Ex-Trip Day 3+4

DAY 3 - Wednesday 22nd
The night before there was a big thunderstorm, so now it's actually nice and cool in Melbourne. Unfortunately, we're leaving cool Melbourne for steaming hot 36 degree heat in Sydney.
The amusing thing here is that, on the way to Sydney, I manage to lose my boarding pass twice - the first time I think was going through airport security, and the second time I'm not sure. So I end up with some sort of weird docket instead of an actual boarding pass now.

Anyhoo, no other crises came about, and we got into Sydney CBD and head for the hotel. We hit the hotel, Bob, as the "Sydney friend," waits outside while Henry and I go inside the hotel to check in. On asking for our reservation, we find out GASP! it's the wrong hotel! The thing here is that we were staying at a Metro hotel, and there are three in the Sydney CBD. So we get directions, and being the stingy no-money students we are, we decide to leg it across city central to the hotel, lugging all our luggage there in 36 degree heat for about half an hour across so many streets that all seemed to blend together and look the same.
As we get there, we meet Henry's friend and our tourguide Julia, as Henry stated before, who was a "nice girl." I joked about him sounding like he was trying to be a matchmaker. I really got that vibe from the way he wanted to introduce me to the anime girls at JCH - sadly there was only Amy, and this girl named Roxy who somehow reminded me of the female lead from the Korean romantic comedy My Scary Girl.

We all walk into this hotel, lugging our luggage up some steps, and find out that this second hotel too is shock horror the WRONG HOTEL! We end up taking a taxi and somehow navigating our way to the right hotel, down near Chinatown.
We settle into our hotel room, somehow managing to get away with sneaking a third person into a room that was charged for only two people ^_^ hence Bob had to pretend he was the "Sydney friend."

We left the hotel in search of lunch. As we hit Chinatown, I was hit by a desperate craving. I hadn't had yum cha in a while, and so demanded it, and since noone else was offering much resistance, we went with yum cha. And it was delicious! All my favourite dishes got served to us (barring the fried radish cakes, but that's okay), and afterwards, we went down to this museum/exhibition house place called the Powerhouse. We went through this big Chinese history exhibition, and then through this exhibit on television. They even had a Big Brother section, complete with diary/confession room. I took a seat in the chair in time for Big Brother to hear my confession.
"I hate Big Brother." I immediately say, thinking Nineteen Eighty Four as I say this.
Big Brother immediately responds.
"It is futile to try to deceive Big Brother."
At this everyone, myself included, burst out laughing.

After we finish having our fun at the Powerhouse, we leave and cruise along the Darling in sizzling hot weather, and I manage to land a large-sized $5 Boost juice from the stand nearby. Ni~ce ^_^
We return to the hotel room for the evening, before heading out again after getting changed in search of dinner. At this point, Bob has expressed a desire not to have Asian cuisine again, which seemed to rule out about 80% of the restaurants that we passed while we searched for a place that was to Bob's liking. We wander around the city in circles for about an hour before we end up deciding to just go for McDonalds. Yes, it's real haute cuisine ;)
The upside, though, is that we go for Starbucks afterwards. Now, here in Adelaide, there is only one Starbucks cafe, and that's in Rundle Mall, meaning it's always packed with people from interstate and such because there are so many in other cities. So this is a big thing for me - I come in and discover why Starbucks is famous - the frappucino.
We end up walking into Hyde Park afterwards and taking photos in front of something resembling the Washington Monument, and then sitting on steps, which supposedly was against some ANZAC law or something.
We walk into Central Station and try to puzzle out where to go the next day before walking back to our hotel.

DAY 4 - Thursday 23rd
We get up, and make a run for Central Station to catch the next train out to Wynyard, where we were going to see a tour of the Sydney Opera House. We meet Julia, and another of Henry's Sydney friends, a nice girl named Jocelyn, on the way there.
Of course, on the way there, I'm stressing about missing breakfast, which somehow surprised me in a way, because I didn't realise what kind of a health nut I had become. I sate myself grabbing some nuts from a bag of almonds that I had (wisely) packed, as we walk towards the Opera House. The tour itself is pretty interesting, and then afterwards we go on a cruise of Darling Harbour, seeing the sites all around - the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Kiribilli House (where our esteemed Prime Minister lives when not in Parliament in Canberra), and then afterwards, we wander over towards the Rocks, an old historical part of town, for lunch munchies. While we're there, we get ambushed by a local SBS radio crew, and I graciously grant an interview. I thought it was pretty cool some of the stuff I thought up on the spot when they asked me, until I made a total ass of myself:
"What do you like about the Rocks?"
"I like how all the old stuff has been turned into shopping centres."
Again my big mouth provided plenty of laughs.

We walk down the Harbour Bridge, to see some weird lingerie ad or something being filmed on top of a hotel, and then we end up bumming around Sydney for about 3-4 hours afterwards, visiting parks, chocolate stores, malls, and going in search of "magic toilets," as Jocelyn so eloquently described them, at the QVB mall.

That evening, we head for the airport, to travel to Brisbane after a hearty dinner of fast pizza and Krispy Kreme - to see our good friend Jeff.