Sydney - January 12

We will be tourists until the 17 th...after that, we'll be settling in to our home in Berwick (suburb of Melbourne) for the year.
So we're enjoying our major holiday now, since we won't have the July/August summer holiday, like all my teacher friends in Toronto.
The 'hop on hop off' bus was a great way to see the city. Our first stop was the Sydney opera house. We shared a lovely brekky at the Portobello restaurant with a spectacular view. We toured the area then hopped aboard and discovered the Rocks area,a trendy area with a pop up market on weekends. Bought Normie emu oil hoping that would help Norm's legs...it did for a bit...and grabbed two salmon and avocado handrolls for $3 each instead of paying $30 for an entree at the trendy restaurants.
We hopped back on and returned to the hotel to plan our dinner adventure
Oh...with all moving about and living out of suitcases, everyday one of us one of us says 'where did I put this'or 'I can't find that' and inevitably it turns up....except for little toiletries bag I had and that i could do  without if Lost,... as they say here, 'no worries'...but as I relaxed watching a mindless tv...I remembered that i had popped my beautiful swarovski pink heart pendant Normie bought me two Valentine's ago, into that case.
I panicked and tried to retrace my steps.
The last time I used it was on the plane. WeThe attendant had taken a liking to us and we were given emergency exit seating for extra space.  Unfortunately, it threw my routine off...because I had to put my carry on bag on top instead under seat...So i pulled this toiletry bag out so that I could use whenever i needed throughout flight. Well, on the rush to get out, I didn't look back at my seat to see if i left something behind , as my OCD habit of doing so, and that's where i thought i might have left  it. I called virgin Australia and hooray it was in their lost and found!!! Now the dilemma was how would we get it back to us. I mentioned that We would be back the airport in a few days but we would leaving before their office would open as we had another early flight. A courier would cost 85-125$...taxi 50-80$...solution!!! Train! It took me less than an hour back and forth to go to terminal 2, pick the bag and return to hotel. And I enjoyed learning about their transportation system, people watch...and grabbed the free paper a double chocolate brownie (saved half Normie...decadent). Could we do that from our Toronto airport to the city? After travelling and using trains and metros in various cities, I see how much can learn from other systems.
Our dinner adventure was just that...We decided to leave the hop on hop off bus at the Central station...i should have checked map because  it took us hour to get there when we could have walked to it in ten minutes. ...but meeting the bus driver was entertaining. We asked him about Surry hills...he was a jovial man. He gave us a funny look and said you'll both be picked up... go to Chinatown instead. So we decided to ignore his suggestion , and went to Surry Hills anyway . On our way there we ran into a gentleman who was on his phone of course and asked him if he knew the direction to Surry Hills . He was so sweet and stopped and said he'd Google it for us. He asked what restaurant we would want it to go to we didn't have a name. So he just advised us to go to the main road the neighborhood and said that it was really nothing there . We headed in the direction he pointed to and it looked like our search might fruitless because there were no restaurants just homes... And divey ones at that. But we persevered because i knew that the colourist (who dyed my roots...long trip)who made the suggestion was a foody. I knew we'd find something and sure enough nestled in an unassuming entrance was this Shangri-La  restaurant that looked like it was set in Tuscany. It was a busy hopping place with all ages and all nationalities! We loved the winery!!! The pictures I posted yesterday had some photos of the winery.
Most restaurants are set outdoors because of the beautiful warm climate year round.