First two weeks in Sydney

I love Sydney. It was really daunting over the first weekend, but it's grown on me very quickly.

I've visited all of the tourist spots in the first week and spent both weekends on the beach; Coogee and Manly. Coogee beach was great but I prefer Manly. The whole area is buzzing - it has a big surf culture with cool shops and bars all along the beach front. Monday was a bank holiday in NSW, so I caught the ferry to Manly for the 2nd time and went to the Beach Jazz Festival with 4 others from my hostel. There were 3 stages set up along The Corso (the main street from the ferry terminal to the beach) and 5 seperate stages along the beach. Every stage attracted a huge crowd, so after wondering around all of them, we laid on the beach and listened to the music. Unfortunately you're not allowed alcohol on Manly beach, so went for a cold one soon after.

I've been working for a week now at Russell Investment in the city centre. It takes me 20 minutes to walk to work from the hostel through Hyde Park and past the fountain (photo).

This evening on my way home through Hyde Park was the start of the annual Good Food Month. Every week night through the month is themed - chinese today. Each stall belongs to a restaurant in the city and you can buy food really cheap to try it. So that was dinner sorted and bought a beer from the Cargo stand (Cargo is a really cool bar at Darling Harbour I went to on Tuesday night). Its all set up with tons of red lanterns in the trees and tables round the fountain and there's music too.

Sunday I went to the market at The Rocks (photo). The Rocks is a trendy area and I think the oldest part of the city where a lot of the buildings are listed. The market was quite touristy but definately worth going and I caught a live band playing in the small cobbled square just by the market, so stopped there for lunch. After that Claire and I walked to the Botanic Gardens. That was cool too. It gave some fantastic views of the Opera House and Bridge.

It was really strange to see flocks of wild cockateils flying around. As we were leaving the Gardens shortly before dusk the bats started chattering - they're so loud!

You can see bats flying around every night in the city - they're lit up by the skyscrapers.

There's too much to remember, I'll have to update my blog regularly so I can include more detail...also been to a latin festival, joined a netball team, started viewing rooms to rent, jumped on the bandwagon with Aussie rules soccer and watched the finals with the rest of Oz, had dinner in china town, an evening at Cargo Bar in Darling Harbour, sampled the nightlife in the city, seen the chinese garden of friendship, been to the Outback centre of Sydney-aboriginal history stuff, and more.