Sydney, Australia (Part 2)

After a night in Port MacQuarie and seeing a kangaroo somersault in front of us we got back to Sydney late on Saturday, December 5th. Lara and I had dinner with my parents and then bid them adieu so that the two of us could hit the town on a Saturday night. Since the two of us are travelling in backpacks for three months we packed kind of light and didn't include much in the way of nice clothes. We hit the town in jeans and nice dry-fit shirts. The rest of Sydney was in designer dresses and suits. We felt a little out of place. Instead of partying like Hong Kong rockstars we walked around the city and watched the night from the streets. We did find one bar where we kind of fit in. Moral of the story, bring your clothing A game when partying in Sydney.

In our last full day with my parents we decided to visit the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are 2 hours out of Sydney and are, as the name says, blue (the oils from the eucalyptus trees refract the light differently than the normal air making the mountains look slightly blue). The Blue Mountains are very cool. There are canyons all around, rainforests, waterfalls, and spectacular views. We did the standard tourist itinerary; a couple quick hikes (or bushwalks as the locals call it), saw some big views, and went to the rainforest tourist trap. All of these activities were cool though. The rainforest tourist trap included a glass bottom gondola over the rainforest (not as cool as Hong Kong's glass bottom gondola though), a rainforest walk, and the world's steepest railroad. With our tourist checklist complete we headed back to Sydney.

The following morning was my parent's last day so we decided to see Bondi Beach before they left. After they took off Lara and I decided to spend the rest of they day on Bondi Beach ourselves. I don't want to jump to rash conclusions but Bondi Beach is the best beach in the entire world. Nice easy surf, powder sand, topless Australian women, spectacular views, great food, walking trails, dog park(beach), ocean fed pools, laid back atmosphere; Bondi has it all, and it's only 4 miles from downtown Sydney. By the end of the day Lara and I were not only ready to move to Bondi but were evaluating which ocean side elementary school would be the best fit for our unborn Australian children (Bondi Elementary by far. Smidwick Preparatory doesn't come close and its PTA is way overbearing). We also finished the day with some bad sunburns. But since we hadn't gotten much sun in the past 2 months we were okay with it. Besides, we were ready to be Australians and two out of three Australians get skin cancer by the age of 50 so we had some catching up to do.

Later that night Lara and I packed up, said bye to Sydney, and headed out to Melbourne.