We’re off to Sydney for a couple of days. Apart from the airport, and a brief transit through a city station on the way up to the Blue Mountains last year, I haven’t been to Sydney since I was eight. In 1984.
Have they built a bridge over the harbour, yet?
I suspect it might have changed somewhat.
Anything in particular I should keep an eye out for?
Moved On 
Keep an eye on your wallet, these people’s ancestors where convicts after all, unlike us freely settled Melbournians.
Yeah. It’s humid and beer come in Middies. Other than that they’re fairly normal.
If you’re driving beware of the one way streets — I hate that place, I always miss my turn off and end up stuck on a one way street unable to get back to where I’m supposed to be….
Other than that don’t tell ’em you’re a Victorian and remember when you’re in a pub it’s a Schooner or a Midi, not a Pot.
What area are you staying in Jeremy?
people CANNOT drive.
period.
oh, and the airport link train line is prohibitively expensive
Sydney has assumed its position as the premier city in Australia, the most cultured, elegant and beautiful city of all. In the process it has lost its sense of rivalry with Melbourne.
Filthy Victorians on the other hand, fearful and bitter at their inferiority, fret endlessly about comparisons. They are the new Queenslanders as they labour under the burden of the very large chip afflicting their collective shoulder!
Why don’t you download the new Sydney release of Foursquare for your Android or iPhone, and find out the way the young people do?
I noticed that cyclists use the footpath, then again with the crazy traffic systems and crazy drivers, I don’t blame them 😉
“Anything in particular I should keep an eye out for?”
I stayed at Newtown last time I was there near Charles Perkins (RIP) house. A cool suburb, you’ll like the main drag through Newtown.
Newtown’s good – especially if you like Thai Food. If you want to do something touristy look for the Museum of Sydney and the Justice and Police Museum around Circular Quay – two criminally (pardon the pun) ignored museums. I think there’s a music fair on in Glebe this weekend.
And don’t hang around the CBD after 8pm. There’s nothing for you there.
I spent two weeks in Sydney around this time last year and had a ball. A beautiful city. Just watch the drivers running red lights. They’re either all colour blind or they just don’t give a shit. I suspect the latter.
I used to live in Newtown too!
It’s a bit like Fitzroy in Melbourne but bigger and with more restaurants. A good place to jst wander and soak up the vibe.
Nearby Marrickville has plenty of good Vietnamese restaurants.
Sydney is a car sewer.
Take a walk along the foreshore from Circular Quay, past the Opera House, around Farm Cove and into Woolloomooloo Bay for meat pies at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels.
Visit the Chinese Garden of Friendship at Darling Harbour. Avoid the rest of Darling Harbour.
Except Pyrmont Bridge – take a stroll and get ice-cream.
Buy a ferry/zoo ticket and use it.
Watch a movie at the biggest non-Imax screen in Australia at Hoyts Blacktown (cinema 5).
Go to the beach! Preferably Bronte or Clovelly.
See an exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, or the Australia Museum, or the Art Gallery of NSW, or all three.
If you book early, you can do the Bridge Climb.
I’m going to stop now. 🙂
Do they still eat Melburnians?
Only if you bring some mustard with you.
Homeless people. Everywhere near the CBD. My
God. I went there recently and I thought I was in the South Park episode “night of the living homeless”.
P.S. I am from Canberra
I’ve never been to Sydney, where is it?
East of Adelaide I think.
Urgh…da Sydney…urgh!
See if the Chinatown Bottle Busker is still there 🙂
Interesting all the comments about drivers, I always found Melburnians (and MUCH more so those from Adelaide) to be terrible drivers.
I guess it’s what you’re used to.
Be cheeky, Jeremy!Do a Harbour Bridge walk,Paul Hogan style.It is my idea.The person who owns the business,don’t know him from a bar of soap.Was employing a young woman whose dad owned some land out here.. as Guide.Never wrote to me or communicated once.Sydney Siders are all like the preening Bob Carr ex-Premier of N.S.W.Ask to do the walk for nothing,chance are Hulk Hogan will be on the same walk.Although if my littl mate from New York city was still around he could be on the same walk too.
Sydney drivers are even worse on roads outside Sydney. Living in Newcastle, you know you’re stuck behind a Sydney driver when they speed in 60 zones and do 80 in 90 zones.
you “know” that? really? outside of Sydney? you don’t think it could it possibly be the case that every time you see a speeding driver “outside of Sydney” you “infer” they must come from Sydney, thus reinforcing your own ridiculous prejudice?
Watch out for the heat exhaustion.
I got abused by a spectacularly funny old man the other day. If a guy (in the city) walks up to you with a cheap looking picture and tells you it’s his grandmother then he’s about to accuse you of being a grandmother beating arsehole.
We’re actually staying quite near Newtown.
Avoid whinging tourists from Melbourne. 🙂
Newtown? Then I have to recommend Guzman y Gomez (for authentic Mexican food cooked by Mexicans – not a restaurant but a small selection of burritos and quesadillas to eat in or takeaway, plus chilli margaritas). And opposite GyG is Burger Fuel, if that’s more your thing – interesting and generous burgers, chips with aioli instead of sauce.
And no stay at Newtown is complete without visiting that perpetual icon of bookshops, that Sydney institution, Gould’s Book Arcade. A cavernous collection of mostly secondhand books, strong on Australian history, especially the labour movement and the Left. There is approximately 1 million books in there!
You’ll even see the “legendary warrior of the Australian Left” himself, Bob Gould, behind the counter most days (big man, big beard). Have a chat, he’ll like that you’re doing your bit for what’s left of the Left. Ask him about his ASIO file 😉
Jeremy,
Did you survive, did you get run over?
Jarrah
Is that the bookshop that’s open very late?
RobJ, one of the things I love about the inner west of Sydney is that lots of bookshops are open late. But you’re right, it’s Gould’s that is open until midnight most nights.