Day 2 – Sunday, 1 June 2008

We woke up to the smell of frying sausages and eggs, nice and fresh. After washing up, we sat down at the dinning table to have breakfast.

We left our apartment at around 8.30a.m. and strolled to the Central Station. Breakfree on George is really within walkable distance to the Central Station after all! We only took 5 minutes to get there. We started on our first day of using the 3-day Sydney Pass. We took a train from the Central Station to Circular Quay Station.
Upon alighting at the Circular Quay Station, we found ourselves staring at the magnificent view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. The itch to take photos came again and we soon found ourselves snapping away at the train platform even before stepping out of the station!

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

Once out of the station, we found ourselves surrounded by many street performers, who are out on their weekly performance to present their best tricks and stunts to earn a living.

The weather was not as good as the day before. The sky was overhanging with dark clouds, threatening to rain cats and dogs over us any moment. The photos we took looked a little gloomy with the grey skies as their background

Gloomy sky!

Our first stop was The Rocks Markets at The Rocks. Traditionally the home of the Indigenous Cadigal people, the rocky sandstone ledge now known as The Rocks is where members of the First Fleet stepped ashore on 26 January 1788 and British settlement of Australia was first established.
Now, it is nothing like the rocky shoreline that gave its name. It has transformed into a historic town centre, nestled between the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House. Walking down the charming cobblestone walkways, we arrived at The Rocks Market. The first thing that caught our eye was a stall selling Lush Berries. What are Lush Berries? They are nothing but big red juicy strawberries dipped in and decorated with different types of chocolate. Though costly, they looked so delicious that we could not resist splurging A$3 to try one! The Lush Berry that we chose was lavishly coated with milk chocolate and sprinkled with almond bits. It looked so nice that couldn’t bear to eat it. After taking many photos with it, we finally settled down to eat it. It tasted quite nice, but not fantastic enough for us to spend another A$3! ^_^

Lush Berries!

We visited each of the stalls in the market to check out what each stall have to offer. The things sold there are quite unique and covered a wide variety of items. Practically, the things sold at each stall are different. Most of the items sold there are handmade or homemade. The items sold ranged from food products to accessories. We bought some homemade soft nougat. The nougat is quite different from the usual hard nougat that we see in the supermarkets. The flavors are quite unique too. We bought all 3 available flavors, cranberry and pistachio flavor, chocolate flavor and another flavor that I don’t quite remember.All was well until we came to this stall selling scarves. The scarves are pretty unique; they are sewed in a special way that allowed us to tie it in various different styles. An Australian lady was manning the stall. She was demonstrating patiently to two Caucasians tourists. There was a piece of paper framed in a photo frame showing the different methods of tying the scarf. Feeling interested, we stopped to take a look. The English lady was halfway through the demonstration when she spotted us standing by the side. She gave us an annoying look and suddenly slammed the framed picture down before turning back to the English tourists with a big smile and continuing her demonstration. We were all perplexed with her weird behavior. It suddenly dawned me that she didn’t want us to see her drawn demonstration. It so happened that my sister was holding on to her video camera while watching the demonstration. We figured that she probably thought that we were recording her demonstration. After realizing what happened, we tried to explain ourselves that we are not filming and are really interested in the demonstration. However, the Australian lady was so adamant that we are up to no good and was very rude to us. We were really put off by her attitude. Perhaps it is because we are Asians, and she thought Asians are inferior to Caucasians?? Whatever it is, our good spirits were already dampened and she had lost herself 2 potential customers. But other than this unpleasant encounter, the other stall owners are very friendly and amiable.

The Convict - Australia was once a 'disposal land' for Bristish criminals.

The Settlers

We only managed to finish exploring The Rocks Market when its time to catch the 1pm ferry to Manly Beach for the annual Manly Food and Wine Festival. The Rocks has so much more to offer – from twisting alleys lined with interesting shop houses to beautiful historical buildings, it was a pity that we did not have the luxury to explore it.

The ferry to Manly was quite big. It has two levels and one deck at the front of the ferry where you can sit out in the wind and enjoy the magnificent view as the ferry cruised along. We had wanted to sit at the deck. But, as everyone is fighting to sit on the deck, by the time we made our way up to the deck, there was no place for us to sit. This was, in a way, a good thing too, as the wind that blew was so biting cold that we could hardly bear to stand in the open deck for more than 5 seconds. We hurriedly took a few pictures and gladly squeezed back into the warm interior of the ferry.

Ferry to Manly

Very soon, we docked at Manly Wharf. We followed the swarm of people out of the ferry and onto the lands of Manly Island. Manly was nothing like what I have imagined. I had imagined it to be a deserted natural beach that is sparsely populated except for a few restaurants and resorts in the background. But what greeted us was totally different. Manly looks like a well-develop town with rows of shop houses lining the streets. We had to walk through the long stretch of shops and restaurants before we manage to catch a glimpse of the beach.

Though a little disappointed, it did not stop us from looking forward to the Manly Food and Wine Festival.

The Manly Food and Wine Festival is an annual event whereby Manly’s landmark wineries and restaurants gather to showcase their fine range of international cuisines. Visitors can enjoy a range of different cuisine for up to A$12 per plate. Wine can also be purchased from each winery at A$5 per glass.

As we made our way to the Manly Food and Wine Festival, we saw many people walking about with wine glasses hanging on neck straps off their necks. We can sense that we are nearing the festival location. Sure enough, within the next minute, loud and lively music drifted into our ears and right in front of us, booths of delicious looking food and nice smelling wine filled our sight. It’s like a school carnival!

We strolled along the long stretch of booths, checking out the different kinds of food offered by the booths. Finally, we stopped at one of the stalls with the longest queue. It is a booth manned by a group of university students. They are selling some kind of seafood fried rice with raisins (like the rice you get when u order seafood platter in Fish & Co). The rice is so aromatic that we can’t help but join the queue. One plate of rice costs you A$10 – a little overpriced if you ask me – but it still tasted quite good. As we were too hungry, we gobbled up the whole plate of rice before remembering that we forgot to take a photo of it!After eating the seafood rice, it started to drizzle a bit. We took shelter in the nearby shops. The plate of seafood rice was not really enough for the 4 of us and we were still famished. As we are not really wine lovers and the food offered at the festival is really a bit overpriced, we decided to venture to the restaurants in search of more good food.

We found this restaurant called Watervue that looked quite decent. We went in and ordered a salt and pepper calamari as starters. The calamari is quite different from the one we ate at East Ocean yesterday – it did not have a crumby layer over it and it tasted fresh and juicy. We also ordered some rock oysters, which tasted fresh but was quite saltish.

Salt and Pepper Calamari

Rock Oysters

Rock salt - Inedible, For decoration only!

For main course, we ordered a fish and chips and a chicken. The fish and chips tasted yummy but the chicken was a bit dry as they used chicken breast. We realized that Australians like chicken breast meat in their dishes, perhaps for health purposes? I really missed the nice juicy thigh meat when I was there!

Fish and Chips - It taste different from Singapore's.

It might be due to the batter and the fish, but its nice!

Dry Chicken-breast cutlet

For drinks, we tried this alcoholic drink called Citrus Bitch. It is a mixture of vodka, lime and orange. It sounded quite yummy, but when it was served, we took and sip and were dismayed to find that the drink tasted bitter, as they have put the fruits in without removing the skins! Perhaps the drink would have tasted much better if they removed the skins?!

Citrus Bitch

After the filling meal, it’s photo-taking time! We went back to the Manly Beach at The Corso to take photos of the beautiful beach. While looking for someone to take a group photo for us, we met this funny guy at the beach. He was hanging around with his friends. When we asked if he could help us to take a photo, he exclaimed happily that he was hoping that we would asked him for help and he is really glad that we did. That guy was hilarious, he even prompted us do a “funny face” pose, and for once, Dad actually looked smiley!

After the photo taking, we started making our way back. We wanted to catch the 4.45pm ferry back to Sydney so that we are in time to enjoy the sunset on the ferry, which is around 5pm. However, as usual, we were delayed by some ‘interesting stuffs’ along the way. We passed by a Diaso-like shop houses and starting shopping again. Dad and I finished shopping first and waited outside the store. While waiting, we saw a dog owner leading a big black poodle dog right up to the road block besides us, tied the dog onto the road block before going off to shop. The dog was quite tamed and waited there quietly. We couldn’t resist but spent another few moments taking a photo with it.

Nice tamed poodle

By the time we reached the jetty, the ferry has already left. It was quite a disappointment for us, because the sun would already have set when the next ferry comes along. But, since we already missed the ferry to see the sunset, we decided to go back and take more photos at Manly Wharf! After taking photos, we still had some time before the next ferry comes. We made use of the free time to make calls to Quad Bike King and Imagine Cruise (Whale watching) to confirm the activities for our Port Stephens trip. While making the calls at the jetty, some drunken guys loitered nearby, shouting and tumbling all over the place. Guessed they must have had too much to drink at the Food and Wine Festival!

The sky was already darkening when we got onto the ferry. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to miss the ferry, as the sky was too overcast to see any sunset anyway.. On the ferry, we met this old lady who was traveling alone. She seemed very interested to strike a conversation with us. She told us that she used to go to Manly with her husband and children, just like us. But now, her children are all grown up and have their own families. And recently, her husband passed away. So now, she has to go there alone. She seemed very lonely, and we tried to respond as much as we could. But soon, we succumbed to our tiredness and drifted off to sleep. By the time we woke up, we are already reaching the Sydney Harbour. The sky is totally dark now, and the rain is pelting quite heavily. It was only 5.30p.m! We had wanted to go back to The Rocks to continue exploring the historical monuments there, and then have dinner at Opera Bar, a nice little bar near the Sydney Opera House. But the big rain and strong winds turned us off. Winter is really not the best time to visit Sydney.

Instead, we went back to our apartment to unload the stuff we bought at The Rocks and went to a nearby Chinese restaurant. We went to this place called BBQ King for some authentic Cantonese roasted meat. The food there is real yummy and the helping is real big! We ate to our hearts’ content!

Nice 'Shao la', Superb!

It was still raining cats and dogs after dinner. We decided to go back to our apartment and have an early rest so that we can wake up earlier the next day.