Sydney trip

We stayed at BIL’s apartment in Darling Harbour. From the living room, we had this fabulous view. The kids outside the apartment.
On the second day, we went to Taronga Zoo, via a ferry tour of Sydney Harbour. Here’s girlet with the Anzac Bridge at the background. We even saw a few groups of climbers up on the bridge. I'm not posting the photos with Opera House as I'm in all of them.
Being winter, the wind was really cold. Most of the passengers went inside after taking the requisite photos, but boylet refused to go in. He loved the ferry ride so much that he refused to alight when we reached Taronga Wharf. When he finally did, he cried in the bus all the way to the zoo. Thankfully, it was not a long ride. He must have been tired because he couldn’t register that we were going to the zoo. He was most sheepish when we finally arrived, and was upset when girlet laughed at him, calling him silly. After that performance on the bus, we thought we’d better rent a stroller for him. D’hubby complained that boylet was really ‘pahpai’, behaving like a big boss, barking out commands, “go, stop, there, faster”. His good humour was only restored after seeing his favourite reptiles, whereby he deigned to come down from his ‘throne’ for a closer look. Some photos taken at the zoo.

This was the sunset view on the way back from the zoo.
Here are the photos taken at the Sydney Aquarium. We found it very educational. Girlet was excited to learn to differentiate male and female sharks. She loved this kind of facts. They enjoyed the touching pool whereby they get to feel the differences between a few types of seastar, some rough, some smooth and some slimy. Brrrr, the water was really cold though.

After lunch, we went to watch a 3D show, Dolphins and Whales, at the IMAX theatre. It was a 45 min show, and I must admit to catching 40 winks there. So that afternoon , I took boylet back to the apartment and forced him to take a nap, while BIL took girlet, d’hubby, and his dog, a yellow Labrador, to a dog park. Dogs of all sizes and shapes congregate there, to girlet’s delight. Unfortunately, boylet isn’t a dog lover.

That evening, we had scrumptious seafood dinner at Darling Harbour, courtesy of BIL. SIL also flew over for two weeks, and met us there for dinner. We tucked in mussels, soft shelled crab, oyster, both raw and baked, prawns, calamari, etc. Look at this pic - Girlet was thrilled at the humongous ice-cream. That’s considered two scoops by the way. Ice-cream in winter, 5-6 degrees outside…. I don’t know what to say.

We also went to the Australian museum, mainly to see the dinosaur exhibition. We ended up enjoying all the other exhibits too, giving only rocks and minerals a miss. It was both a kid friendly and adult place. We love that it was huge and there weren’t any jostling. We could browse leisurely. Boylet even watched the dinosaur clip/movie twice.

Don't know why boylet need to give a kungfu pose when taking photos with dinosaurs.

With the extinct Tasmanian tiger.
Patting a real life lizard.

Of course we went shopping at Paddy's Market, Market City and the surrounding area. Also managed to celebrate SIL's fiance and my, ahem, birthday at an Italian restaurant. Too bad boylet was so tired out from all the walking around that he slept through dinner and didn't even have the cake. All in all, was a good vacation. The kids enjoyed it and was most reluctant to come back home.