Jer woke with the alarm at 5am, feeling surprisingly refreshed. He made tea and had some cold pizza, and eventually Jess woke up and had her tea and pizza. We got ready, packed and headed to the Central Bus Station, a block from the Hilton, where we got the 6:50am Skylink bus to the Adelaide airport.
The ride was short and we had only one other pickup, so we arrived in plenty of time. After checking in and breezing through security (they don't make you remove your shoes or cause a fuss about liquids), we stopped at one cafe for Jer's egg, cheese and bacon English muffin sandwich and hot cocoa, and at another for Jess's apricot and almond muffin. While a bit pricey, it was all remarkably tasty for airport food.
Our plane left a few minutes late, but the flight went smoothly, taking us over red, rocky landscapes and out over the water near Sydney. Upon landing, we stopped at the airport outpost of Harry's Cafe de Wheels (a Sydney institution) for a snack -- we split tasty beef pie topped with mushy peas and tomato sauce. Having satisfied our tummies and tastebuds, we took the CityLink train into the city center.
It was a quick two-block walk to the Swissotel Sydney, where we checked into our room and got situated. As at the Hilton Adelaide, our room was small but nice, with a luxurious bathroom and lots of light. Jess was excited to order from the pillow menu, so we had to wait for housekeeping to deliver our pillows before setting out to see the sights.
Our first destination was the Harbourside Shopping Centre, in Darling Harbour. We crossed the Pyrmont Bridge, a pedestrian/monorail bridge, over the harbor, and it was right there. There, we located Australian Travel Specialists and picked up our See Sydney Cards, then headed to Pancakes on the Rocks for lunch. Jer had the Mexicana crepes, which tasted pretty good but weren't really very Mexican (or even Texan). Jess restrained herself and got pancakes and eggs with a side of strawberries (instead of the faffy strawberry special pancakes). The pancakes were really light and fluffy - yum!
Sated, we crossed back over Pyrmont Bridge and headed into Sydney Wildlife World. It's a small indoor zoo, but its 1 km of paths included lots of Aussie critters. In addition to the typical koalas, rock wallabies and wombats, they had red kangaroos (albeit small ones - apparently males living in captivity without females don't reach their full 6-7 ft. height or 80-90kg weight). The highlight of the place, in our estimation, was the noctural area, which housed bounding bettongs (boing!), bilbies (yay - Jess adopted one for Jer for our anniversary), potoroos, brushtail possums, sugar gliders and pademelons, among other nocturnal creatures.
Once we'd thoroughly explored Sydney Wildlife World, we headed next door to Sydney Aquarium, which lived up to its excellent reputation. Our favorite exhibit was actually the first one, a platypus bobbing and diving around - they're smaller (and even cuter) than we expected. The aquarium also has two large tanks with walk-through tunnels beneath them, one housing a pair of adorable dugong and a bunch of rays, the other with sharks and a pair of sea turtles. Of course, the aquarium also had tons of beautiful tropical fish, sea horses and sea dragons, jellyfish, crayfish, etc. There was even a blue-ringed octopus exhibit, but we couldn't spot the sneaky little buggers.
Eventually, we tore ourselves away from the various sea creatures and headed to dinner. As we weren't too far from Chinatown, we settled on Din Tai Fung, which is said to have some of the world's best soup dumplings. The pork soup dumplings were certainly the best we've ever had. The water spinach with garlic was also very good (and not at all bitter, which is sometimes the case) and a black sesame bun was the perfect end to the meal. The only disappointment was the calamari, which was just panko-breaded fried squid; it was fine, but Jer described it well - a token menu item for people who don't like Chinese food.
After dinner, we headed back to the Swissotel Sydney, stopping to pick up breakfast along the way. We found a mini-bottle of 2007 Long Row cabernet sauvignon outside our door, a gift from the hotel as Jess had joined their Club Swiss Gold when she booked the room. Jer ran a bath to soothe our aching feet, and we soaked them while drinking wine. What luxury!
Then Jess updated this journal until it was time to try out our pillow selections. In no time flat, we were both sound asleep.