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Around Sydney

After over 20 hours of flying we finally arrived in Sydney. During this trip we will spend only 6 days total in Sydney, half at the beginning of the trip during the Olympics and the other half at the end of the trip long after the Olympics are over.

The first thing we noticed about Sydney during the Olympics is that it wasn't that crowded. We expected it to be complete chaos but we were pleasantly surprised. We took mostly public transportation and we found that to be less crowded than the CTA in Chicago and more efficient. Due to the weak Australian Dollar we found prices of almost everything to be less than in the US, even during the Olympics. The only exception was hotel rooms were 2 to 3 times normal prices during the Olympics, otherwise they're very reasonable.

During the first visit to Sydney we stayed at a nice little Bed & Breakfast in Bondi Beach called the "Bondi Beach Garden Sweet." As I planned the Sydney portions of our trip by myself I had a really hard time finding a hotel room in Sydney during the Olympics, partly because I started looking only about a month before the trip. Fortunately a friend suggested I look at B&Bs instead of hotels. In the process I ran into Carl Southern of Inn Australia who is a Bed & Breakfast broker. He provided me with several options near Sydney and I decided on the Bondi Beach Garden Sweet. It turned out to be a great choice as the room was very nice, had it's own bathroom and best of all, the owners Marjorie and Michael were excellent hosts!
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View of Sydney harbor from the air as we arrived before dawn.
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Lily standing outside our room at the Bondi Beach Garden Sweet.
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I must emphasize that the Garden was amazing!
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The B&B was a short walk from Bondi Beach. The structure in the back was the temporary stadium where Olympic Beach Volleyball events were held.
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Some die hard surfers still in the water even though it was a bit chilly and there was a shark attack elsewhere just the previous day.
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Besides seeing a couple olympic events, we really didn't have any clue what we were going to do or see in Sydney ahead of time. We explored the city, took in the excellent zoo, visited a couple museums and enjoyed the cousine.

The first day we had free it turned cold and rainy so we visited the highly recommended Art Gallery of New South Wales. There we mostly explored the Aboriginal art exibits. We also visited the Dead Sea Scrolls which happened to be at this museum. We missed them in Chicago due to the huge lines there but there wasn't any line so we just bought our tickets and went right in.

On the way back we took it even easier and just visited a few sites we missed the first time. The weather was a lot better then too.
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Lily in the middle of Hyde Park in the center of Sydney.
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That's a weird looking bird.
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This department store was in the Olympic spirit.
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Lily shopping, of course.
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AMP Tower, the tallest structure in Sydney.
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The only picture I took in the entire art museum.
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The Sydney Harbor Bridge during the Olympics.
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The famous Sydney Opera House from a ferry.
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A different angle.
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The Sydney skyline.
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Visiting a cool looking mall.
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Nice mobile.
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Lily shopping again.
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Lily's favorite store was this FRESH store.
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They sell all natural health and beauty products.
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Visiting the Opera House.
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Ever wonder what material the domes are made of? They are completely covered by these tiles.
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My that's a huge red ship coming into the harbor.
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Checking out the view from the Opera House. This was taken after the Olympics.
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There's the Rocks area where you can find a bunch of expensive restaurants and shops.
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Nearby was some guy displaying a bunch of his model ships.
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One of our favorite and most relaxing times was had visiting the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens also located in the center of the city near the water. We just walked over from the Marriott and spent several hours walking around and relaxing. Best of all it was FREE!

Most of the plants on display were native Australian so they looked pretty exotic to us. There were also some surprises not the least of which was seeing a large number of huge bats hanging in some of the trees in the middle of the park!

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Entering the gardens we find lots of exotic plants.
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Lily pointing out more native plants.
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Due to Australia's long isolation there are some ancient plants that haven't changed much in millions of years.
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Lily checking out a display of termite damaged tree stumps.
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Large cluster of Bamboo.
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Lily posing next to a Cockatoo.
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Lily wanted to take one home.
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We already have plenty of these birds back at home.
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How cool! Hundreds of huge bats hung from a bunch of trees in the middle of the park.
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Every once in a while you'd see one of them in flight.
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I wouldn't want to touch these bats anyway!
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Near the water we found this neat rock formation.
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In addition to the plants there were some pieces of 'art' like this scattered around the park.
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This huge old Fig tree was falling apart so it had a barricade around it to prevent people from getting too close.
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