Retake the City! - Sydney Spectacular

by Alex in Retake the City, Australia

Five Hours in Sydney City

Ah, Sydney. Australia's city that never sleeps (except on hungover Sunday mornings). After the eventful roadtrip up from Melbourne for a family wedding, Tash and I found ourselves with a spare day to kill before having to drive back down the Hume Highway for work in the morning. Rather than resting on our laurels, we opted to retake Sydney, and go on a one-day, self-guided highlights tour of our favourite places that may not make the travel guide.


Paddy's Market

After hopping off the train at Central Station, I was stopped for one awestruck moment by the sheer size of my old stomping grounds. After only 2 years living in Melbourne, it surprised me how Sydney's towering skyscrapers and seemingly endless sprawl felt so alien to me.

 
Returning to conscious thought, Tash and I set off on foot bound for the markets and Entertainment Centre. Located on the edge of Sydney's Chinatown district, Paddy's Markets is a sprawling, claustrophobic labyrinth of stalls and vendors. 

It brings to mind the great markets and bazaars of Europe and the Middle East, albeit with wares more appropriate for modern times - by which I mean cheaply manufactured clothing and bootleg knockoffs of brand-name merchandise. Please don't take this as a negative review, though. The entire place is filled with a wonderfully alive energy quite unlike anything else in Sydney, and for those with the skill and patience to look, there are some real gems to be found amongst the overpriced kitsch and gaudy Australiana.

We went to the markets with the aim of finding a fun new anime wallet for Tash. At first, our prospects didn't look good. As we walked in the vast warehouse doors, we were greeted by an ocean of cheerful cartoon kangaroos and koalas wishing us a cheerful "G'Day!" Sadly, however, our goal eluded us. For every step we took in this commercial labyrinth, the minotaur of failure followed gleefully on our heels. But then suddenly, we turned into another identical stall peddling the same identical wares and there it was!

Tada!

Nestled between countless heads of Jack Skellington, the printed face of an anime kitty stared back at us. By this stage in the journey, pessimism weighed heavy on our heads, and we fully expected the wallet's price to far outstrip its dubious quality. How wrong we were. On inspection, the wallet was everything we could have hoped it would be, and at $10 less than either of us would have considered reasonable! Our purpose (and purchase) complete, we left the Markets into the blinding sunlight. Stopping off to get some of the greatest ice cream ever, we set out at a walk towards the harbour.

Tastes even better than it looks

Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour is one of the fundamental in Sydney that everyone agrees is a must-see, although personally I think the real treasure lies on the walk toward the harbour. A yellow brick road of fountains that look like waterfalls, and fountains that look like waves, and fountains that you can leapfrog, and so on and so forth.

Following the rambling path, we passed the well-hidden 'Chinese Gardens of Friendship' where we spent our last day in Sydney before making the big move to Melbourne. This small oasis with its towering walls is a sweet escape at a reasonable $6 entry. Although we passed it by, it was not before poking our noses in the door like hapless junkies savoring one last taste.

And then, with a gleeful shriek, Tasha was gone. I took off in hot pursuit, chasing the girl in black and green as she started giggling like a madwoman, leaping nimbly in between fountains like a monkey in the jungle canopy. To my pride and her surprise, Tash managed to stay completely dry in defiance of her usual clumsiness.

"You can't catch meeeeee!!" - Tash

After (finally) managing to coax her back to dry land, we strolled the rest of the way hand in hand, laughing like schoolchildren. After reaching the harbour itself, we found that we didn't really have anything we wanted to do, since the walk to it is our favourite part. After taking a moment to sit and rest our feet, we headed off up the hill towards Hyde Park.

Hyde Park

Hyde Park is basically Sydney's Central Park, although much smaller and without a zoo (which is always a minus). At any time of day, you can find businesspeople on the grass eating lunch or napping, tai chi and fitness groups working up a sweat, and buskers and street performers earning a living, all surrounded by busy roads and in the shadow of towering skyscrapers. As we walked hand in hand through the park, we stopped momentarily to watch  a war being waged between two men on either side of a giant chessboard.

Street chess is VERY serious business!

However, the bright sunshine of the day was beginning to give way to the slowly dimming cool of the afternoon, and we still had one more stop on our Sydney Greatest Hits tour, so we were unfortunately compelled to press on. Crossing the street, we re-entered the 'real world' of traffic, crowds and capitalism.

David Jones Food Hall

There are many reasons I pledge devotion to the David Jones adjacent to Hyde Park, one of the oldest operating department stores in Australia. Although it spans two buildings and the connecting walkways underground, it is underneath where my heart -and the famous Food Hall - can be found. For a foodie like me, the Food Hall is something of a miniature Wonderland buried under the heart of the city. A pristine, shining cavern filled with people peddling their wares to the upper crust of Sydney's epicurean streak. Needless to say, the chef in me is a very happy man whenever I come here.

Heaven!

After a delicious lunch of gourmet miniature pies and the finest mini sushi rolls money can buy, we stopped at the chocolatier for a truly healthy dessert. Fresh, ripe bananas, mixed berries, mango and strawberries, all smothered in finest Swiss milk chocolate. What? That's fruit, it's healthy! The strawberries in particular are a favourite luxury of ours, and no visit to the Food Hall would feel complete without at least one of these surprisingly delicious morsels. I really would love to tell you more about the experience of actually tasting them, but I'm worried that we would have to install some sort of child protection filter on the site.

Rated R18+ for obscenely graphic sexual references

After an exhausting but wonderful day exploring our old stomping grounds, we boarded the two hour train that would take us back to mum's beach-side house to prepare for the next day's drive back to Melbourne.

While we had a great time revisiting some of our favourite sights in Sydney, I couldn't help but feel that we were more tourists than natives this time around. While it may sound illogical, this fills me with nothing but confidence for our future travel. After all, if we can make a new city into our home, then I'm absolutely confident that we can make our new home on the road, just as easily.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading. If you liked the article and want to see more like it – let us know down in the comments. If you want to follow along with us - you can subscribe to our email feed down below, and be sure to check us out on facebook or follow us on twitter.

If the pretty pictures caught your eye and you would like to see more travel photography hop on over to flickr or for our daily oddities check out our instagram feed.

As always – Don’t Forget To Be Awesome!