Sunday

Here we are at the gate at YVR raring to go.

It was a reeeeally long flight made longer by the fact that we left half an hour late at 12:15 am.  They served dinner at about 1 am, sandwiches and cookies about 4 hours later and breakfast about 8 hours after that. I guess they wanted to get us on an Australian feeding schedule. In between I managed to watch a couple of movies and doze off and on. When we landed the flight crew fumigated us - yes, they opened all the overhead bins and sprayed insecticide in them, then we had to sit there for 10 minutes while the spray settled over us. A lovely welcome!

When we got off the plane one of the business class flight attendants was standing there and recognized Brad from his travels, so they had a visit for a bit. Then the long trip through customs; we kept getting sent to longer and longer lines. Even though we didn't have any checked luggage I think we were one of the last to emerge from the airport. Finally into the sun and warmth!  We made our way to the airport train station and bought our reloadable Opal cards, which we can use on trains, buses and ferries. Here is the train we took into the city.

We had a 5 minute walk to our hotel. It was too early to check in so we dropped off our luggage and headed to Darling Harbour for a late lunch. It's going to be a very busy week in Sydney - the Sydney Festival is on, the 26th is Australia Day and the 27th is the first day of Lunar New Year. We got an email saying our room was ready so we headed back, stopping by the grocery store on our way. We relaxed for a couple of hours then had dinner. We went for a walk to Hyde Park after dark. Lots of people out, well lit paths, we watched a festival show for a bit then continued around the park back to the hotel. I would love to post a photo of the war memorial but my pictures won't load today. Anyway, that was our day yesterday.