After leaving Manila, we spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur at the same apartment complex, Face Platinum Suites, where we stayed the first time too. After relaxing there for a while, we took off to Sydney. We had booked a night flight, so our flight took off at 23:10 and arrived around 10:30 the next morning. After this eight hour flight we took a taxi to our hotel in the city center. For a while we thought about taking a brief nap, but decided to go for lunch and a bit of sightseeing instead.
We had just left Asia behind us, but we found ourselves in China Town eating Taiwanese food. Well, this way returning to the western life for a couple of months wasn’t a great culture shock for us…
After lunch we took a tram to Circular Quay to check out Harbour Bridge and the famous Sydney Opera House. Because we all were a bit tired after the long flight, we returned back to the hotel to rest and get more energy for the next day.
The next morning we woke up around eleven, but still we had time to go sightseeing during the rest of the day. We had booked a cruise on a historical sailing boat in front of Sydney. The cruise lasted 1,5 hours and while sailing the kids climbed to the 22m mast to enjoy the views. When we took off, we used the engine, but once we were out from the harbour area, the kids got to help with the sails and we were sailing during the rest of the trip. They also got to try to steer the sailing boat, and while they were in charge we managed to keep our course.
One of the crew members, Swedish Nora, told us that the boat had just arrived from Tasmania. There they participated in an event where there are many old historical sailing boats present. You need to reserve ten days to sail to Tasmania, because you always have to have some extra days in reserve just in case of bad weather. This time they had to wait out for a couple of big storms, but still managed to get to Tasmania on time. Once they start sailing, they sail 24/7. This time they had enough crew to divide the watch turns 4h sailing / 8h off, so everybody got at least a bit of sleep. Except when they almost fell off their bunks due to the heavy waves.
After the sailing trip we headed to Oxford Street through Hyde Park, because we wanted to see the Sydney WorldPride 2023 parade. It was the highlight of the Mardi Gras and was organised for the first time since Covid. Oxford Street was full of people, but nevertheless the kids managed to make their way to the front row. We had been warned that there might be “some exposure” during the parade, but most of the people there were dressed up relatively discreetly. The men dressed up as women were probably the most surprising thing for the kids. Also a man wearing only shiny blue underpants standing next to Ronja was one thing especially Ronja kept looking at for a long time instead of the parade.
The parade started with Dykes on Bikes, a long line of massive motorcycles, which Ronja didn’t appreciate at all. In addition to wearing earplugs, she also had her own and Jaana’s hands covering her ears. Fortunately the rest of the parade wasn’t as loud, because otherwise we would have had to cut the watching very short.
We didn’t stay quite until the end of the parade, because it was very long. We left around 21:30, but because some of the roads were blocked due to the parade, we had to wander on the smaller streets to get to the main one where the tram was. Nevertheless we managed to make our way back to the hotel relatively quickly and we were in bed before midnight.
The next day we decided to go to Bondi Beach. First we took a train from the central railway station close to us. That train took us to Bondi Junction, where we hopped on the bus and travelled about 10min to the beach.
The waves were really big on the beach, so there were a lot of surfers there. Because we didn’t have a surf board or the skills to use them, we decided to play in the waves like all the other swimmers. Some of the bigger waves managed to wipe off the goggles from Risto’s and Marko’s head, but we were amazingly lucky to find them. There are some dangerous currents on the beach and they’re really well signposted. Still the life guards patrolling on the beach (and in the sea) had to keep on whistling and telling people not to swim there.
On our way back to Sydney city center, we stopped for a moment to watch an Aboriginal music performance. We hoped they would also play the didgeridoo, but at least while we were there, they didn’t.
Sydney seems like a nice city to live in. Unfortunately the housing costs are insane, so we decided to leave Sydney only after three nights here. There would have been more to see here, but since we couldn’t find an apartment with a reasonable price relatively close to the city centre, we ended up booking not so reasonably priced hotel right in the centre. The 300€/night we paid for this family room without breakfast was still the cheapest we could find.