It's a double-header! We got back from dinner last night a little tipsy (with good reason, as you'll see below), so I just went straight to sleep. You didn't want me posting while drunk, did you? Thought not.
Yesterday we had a nice slow morning, with some instant miso soup for breakfast to ward off the cold, and then went down to Darling Harbour to the magnificent Sydney Aquarium. It's one of my favorite places in Sydney, because they have a fantastic collection of fish and water birds and other aquatic critters, and because many of said critters live in gigantic tanks sunk directly into the Harbour. You can walk under these "oceanariums" in glass tubes, and the fish and sharks and turtles swim all around and above you. It's very cool. This picture is a little blurry, but I hope it gives you a sense of what the oceanariums are like:
That's a nurse shark in the distance. And here's a giant tortoise, hanging out just on the other side of the glass:
The highlights of the visit this time were the dugongs --- they're a relative of the manatee, and they're roly-poly and frolicky sea mammals. They eat absolutely massive amounts of sea vegetables, which are replaced in the aquarium by romaine lettuce, which apparently has the same nutritional profile. Who knew. While we were there, one of the keepers was scratching and massaging one of the dugongs in a little side tank off of the oceanarium, so we were able to get some good views:
There was also the obligatory Aussie crocodile, looking supremely unconcerned with the photo-happy tourists:
Yes, we were that close. Yes, there was glass. Lots of it.
There was also a tank of platypus (er...playtpi? WTF is the plural form?), which were incredibly cute and furry but moving too fast to get a good photos But they are indeed every bit as strange-looking as you might expect from a monotreme. And did you know that they have venomous spikes on their heels? It's true! I don't remember exactly what they're for, but they're there. Truly, a creature of enormous power. And weirdness.
After finishing up at the aquarium, we went back to the shopping district to get me some more hiking socks and to look around a bit at the posh shops. In a lucky moment, we stumbled on a wonderful tea shop in the Strand Arcade: Quali-Tea. Forgive the cheesy name, because the owner is a tea fanatic who brewed us the best cups of green tea I've ever had. Just the thing for a sunny but windy afternoon in Sydney. And packed with antioxidants to boot.
Dinner was the real winner for the day, though. On the advice of our innkeeper, Alan, we went to Onde, a tiny bisto just a few blocks away, serving fresh, local seasonal food with an awesome wine list. And oh man, it was delicious. First, the wine: we had a pinot noir from Tasmania (!), by Josef Chromy. I think it was a 2008. If you can find it, pick up a case. No, pick up two: one for us and one for you. It's doubtful that it's available in the States, especially in our stupid State (er, Commonwealth), but it's worth a try. Appetizers were a tomato, basil, goat cheese, and caramelized onion tart for me, and fried zucchini blossoms on rocket for Michael. It was every bit as good as it sounds. The main courses were equally delicious. I had crispy polenta with eggplant and roasted tomato sauce --- basically deconstructed ratatouille, but with polenta, and topped with Parmesan. Michael had linguini with tomato and garlic sauce, which was not as creative but very fresh and wonderfully prepared. Of course, at this rate, we had to stay for dessert. I was tempted by the chocolate terrine, but, figuring that I could get something similar almost anywhere, opted instead for the house-made quince and almond tart. A glass of dessert muscat rounded out the evening, and...
Oops, with all that wine and lovely food, we collapsed pretty early last night. I'm not apologizing, though. :)
Today it was sunnier and less windy, so on the advice of our guidebook we did the Cliff Walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach. To orient y'all, these beaches are on the the eastern shore, a little south and mostly east from the downtown areas. We took a train to Bondi Junction, then hopped the bus to Coogee, where we started along the walk at Coogee Beach. I can't get the exact route to show up on Google Maps since it likes to work along official roads, but this should give you an idea of where we went:
It's hard to estimate how long the walk was, since we wove in and out along the tops of the cliffs, but I'd say about 7k all together, taking a little less than four hours at a nice relaxed pace. (Yes, I can walk at a nice relaxed pace when I set my mind to it. Sheesh.) From Coogee, we walked past Clovelly, Bronte, and Tamarama Beaches before finally ending at Bondi, where we were on Wednesday. This should be an absolute requirement for anyone who comes to Sydney. The views of the ocean from the tops of the cliffs were spectacular. The water was incredibly blue, turning to turquoise and then to white as the waves crashed against the rocky cliffs below us. It was so peaceful and soothing to sit on the edge of the cliffs and watch the tide come in, churning up the water and filling in the tide pools. Luckily for me, but unluckily for you, I left my bag the hotel room for the walk. So I didn't get a sore shoulder, but I also didn't take the camera. It would have been hard to capture the vastness of it anyway, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
We saw a few different types of seabirds that I'm still working on identifying. One of them is definitely a magpie lark (aka peewee), but there was also a black-and-white diving bird catching fish in the ocean that I'm having trouble with. It was too small for a pelican, and had coloration similar to a penguin, with a black back and white belly. Does that ring a bell for anyone? We definitely saw rainbow lorikeets in the trees along the trail.
Once we got to Bondi, Michael insisted on going back to Funky Pies to have an afternoon snack. This time, I had one of their brekkie rolls, which was veggie sausage with beans and tomato wrapped in puff pastry and topped with fake bacon. Michael had a regular pie, the No Wurry Curry, which was basically Indian food in a pie crust. Colonialism, anyone? The nice bloke behind the counter, who I think was the owner, mentioned to us that he's trying to open up a franchise in the States. (Anyone interested in owning a vegan pie shop?) And before we went, the woman working the tables actually wished us a "good arvo" (= "good afternoon"). For real! I thought that was only the sort of thing that the guidebooks claim that the locals say, instead of being something that they actually say. But here was an existence proof I was wrong. And a good arvo it was, indeed.
After such a lovely day, walking along the beach, being soothed by the sound of the surf, having delicious veggie pies, what could go wrong? Answer: dinner. Epic fail.
We wanted to go to Billy Kwong, a Chinese restaurant owned by Kylie Kwong, one of the most famous and highly regarded chefs in Australia. We have her cookbook and it's amazing. Of course, the restaurant is tiny and they don't take reservations. To be fair, we knew that. But it's within good walking distance of our hotel and it was quite a cold night, so we figured...well, I don't know what we figured, but if it involved getting a table, then we were wrong. We got there around 8 and were told that a table for two wouldn't open up until 10. Seriously.
We weren't about to wait two hours for dinner, so we initiated backup plan A: Wild Rice, a modern Thai restaurant that the guidebook recommended highly. We checked the address on Google maps and headed off in the direction it pointed us, which was pretty much almost all the way back to our hotel. Except that when we got there, there was no restaurant. After a little fiddling, we found the problem: The address was really 160 Flinders Street, suite 1, which Google interpreted as 1 Flinders Street. Why??? Okay, back down the street a few blocks to the right place...hmm, that doesn't look like a Thai restaurant. It wasn't. Wild Rice had closed months ago and had been replaced by an somewhat sorry looking pub. Argh.
Okay, backup plan B: Pink Peppercorn, a Laoatian restaurant back on the main drag, which is where we started, and where we thought the nonexistent restaurant was. By this time I was so hungry that I didn't much care where we ended up, but maybe I should have. The restaurant existed and they did have a table, but it wins the award for Most Terrible Place in the Universe to Take a Date. It was so loud inside that we nearly ended up with tinnitus by the end of the meal. And the service was pretty lousy too --- the two runners asked for our drink order three times in succession before we'd had a chance to look at the wine list, and then took forever to get around to taking our food order. Sigh. The food was decent, but nothing special, and nothing to distinguish it as Laoatian as opposed to Thai. And yet all the reviews I've read are glowingly positive. Maybe things are more creative when it comes to the non-veg dishes? Or maybe I'm just spoiled for good service? Anyway, we won't go to bed hungry, but we will do our research more carefully in the future. We'll probably try for Billy Kwong again, but next time we'll go on a weeknight, maybe right when they open. After all, if we can get into Per Se, we can handle this.
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