all started with the stranger side of porn …
Xuan on December 12, 2007 #
Wow what an amazing experience for you all!
I’ve been wanting to meet you for ages and still wish I could’ve done when I was in Aussie. So excited at the prospect of you coming across the ditch!!!!!! (can you tell!?)
Rhiannon on December 19, 2007 #
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