Sydney 2.0

Our hotel in Sydney was a little less than conveniently located — about 5 km from the CBD. But since we’re good on foot, we simply walked. And walked. And walked. Until we got there.

Sydney is another place familiar to Timo. Although this time around, traffic lights had been invented. And colour TV.

I thought I’d explored Sydney fairly well on my previous visit, but with Timo I discovered quite a few new spots. One of them was the Harbour Bridge. Okay, I had seen it before — but I’d never actually walked across it. I think we spent around five hours on that bridge and in its immediate vicinity. Doing what, you ask? Taking photos. Every. Single. Possible. Angle.

Yes, Timo is a bit of a perfectionist. And silly me had shown him one or two interesting camera modes earlier that day — which he then explored thoroughly. Had I kept my mouth shut, we might have spent three hours less on that accursed bridge. 😅

My growing sense of urgency had a very simple reason: earlier that day, I’d discovered a new matcha place that made coconut-milk matcha. And it was good. I desperately wanted to go back and try their matcha-coconut frappé. But after our extended bridge intermezzo… the shop was closed. Worse still, it wouldn’t reopen until after Christmas — and we were leaving on December 26.

However! Salvation appeared elsewhere.

I found a Thai restaurant/dessert place. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps. You may have gathered by now that I’m a bit of a mochi fan — and this place had Thai mochi: Khanom Tom. Rice dough on the outside, palm sugar-fried grated coconut on the inside. Absolute heaven. Their sweet rice with mango was also excellent. Yes, I went there every day.

Fast-forward to our last day in Sydney. Timo suggested I ask them for one of the stickers they put on their takeaway containers as a memento. Brilliant idea. So back I went.

The staff were… confused. Very confused. After confirming several times that I really did mean a sticker, and after a brief discussion among themselves in Thai, one of the waitresses finally stepped forward. She had a sticker on her index finger, looked at me seriously, and asked:

“Where do you want it?”

I had to laugh. I took it on my finger - and carefully stuck it into my travel journal. 😅Read more