Day 2 in Sydney

After our long trip to Sydney with late arrival on Wednesday, we were glad that we didn't have any specific plans that we needed to do on Thursday. If we counted Wednesday as our first day in Sydney (even though we didn't arrive until after dark), then Thursday would be day 2.

One of the things we wanted to do is to see if it would be walkable from our hotel to the Overseas Cruise Terminal where we would board the ship on 9April. We still have several days to get that figured out, but seeing Sydney Harbour was also on our to-do list, so we decided to start with that.

We had made our hotel booking through the cruise line site. It was called the Tank Stream Hotel -- but we learned that the name was changed to Rydges Australia Square. We had an option of booking a room with breakfast, but it seemed a high price so we opted to get a room without breakfast and planned to find a place for breakfast in the area.

It turns out that Australia Square is an open space just across a small side street from the hotel, and it has a food court on the ground level. We found several places where we could get something for breakfast, and Carl got a feta and egg wrap, and I got a ham and cheese "toastie".

The hotel is right at the square making it very convenient, and there is seating outdoors or inside the food court.

We walked down Pitt Street as it appeared to be a straight path to the Overseas Cruise Terminal.

We had wondered about the former name of our hotel, Tank Stream. It seemed that it was formerly an office building that was converted into a hotel in 2017. (https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/inspiration/the-tank-stream-hotel-sydney-review-centrally-located-at-a-price-that-will-please-20170620-gwumr4.html and https://eatdrinkandbekerry.net/index.php/2018/03/10/uncovering-sydneys-dirty-secrets-from-tank-stream-hotel/) 

As we were walking toward the harbour, we came to a construction area that is refurbishing the Tank Stream Stormwater drain.

Interesting that we would have come across this name again! But I guess it has quite a storied history in Sydney (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Stream).

We continued on to the Harbour and saw the Sydney Opera House across Circular Quay. Just to the left you can see the front of a cruise ship that was docked at the Overseas Cruise Terminal when we were there.

We saw a sculpture outside the Museum of Contemporary Art that reminded us of "the bean" in Chicago.

Ovation of the Seas -- a Royal Caribbean ship. The couple that we were talking with had just completed a cruise around New Zealand and disembarked that morning. They live further north in Australia.

A selfie with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background

Watersedge at Campbell's Stores in The Rocks

The ASN Company building, aka The Castle

A view of a small "tall" ship contrasted with the huge Ovation of the Seas

Sydney Opera house across Circular Quay from The Rocks

Sydney Harbour Bridge

See those people up on the upper structure of the bridge? You can book an "excursion" to walk over the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge -- it costs $192/person -- uhm, maybe not!

"Still Life with Stone and Car" Uhm... okay? (https://www.timeout.com/sydney/art/still-life-with-stone-car)

Buildings along the Harbour in Barangaroo

Mov'in Bed Outdoor Bed Cinema ()https://movinbed.com/sydney/

You can watch a movie on a bed in the sand? A$89 for two (so about US$60). We decided we could give this a pass too!

The small convenience stores are great to pick up a cold drink or snack!

Carl with a sculpture on Australia Square upper plaza

Information about the sculpture

We went back to the Australia Square food court for lunch -- Carl got Vietnamese Pho and I got a Doner Kebab (doner is beef in Australian Greek food I guess).

We headed back to our hotel room and rested for a while. We went out for a little while in the evening, looking for a place that might have music, but everything we found was super busy, so we stopped at one of the small convenience stores and got sandwiches, chips, and a drink and ate in our room! Still working on getting beyond jet lag!