After staying at The Blue Sydney (Taj) in Woolloomooloo I have a lot of great things to say about it! It was a nice little base camp that I was able to cut up and over to the CBD when I needed for some sightseeing and a few shopping errands & going in the opposite way was easy to get to Kings Cross & Oxford Street for a little bit of fun.
The first few days in Sydney were just to get acclimated and my bearings for a few days before heading up north a bit. So with that I just did some errands (had to get an extra camera battery, iPhone cable, etc) and then made a beeline to see The Opera House and get that done.
For what it's worth the Westfield Mall in the middle of the CBD has free-wifi and a giant food court!
By the time I got off the plane, to the hotel, took a shower, did my shopping & I was at The Opera House at about 1pm. Talk about a surreal feeling, I don't think it really hit me how far I have come and where I really was until that moment.
Heading back from the Opera House to Woolloomooloo was a lovely walk through The Botanical Gardens. Was pretty easy to navigate (bit of iPhone help which is accurate to the footpaths), many lawns and great places to stretch out. Fully hoping to spend more time there next month before my flight back...hate to say it but found it much nicer than anything in Central Park!
Enjoyed a dumpling dinner one night at Din Tai Fung from which my friends said was a pretty popular and one of the best dumpling spots in the city. We had had 3 bottles of wine before at Assembly Bar, so maybe it was being totally famished but I will say they were pretty good!
Next to The Blue is Harry's de Wheels that I believe has some fame as a few Aussie ex-pats back in the states commented on my Facebook post saying "Wow, that is still around!?"
Hot dog with chili, garlic onions, mushy peas, cheese sauce, spicy sauce.
Popped out of the hotel to head to the airport for my flight to Brisbane, got there about 2 hours early since I felt like having lunch there vs. more of the breakfast buffet at The Blue.
At first I was worried there wouldn't be much past security since I've never seen so many people milling about, sitting around on iPads and more or less hanging out around the check-in counters.
Checked-in online so I just needed to do a bag drop which was fairly quick, security wasn't too bad, plenty of lanes, people moving through efficiently.
It was nice to do a little plane spotting and get to see things that are not a regular site on the East Coast like the A380s from Quantas & Singapore, 747s and also China Eastern and Guarda Indonesia liveries.
Flying on Virgin Australia in economy for a 1:10 min flight time I wasn't expecting any fine catering so popped into the Taphouse just through security in the 30+ gates. Fair selection of beer and wines and a mix of food. Harissa chicken with avocado and parmesan was quite tasty!
This was my first time on Virgin Australia (maybe 4 years ago I flew Virgin America from JFK-LAX). Boarding was pretty fast as they board from both front and rear of plane depending on aisle number. However, when they started to call general boarding everyone started lining up in the purple priority lane instead of the red general. Flight attendants seemed to be more chipper than anyone I've encountered on a domestic US flight.
I did think it was interesting that they had a few automated announcements saying that while we were boarding the plane was being refueled so please do NOT buckle your seat belts. Up in the air I didn't opt for any snacks since I was full from my pasta (did get a small bottle of red wine for $8). In flight entertainment was available from the Virgin app that connected to the WiFi system, didn't use it because I didn't have time to download the app and wanted to catch up on my book.
