Tommy & Rhonda's Travels

Sydney

AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 10 November 2007 | Views [228]

What a beautiful morning in Sydney!!! It had been raining for the last week and even rained on us the night before so we were really pumped. We mapped out a game plan for the day and set out. First stop, Darling Harbor again and we checked it all out in the daytime, bought tickets to the aquarium and wildlife exhibit and went to see the wildlife. It was cool but overrated. We did get to see some Koala bears and also Wallabies (smaller Kangaroos) so that was neat. After that, we took the ferry over to Circular Quay. This is the main harbor in Sydney and right by the Opera House, etc. We walked over to an area called the rocks (very popular, full of pubs and old stuff and a street fair on the weekends) and just explored there, shopped a little, had lunch at a pub outside and a nice tasty beer. We also stopped at another pub, the Lord Byron Hotel, on the recommendation of George from our scuba trip. He and his wife are from Tampa but living in Sydney for 6 months. After lunch we found a great spot for some photos of us and the Opera house, etc and also filmed a little video clip to email to Colton and Chloe. We then headed over to check out the Opera house (really cool and amazing just to be there) and then headed over to the botanical gardens. We walked through there and the highlight was the flying fox bats that have taken roost there. These things are nasty looking, really big and wrap their wings around themselves and hang upside down in trees. They were everywhere. Wait till you see pics of these things…they totally freak Rhonda out. After our visit to the gardens, we were getting tired and decided to head back to the hotel. It may not sound like we did a lot on this day but we did. We got some great pics of the famous stuff, spent a little time on the harbor on the ferries and got to really live Sydney. We loved it. We got cleaned up and headed out for Hillsong church. It’s a church in Sydney that Ed Young spoke at a few months ago and we wanted to check it out. The people were sooooooo friendly and welcoming. It was much, much smaller than we imagined it would be and it was an experience. The energy in there was amazing but it was much more charismatic that I thought it would be. During the praise and worship, everybody was in the aisles and down front just going at it. We didn’t know it when we went, but the service at 7pm on Saturday night is for 25-35 year olds which fit us perfectly of course. The praise songs lasted forever, I think there were 3 and it was 25 to 30 minutes. After that a guy held up some prayer requests and next thing you know the entire church is praying out loud. The message was really a great message and we got a lot out of it. After the service, we were welcomed again by a number of people and a guy named Seth was great and very friendly and invited us to an after party. We were starving so we took the Hillsong bus back to Central station and headed out for food. We decided on the Cheers pub and it was not very good but it was food. We ate and headed back to go to sleep. It was about 10pm, we had another big day ahead of us and of course, Rhonda was sleepy! J