[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 2 July 2017]
Day 4: 11 March 2017, Saturday
This morning, I woke up experiencing post-Adele concert blues. I spent a good hour reliving the concert by watching the videos clips that I took with my phone. Ahhh, what an amazing night.
At 9am, IJ and I set off for Broadway Sydney, a shopping mall located just 600m away from our apartment, while KH slept in. She was really tired after all the physical exertions and walking from the past three days. Broadway Sydney is quite a big mall with over 100 shops, a Hoyts cinema, a large food court and supermarkets. My main objective there was to visit the JB Hi-Fi store to do some CD/record shopping, while IJ’s mission was to sweep the Tim Tams from the shelves of Coles supermarket.
The JB Hi-Fi is quite well stocked and I bought three Foo Fighters albums and the Daft Punk Random Access Memories album on vinyl, as well as a few other CDs, including the Australia/New Zealand Tour Edition of Coldplay’s A Head Full Of Dreams album. Vinyl is cheaper here than in Singapore, costing about S$30 each. IJ had a pretty good haul of Tim Tams too, over 20 packs! After that, we went back to the apartment to drop off our shopping and to pick up KH.
At 11am, we went to visit Glebe Markets, just 5 minutes away from our apartment. It is one of Sydney’s most well-known markets and it is open only on Saturdays from 10am to 4pm. It is located within the premises of Glebe Public School and it features many stalls selling various items ranging from secondhand CDs, clothes, vintage fashion, books, food and other knick knacks. Of course, I made a beeline for the CD stall and managed to unearth some gems. After I was done browsing, I bought a cup of chai latte and sat near the grass lawn, sipping my coffee as I listened to a busker play his guitar and sing. It was a nice place to hang out on a Saturday morning. All in all, we spent about an hour at Glebe Markets.
Next up, we visited the Sydney Fish Market. From Glebe, we took the Light Rail train and alighted at Fish Market station, just 2 stops and 3 minutes away. From the station, it was a short 5-minute walk to the Sydney Fish Market. I have never been here before so I didn’t know what to expect. Essentially, it was a large marketplace featuring shops selling fresh seafood, gourmet delis, bakeries and restaurants.
There are six wet fish retailers here offering the freshest seafood in all of Australia. KH did some quick research online and learned that the most popular one was Peter’s, so that was where we went. It was very crowded and full of tourists and tour groups, but we managed to get an outdoor seat. The look and feel of the place reminded me of Fremantle in Perth, but Fremantle was nicer.
The Peter’s fish market offered both cooked seafood dishes as well as raw seafood. Everything at the cooked food section looked so appetising and we had a hard time deciding what to get. There were combo sets and platters but we ended up buying a la carte, picking salmon, lobster, prawn and scallop stick, calamari, squid and fish. The lobster was A$23 while the rest of the items were mostly around A$10+. We also bought salmon sashimi from the raw food section. Including the drinks, the total bill came up to over A$100! It was an expensive meal but the salmon sashimi and calamari were dope!
At 2:45pm, we left Sydney Fish Market and headed towards the main commercial area at George Street. As we alighted at Capitol Theatre, we spied upon Paddy’s Market at Hay Street, and decided to check it out. I have also never been here before so I didn’t know what was in store. Paddy’s Market is a large indoor flea market, or what we call, a pasar malam. There are over a hundred stalls selling souvenirs, clothes, gifts and mobile phone accessories. Most of the items here are geared towards tourists, and most of the stalls were opened by Asians, as usual. We did our souvenir shopping at one of the first stalls we saw, which was a mistake because the further we went, the cheaper it got. Oops!
After Paddy’s Market, we went to Tom N Toms Coffee to recharge our batteries. It was a scorching 24-degrees today and the blazing sun was draining us of our energy. We then walked north towards Sydney Opera House, but we soon decided to save our legs and take the train instead. From Museum station, we hopped on and alighted at Circular Quay, the station nearest to the Opera House.
It was 5:20pm when we arrived and Circular Quay was packed with people this Saturday evening, creating a very vibrant atmosphere. As we walked along the quay, we had a splendid view of Harbour Bridge across the water. Not long after, Sydney Opera House came into sight. It was not my first time but it was still majestic to see the iconic building up close. The sun was out and the skies were a perfect, cloudless blue. It was a magnificent day, although it was a bit too warm, but everything combined to make for beautiful photos and we spent a long time getting the perfect shots.
After close to an hour, having photographed the Opera House from all angles, we finally left Circular Quay. We were exhausted from all the walking so we took a taxi back to our apartment. For dinner, we decided to pick a nice restaurant along Glebe Point Road, near our apartment so as to minimise the walking. KH was craving for something soupy, and we settled on Otto Noorba, a Mediterranean Fusion restaurant.
KH ordered a vegetarian stew, IJ had a lamb skewer with rice and Turkish bread, while I had a garlic & cheese pide. For dessert, we ordered a chocolate tortino, which was cake with hot melted chocolate filling. I have never tried pide before and KH highly recommended it. It was like a cross between naan and pizza. The bread was soft and fluffy and the combination of garlic and cheese was perfect. It was so good.
After dinner, we simply headed back to our apartment to pack our bags and rest because we were exhausted. Last night in Sydney, back to Singapore tomorrow!
Day 5: 12 March 2017, Sunday
I woke up at 6:30am this morning. I was contemplating between going for a jog or a swim. I originally thought of jogging from our apartment at Glebe to the Sydney Opera House in time to watch the sunrise, then jog back again, for a total distance of about 10km. However, the sun had already risen slightly and it was already bright at 6:30am. I was feeling a bit tired as well, so I decided to give the jog a miss and go for a swim instead, while IJ and KH happily snoozed away.
I walked to Victoria Park Pool, about 10 minutes away. The pool admission was A$6.40 (S$6.90), which is very pricey considering that we only pay up to S$1.30 to use the public pool in Singapore. As it was still early, there were not many people, maybe around 6 or 7 others, but it did get more crowded after I arrived. The swimmers who were there seemed quite pro. I guess they had to be – to wake up at 7am on a Sunday to go for a swim, you have to be quite serious about it.
It was a heated swimming pool but the water was still cold because the ambient temperature was about 17 degrees Celsius. It was chilly but it wasn’t freezing, unlike the last time when I swam at Bondi Icebergs. I ended up swimming only 14 laps but it was very refreshing and I felt energised after that.
After the swim, I went to Clipper Café at Glebe Point Road for breakfast. We had walked past this café before two days ago and it looked quite nice so I kept it in mind. And when I saw that seats were readily available today, it made perfect sense to pop in to give it a try. I did not even know that it was one of those highly rated cafes in Sydney to check out.
I ordered a Mushroom Bruschetta with Eggs Benedict and a latte, amounting to A$17 altogether. The food and coffee were great and the staff were really friendly. I also loved the décor and especially the nice Cuban music playing in the background. Nice place to hang out, highly recommended!
After breakfast, it was really time to go. We left our apartment just after 11am and took an Uber to the airport. The ride cost us A$43, which was cheaper than the A$17.90 (per person) train ride from Central station to the airport, and much more comfortable and hassle free too. It is definitely more economical to share a cab when you are travelling in a party of three.
We arrived at the airport at about 11:35am, but there was a long queue to check in, so by the time we were done, it was already past 12pm. It was quite a rush as boarding time was at 12:45pm. I quickly bought two packs of nougats from the duty-free shop then went to McDonald’s to buy a double cheeseburger. I literally gobbled down the burger and it was time to board the plane.
I was assigned a seat close to the rear of the plane. The flight was not full so I could change my seat to an unoccupied row and I had the whole row of three seats to myself! So shiok. I took the middle seat, which allowed me to sleep in peace without being nudged by people at the aisle walking past. I am not the kind who would lie across three seats to sleep. It just feels weird to me.
Anyway, it was a short but awesome trip. Maybe an extra night in Sydney would have been better so we could have more rest and also explore the Bondi Beach area. But we wanted it to be a short getaway so that was what it was. I enjoyed canyoning at Blue Mountains tremendously and the Adele concert was just amazing. We were just so fortunate to have watched Adele perform live because she may never tour again. Many thanks to IJ and KH for their great company, for being so sporting and trusting me to lead the way. I know I tortured them with all the walking haha. And thanks for going the extra mile to make my birthday so memorable too. Here’s to more trips in future!
