Ryan's Semester Down Under: August 6+7 2016: Sutherland Shire and Sydney

This past weekend was really fun! It started out on Saturday, I took the train up to Sutherland Shire to visit Jacinta. She picked me up and then we headed off to the movies to see Jason Bourne at the Sutherland Westfield Mall. Now, this mall is huge, extremely clean and well kept, brand new, and actually rather complicated with multiple levels, hallways, bridges, escalators, etc. We started off looking for an Australian Rio 2016 Olympic shirt, but we cold not find one anywhere! I cannot find any Australian Olympic merchandise and I really want to find some, oh well. We then met her Mom over at the theater.

This movie theater was really nice. The concession area was like a candy store where you can walk around and pick up what you want and get how much you want. Jacinta and her Mom did not let me leave it until I picked something out. Then the theater we were in had a giant screen and had really nice spacious, leather seats.

After the movie we went to a South African steak house called Kelly's and when I walked in the smell from the kitchen was very welcoming and made me feel at home. I got an eye fillet with a side of mashed potatoes. Now let me tell you, after eating crappy Weeronian food for the pat few weeks I ate every scrap of food on my plate. The meat had a delicious glaze on it and the potatoes...well I was so happy to eat potatoes I just ate them plain (I know it sounds weird, but they were so good and I didn't realize how much I missed potatoes until then).

After dinner we went back to Jacinta's place and went to bed after watching a little bit of television.

Sunday, 7 August 2015

The next morning Jacinta dropped me off at the train station and I hopped on the train to Sydney. I planned out the right timing and got on the train with some of my friends from Weerona. We got off the train at Central Station and walked all the way to The Rocks because there are street markets there every Sunday.

The tents weaved through multiple street and had anything from sweets to clothes to souvenirs.

Now this was my favorite tent. Ryan and I stopped because we had heard that Australia has really good licorice. We went to the back where they were giving out samples and we met the owner and his wife. He gave us hands down the weirdest but best licorice I have ever had. We had Lychee and White Chocolate and Parsley and Granny Smith Apple. Very weird, but they were soo good! My favorite was Parsley, Coca- Cola, and Chili. The thing is at first you tasted the parsley, then the Coke flavor kicked in and you didn't taste the chili, but it acted as if it was the carbonation in the Coke. He also gave us Black Licorice that he claimed was "The best licorice in the world from a 200 year-old recipe". I don't like black licorice, but I didn't think it was that bad. (Dad you have to check this place out when you get here!)

After the markets and lunch we climbed a pylon on the Harbor Bridge. The pylon goes about half way up the bridge and is only about $10 versus the $200 Bridge Climb.

So we took shots of Circular Quay from the bridge.

I have to apologize for my photos because I am posting these before I got a chance to straighten and edit them so they might be a little sideways or overexposed.

After the Harbour Bridge we found our way to Darling Harbor and walked around there. I didn't care for it so much though because it was very touristy and commercial. After a while we left and walked through China Town to Hyde Park.