Sydney in Winter

We arrived safely in Sydney, Australia - after a 15 hours flight.



We enjoyed Quantas' (or better Airbus') latest on-board toy - their "sky-cam", which is a camera built into the airplane's tailfin, which gives you live images of what pretty much the pilot sees, too.

First impression of Sydney: It's pretty cold here. But, then again we had been spoilt by the heat of Southern California. Also it's the WINTER here - as we are frequently being reminded by the ads etc. here.



So time to dig out and combine the warmest clothes we have. Well, at least you will finally see us in some other clothes on the photos...

Our hotel is right next to Hyde Park, around the corner is Oxford Street. The neighbourhoods carry names likes Paddington, Kings Cross and Kensington. So, one could be forgiven of thinking we are back home in London (rather than half way around the world). Even the rain yesterday brought back memories of the UK...

Yesterday we spent most of the day getting settled here in the hotel (and discovering the direct neighbourhood around the hotel) before we all fell asleep early (because of the jetlag).

We all woke up at around 5.00 am this morning. When we left the hotel, fortunately, the sun had come out and things looked much nicer than yesterday in the rain. This was the view from our hotel room this morning:



We walked through the Botanical Garden (where we were especially amazed by the local bird life, including entire trees full of bats!).



Our first stop was that No.1 Sydney attraction - the Opera House.





From there on we undertook a ferry trip through the harbour area (underneath the famous harbour bridge) to get to the Sydney Aquarium and the Sydney Wildlife Center, two places where one can see some of the most amazing Australian animals, incl. sharks, koalas, kangaroos, etc.





A great day with lots of impressions of a fantastic city. On the way back to hotel I've stopped at our local McDonald's, because we learned that Starbucks in the US and McDonald's in Australia have something in common - free wireless access!!! So this blog entry is inspired by a caramel icecream sunday from McDonald's...