Guy’s Guide: Guy Goes to Sydney

Guy’s (Sort of) Guide to (Parts of) Sydney

Actually, it’s more of a guy’s personal guide on the experience of traveling to Sydney. The guy in question is yours truly, and I just got back this weekend after five days Down Under for the first time. If you’re looking for the skinny on all the hip places in the town or how good the nightlife is, is the Great Barrier Reef rocking where the best hookers are and the like, I probably can’t help you. This was, alas, a family outing on a budget, including a moppet who hasn’t been on this earth even two years, but who has nonetheless traveled more in that time than I did in 30 years (this was her fourth friggin’ continent for cripes sake). However, what I can offer are a few takes on the city, some hints on various things like where to stay, what can be seen, a good way to get around, and how to generally survive the experience.

The Flight

I’m at the corner of the country here in L.A., so unless you’re coming from Hawaii or Guam or something, you’re looking at about a 14 1/2 hour flight Down Under minimum. Honolulu is in the catbird seat at 9 hours. But for you East Coasters, you’re looking at somewhere around 21 to 22 hours minimum travel time, and that’s if you get right off one plane and head to another or you stay on the same plane during the layover. Of course you’ll generally be hitting L.A. or San Fran anyway as a connecting point (even San Diegans have to schlep up to L.A. as QANTAS doesn’t fly out of that town). So you might want to save yourself the cross-country flight and just move here to the Best Coast and shave 6-7 hours off your travel time. And of course it should be noted, that whatever day you travel (I flew out Friday night), you’re going to lose tomorrow. Meaning that with an 18 to 21-hour time difference, and a minimum of 14 hours flight time, tomorrow is bye-bye. With that in mind, travel on Sunday night so you can tell Monday to piss off and arrive in Sydney on Tuesday morning.

The Jet Lag

Surprisingly, the jet lag going to Sydney’s not as debilitating as it is when hitting say, Europe or Eastern Africa. The 18 hours is close enough that if you get a good amount of sleep once you get their the first day, you should be pretty good to go. We were averaging hitting the sack around 8 PM local time and waking up around 3 AM to 4 AM after the first day. I’m a night person, so I was managing up to around midnight local time or so a couple of nights. A nap here and there and the time difference really wasn’t that bad. In my experience, it’s when you’re hitting a time zone that’s close to 12 hours that really waylays you, as you wake up ready for corn flakes and it’s time to go clubbing.

Where to Stay in Sydney

Well now, that’s the question whenever you’re traveling now ain’t it? I and the family stayed in the Potts Point / Kings Cross area, which is in Eastern Sydney, less than two miles from the Central Business District, 20 minutes from the airport and a couple of train stops from the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour. Turns out that it’s been a Bohemian and artistic hub of the town for decades and is the home of the red-light district. Definitely saw that as it’s impossible to miss coming out of the Kings Cross subway station on Darlinghurst Road. But when you turn the corner onto Macleay Street, the scenery quickly picks up and the area has undergone a lot of upscale development. Kind of reminiscent of the change that Hollywood has seen over the last decade.

We stayed at the Macleay Hotel / Apartments for about $175 a night. If you’re considering that as your base of operations, consider getting a high room facing East. This is the view you’ll get:

The Macleay is also right across the street from one of the grocery chains in Sydney called Woolworths, which was funny since I remember going to the old defunct Woolworth’s here in the U.S. as a kid to buy stuff like school supplies and Gobot knockoffs. Our room was a single and had a small kitchen.

Eating in Sydney

See, here’s the thing: I didn’t know Sydney was going to be that damn expensive. L.A. is pretty pricey, so I’m used to that. And with the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Aussie Dollar being a wash, I figured to be in store for fairly similar pricing. Figured wrong that is. On any given item, be it a sandwich, full meal, drink, what have you, you can expect anywhere from roughly about 50% to 100% more in price. Goddamned sodas in a bottle on average were $4. To wit:

We actually didn’t eat at any nice sit down joints except the first day for breakfast. It was some bullshit hipster establishment that was light on the food and heavy on the price. Just to keep from blowing our discretionary budget on meals, we bought food at Woolworths and kept it in the fridge. And that was still pushing things. Prices at Woolworths definitely weren’t Kroger, Ralph’s or Winn Dixie. If you’re on a budget like we were, getting a joint with a small kitchen is definitely a doable thing to save a few bucks.

We got some fast food at a place whose name I missed.  We were fresh off the train in Katoomba, freezing and hungry.  Pretty good place with these offerings:

I got a roll, which was a roast beef sandwich on a kaiser-looking roll with onions and gravy, with fries (chips of course down there).  The wife decided to get some sausages with peas and fries.  The sausages were ass, like they hadn’t been cooked all the way, so we had to split the roll.

Tourist Shit

Sydney really is a beautiful city, nestled around the harbor and outlying water areas as it is. Kind of a cross between the Bay Area and the Wilshire Canyon area here in LA.  That’s where Peter Fonda was surfing in Escape From L.A., FYI.  It looks a lot better when it’s not all destroyed and stuff.  And I hate to sound like a city guide cliche, but it is very cosmopolitan. And really a surprising number of high rises not only in the CBD, but in the other various areas of the city.

So yeah, you’re more than likely going to do the Sydney Opera House. It’s neat and all and was our first destination, just to get it out of the way.   But it did provide me with one of my favorite ever pictures (above).

I really wasn’t super floored by it. We’ve got the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. which is just as unusual, although not as big. I definitely wasn’t flying 7,000 miles just to see this; but once I was there, I wasn’t going to miss it, either. Hell, I always thought the place looked like those Vedek hats on DS9 (left).

It did have some interesting bathrooms though. See below:

We also did Darling Harbour several times, hit Paddy’s Market once (it’s a mall), and caught the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens. A hike from the Opera House south, through the Botanic Gardens, with a stop off at Government House and then back to Kings Cross was nice. Would have been nicer if my feet hadn’t been killing me though. If you’re in a city where you walk a lot, it won’t be a problem. If you spend your life in your car like an Angeleno though…. That area actually reminded me very much of the Cherokee Park area of Louisville’s East End around Bardstown Road.

For getting around, I recommend getting the weekly pass, available at CityRail, that covers most trains, ferries and buses. It’s a red ticket and costs $57 but once you have it, your transportation worries are generally over. And if you use it enough, you’ll probably end up saving money. But get some kind of plastic sleeve for it or other type of protector so it stays crisp. Our tickets were worn out in one day and wouldn’t pass through any scanner.  With it you can just walk on and off any Sydney Ferry without a headache. We spent an inordinate amount of time on ferries, making the Sydney Harbour to Darling Harbour run several times. I think it’s the best way to see the city. One stop on this run is the Luna Park area. It’s sort of like the Pennywise Disneyland:

The ferry ride to Manly Beach is the nicest run that we did. It goes about 30 minutes, A bigger ferry is needed as it crosses an inlet to the entire bay from the ocean. Much bigger swells, FYI, in case you’re the seasick type. Didn’t get to explore the Manly area though (jeez that sounds bad), as it was getting late in the day. I wanted to do the Parramatta River course also, which is the longest ferry ride that I saw, but didn’t get a chance to. The $57 ticket is also good for the train ride to Australia’s Blue Mountains.

A friendly bit of advice I can impart to you regarding the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and the nearby hamlet of Katoomba if you want to see it is this: go early in your trip.  There’s some lovely scenery to be had, nature walks, scenic railways and skyways and more.  And Katoomba has a nice small town feeling but is still quite modern.  It’s a two-hour train ride on New South Wales’ Main Western Line.  The Blue Mountains struck me as a cross between Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon of NSW.

The thing is, though, when we went, it was the last day of our trip and I was dead tired.  We’d walked Sydney over and back at least three or four times, moppet in tow all the way, and as I mentioned, it’s a two hour train ride to-and-fro the Blue Mountains — plus we did no real homework on the place.  I was in shorts and a t-shirt and when we got there and the temperature had dropped something like 30 degrees from Sydney’s temperate clime.  I was freezing, tired, and not really that high on that segment of the trip when faced with a 13-hour plane ride the next day.  Nevertheless, when we got there, Katoomba was, in a word, quaint.  The place was mom and pop store central, but still, it had every modern amenity and some nice looking eateries.  It was sort of boondocks without being backwoods.  We dipped in and out of some of the more eye-catching places of biz.

Click images below to enlarge:

So anyway, here are the Blue Mountains and one of their main features, the Three Sisters:

I really wish I’d been in a better frame of mind on that part of the trip, or had done it earlier.   If I could have spent that last day of the vacation just sticking close to Potts Point, maybe exploring that a bit more I’d have been golden.  So remember, kids: go early.

On the Telly

Caught quite an eyeful of Aussie TV while holed up in the hotel room.  Don’t know if we were getting all the available channels or what the satellite and/or cable situation is in Sydney.  TV selection was disappointing, though — something like twenty or so channels.  Of course you’re not going all that way to channel surf, but at the end of the day, it’s nice to kick back on the bed with the unwashed top sheet and see how their vast wasteland is different than our vast wasteland.  First thing that I recall is something that they’ve got going on down their called Netball.  If I’d heard of that particular sport before, I’d long since forgotten it.  I caught a celebrity version with men and women and they have a professional version.  It didn’t seem to be the WNBA of Australia as there were actually people in the stands enjoying the game.  Plus the female players wear these little skirt uniforms, which is just hot:

They were covering a lot of motocross and drag racing and NASCAR down there.  Some station with a lot of ’70s and ’80s crap including MacGyver, Touched By Della Reese, Matlock and The Brady Bunch.  Then there was Australian Rules Football.  Now this was the first time I actually ever sat down to really watch it.  My impression is that it’s rugby with too much soccer influence.  As an NFL die-hard, I can nevertheless watch some good rugby just fine; but I loathe soccer, so really, I was sort of meh about it.  One thing about the AFL, though, is that there’s tons of dirty shit happening between the players nearly every damn play.  Some guy elbows another guy, grinds his head into the sod after a solid tackle, steps on him, just bush league type of shit that made me wonder how they managed to have a game in between the fracases.

There was one show in particular called Letters and Numbers on SBS One that was both laughable and yet surprisingly addictive.  You can link for the particulars of the game, but what got me about it was the production value.  This is a national game show that looks like it’s produced on a local PBS station.  It’s great.   Although, their Vanna White is Lily Serna, who’s the best looking mathematician I’ve seen this side of Danica McKellar.  Finally, as far as news, it was solid, and there was one particular newscaster to whom I was looking forward after a long, hard day of vacationing.

The Flight Home

The nice thing about flying home is that the flight is about an hour shorter since you’re going with the Jetstream.  Plus you get to time travel.  Peep this: you leave at 2:05 PM local time and arrive at 9:45 AM L.A. time – all relative and shit – on the same day.  Sweet.  We flew on an A380 on the return trip.  Damn impressive plane, although we didn’t get to see anywhere near enough of the interior.  Still though, biggest passenger plane in the world just means that they can cram more assholes into more seats.  Same old story: when the guy in front of me leaned back I wouldn’t have needed my glasses to watch the movies on the entertainment system anymore, and my unaided vision is just slightly north of Magoo.  Movies watched on the return flight: Red, The Social Network, The American. The rest of the time I spent sleeping but not.

Cheers