My Sydney Experience

This is going to be a long-winded post! I got back from Sydney yesterday morning. Still trying to catch up on lost sleep from traveling and from being at World Youth Day (they should really call it World Youth Week).

We left Guam at 4:20 pm on July 10th and arrived in Sydney via Narita Japan at 6am on July 11th. Total flight time was 12 hours, not counting being at the airport THREE hours early and the layover in Narita. It took us a few hours to get all of our stuff and get checked by customs. It took 4 taxis to get 33 of us to the Annandale Lodge in Sydney. Two of our group got there the day before. It was another few hours before we could check in to our rooms. Lots of hungry people in our group so we went in search of FOOD. We discovered right off that food was EXPENSIVE, especially when you're on a budget and 35 people have to eat. We were told to budget $10 per person per meal. So not enough, especially when there was a plethora of Asian restaurants that were very generous in their use of MSG.

The next day we ventured to Circular Quay (pronounced KEY) to catch a ferry to Taronga Zoo. We only had a few hours there...not enough time to see and do it all because we wanted to go to Paddy's Market. It reminded me of Hafa Adai Exchange for some reason. The Market only opened Thursday through Sunday and closed at 5pm. When the market closed we went upstairs to Market City, which is a mall, to eat dinner. FYI...malls close at 7pm! And the tavern across the street from the lodge closed at midnight! Completely weird for us to have nothing to do after 7pm. But that was just the first two days! Little did we know that the days to come held early mornings and late nights and no time for afternoon naps. Believe me, it was a shock to my system.

I'll be posting more of my trip in the days to come! Trying to sort through my pictures to upload to photobucket and make some slide shows!

Here's slide show #1!