Arrival Day – Four Seasons, The Rocks, Shopping, and the Sydney Opera House
Nicky and I landed in Sydney around 6:30am after a 17-hour flight from Houston, but we got a full 8 hours of sleep on the flight so we felt pretty good about beginning our adventure right away. The Four Seasons was kind enough to give us an early check in, so we grabbed a shower and set out to explore The Rocks historic area. Nicky spotted a great coffee spot about a block from the hotel called Black & White Espresso Bar (avoid The Rocks Café as it’s not nearly as good). Once we were caffeinated we hiked up some stairs and walked along the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
It was pretty hot by this point, around midday, so we took an uber to the area just south of our hotel to get some shopping in. Much to my surprise Nicky ended up buying two cashmere polos from Hermes (he NEVER buys clothes from designer stores). Feeling a bit of shopper’s envy, I went over to Bulgari and picked up a little goodie for myself. By this point the exhaustion of starting to kick in so we wrapped up the day by taking some photos outside of the Opera House (before sunset is a great time for this) before heading to the hotel for some in-room dining and an early bed time.
Day 2 – 32 Lounge, Bondi Icebergs Pool, Bondi Beach, El Indio, Mr. Wong’s
Our first full day began with breakfast at 32 Lounge at the top of the Four Seasons. It is only available to guests of the hotel, but if you stay here you’ll probably dine every morning (the views are that good!). Afterwards we took an Uber over to Bondi Icebergs Pool, the famous ocean pool built into a seaside cliff. This is a must see, and I highly recommend going during a Tuesday or Wednesday when it opens at 11am to get the best photo opportunities and avoid accidental photo bombs. For lunch we walked the promenade and popped into El Indio. They serve south American food and are Spanish speaker friendly! Nicky and I took an afternoon break to run some errands back in town and then capped our day with dinner at Mr. Wong’s, a Japanese-Chinese fusion restaurant. This came recommended by a local and we were not disappointed.
Day 3 – Mode Bistro, Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney Harbor Yacht Charter, The Ternary
Day 3 was a lot less action packed to allow me to catch up on work, but Nicky and I still had a pretty eventful day. We woke up around 5am and got a quick workout in before trying out the main buffet for breakfast at Mode. Feeling energetic we decided to take a long walk through the botanical gardens. If you have any appreciation for nature you should absolutely check this out. It’s probably the nicest city park I’ve ever walked through. Around early afternoon Nicky surprised me with a 4 hour boat charter through Sydney Harbour! If you have the opportunity to do this don’t pass it up, it’s a great way to see Sydney from a completely different vantage point. Once the trip ended we went over to the Ternary for dinner. It’s a restaurant in the Novotel Sydney hotel that overlooks Darling Harbour and offers stunning sunset photos.
Day 4 – Black & White Espresso Bar, Sydney Seaplane to Palm Beach, Besuto Omakase
Our final full day in Sydney started with a work session at the Black and White espresso bar (I had a ton to catch up on by this point!). Originally we had planned to do a full day tour of the Blue Mountains but after a local suggested a different excursion we opted to do the four hour seaplane experience to Palm Beach (you MUST do this, I was blown away). For Dinner we made a last minute reservation for Sake Restaurant. We weren’t totally impressed by the appetizers but the nigiri was very good quality.
Departure Day and Final Thoughts
What surprised me most about Sydney was how clean and pretty it was. There was no trash on any of the streets or walkways. The cleanliness was complimented by striking art installations that actually appealed to me unlike some of the abstract stuff you see in US cities. The food was solid and the weather amazing (people said it was unseasonably warm, but even if it had been 15 degrees cooler I wouldn’t change my opinion). Though we head to Bali next, we plan to visit again before too long.
