We drove to a spot under the Harbor Bridge to take some pictures of it and the Opera House when we arrived.  Then we had to return the car to the airport. We needed to top off the gas tank and while we were waiting for a truck to move, three cars jumped a curb to pull in front of us.  A taxi tore off part of their front bumper going over the curb.  It was unreal.  We took that train back to Circle Quay. 

We were not aware that Vivid was taking place in Sydney while we were here until my friend mentioned it was happening.  We had some dinner out and then found a spot to watch the light show on the sails of Sydney Opera House.  It was a complete story.  There were also lights from surrounding buildings.  They have a whole map of things you can go and see.  We did half of the light walk.  I love the church and the show that was on the Commerce Building.  It was weird and that’s why I liked it so much. 

We woke up the next day and met up with my friend and her partner early and walked over to the Sydney Opera House to see it up close.  There were hardly any people out at that time, so we got some great pictures.  We were amazed that the roof was actually made of tile.  The tile seemed liked the same that you would put in your bathroom. We all went over and touched it. 

We all walked over to Darling Harbour.   I need to note here that wherever we walked in Sydney, no matter the time of day, we were passed by joggers. It was unreal the number of people that jogged by us while we visited. We were going to visit the Maritime Museum, but the ship that we wanted to see was not on display.  It’s the ship where my two friends met, which was pretty cool. I was sad that I didn’t get to see it. We took the ferry to Manly Bay.  The ferries are very quick and inexpensive.  It was a nice way to get views of Sydney Harbour.  

We had a lovely lunch at Four Pines Brewpub, then we walked down to the beach.  It reminded me of hundreds of other beach towns that I have visited.  There is a lovely promenade of shops on the way to the beach. We stopped at Butter Boy, which sold giant yummy cookies. We got two.  

The beach had a few people attempting to surf and there was just one section where they wanted people to swim.  It’s where the life guard is located. Apparently you can swim anywhere, but they suggest that you do it near the life guard. It’s also the safest place to swim, so also the smartest. I will note that the surfers were not near the life guards.  

We took a break in the afternoon, but met up again for dinner for pizza. We ate outside, which was nice.  After dinner we walked up onto Harbour Bridge and watched the Vivid light show from there.  I found it interesting that there were security people posted on the bridge every few feet.  The views were amazing from the bridge.  I was surprised there were not that many people up there. 

We continued our walk around that edge of Circular Quay from above.  It kept us away from the swarms of people and we had great views of the light shows.  It was a lovely walk. 

The next day we woke up later and walked around the Botanical Gardens.  It started drizzling as we entered the gardens. There were lots of birds and beautiful tress and plants.  We even found this spider. 

We ended up at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  My friends were not interested in the exhibitions, so my husband and I walked through rather quickly.  There was a nice display of aboriginal art, but there wasn’t much else that interested us there.  We met up with our friends rather quickly.  The view from the rooftop cafe was impressive, even in all the rain. 

We tried another brew pub for lunch.  I had a delicious meat pie.  It started raining in earnest while we were eating, so we decided to take a break for the afternoon.  It was rather miserable.  We met up for dinner at Betty’s Burgers, which reminded me a lot of Shake Shack. 

My husband was interested in looking at some aboriginal art in a gallery, so we walked to what turned out to be the most beautiful  mall.  There were stained glass windows above every high end store.  The gallery was not exciting, but the mall made up for it. 

We walked to the Custom House, which has a glass floor with a model of the city of Sydney.  There is a library upstairs and we looked at a photography exhibition.  The library had  all kinds of little nooks and crannies to hang out and read.  I would have loved to hang out there. 

The Justice and Police museum was in the old police headquarters.  It was neat to read about some of the more famous criminals in Australian history.  We also got to see the old police courtrooms, entryway, and cells.  They even had a photos of old crime scenes.  They should have had a warning before viewing that because some of the images were pretty disturbing. 

I met my friends for lunch in the Botanical Garden.  We sat outside, so we had to be aware of the ibises that wanted to steal our food.  It was a bit expensive, but I had a soba noodle bowl, which was different and delicious. 

The Museum of Sydney was free, but not very exciting.  There was a nice display of the ships that arrived in Australia along with descriptions of each one including their cargo.  I also enjoyed some of the aboriginal art, but it was a huge space with not a lot of exhibits and the ones that were there were not cohesive.

Hyde Park Barracks Museum was a lovely surprise.  They gave us a free audio guide and it had tons of personal stories from convicts and other people who lived and worked in the barracks. It was cool to walk through the Barracks with its original beams and whitewash. 

We took the train to the airport and all the public transportation that we used was clean and felt very safe.  The city itself was also clean and felt very safe.  I have been to plenty of large cities in different countries that have so much trash and stink that it was a noticeable difference in both Sydney and Canberra, especially in Sydney after so many people attended Vivid at night. It was perfectly clean in the morning. I enjoyed it.