Day 7: Chinatown, Chinese Garden, Darling Harbour Aquarium and Wildlife Park and a Ferry Ride!

So today was our last full day in Sydney, but it was a good day!! We started the day by splitting this huge breakfast at Harry's!! We hadn't been back since the day we arrived, so we thought we would stop by and have a brekky!! We ordered this bacon, tomato and cheese omelet, that came with Turkish toast! uhhh YUM!!!!!! This stuff was so good! What made it even better was that my cool cousin Adam face timed us from Austin! We had posted on Path that we were at Harry's in Sydney, and he saw it and faced timed us with the wi-fi! It was such a pleasant surprise, and although it was a little noisy with the coffee grinding and cooking, we had a nice conversation and enjoyed getting to talk to someone from home. 

ME LOVE TURKISH BREAD!!!!!!

Face time with Adam Pual!!!!

Once we finished our brekky, we walked over to the Darlinghurst area of town to see China town and saw a couple of other things along the way. Chinatown here is not the typical Chinatown you may think of, with streets full of little stalls of stores. This basically just had a lot of asian restaurants and stores, and a market place that was basically like a mall. I guess you could say it was a little more upscale Chinatown than you would normally expect. We did find a few good souvenirs in the mall area, including some really cool $2.50 scarves and magnets and t-shirts!

The tower eye that we went up earlier this week.

STARBS!!!!!!!! Sorry Starbs, Harry's took over this week!! ;0)

Of course we had to take a picture here!

The Market we did a little shopping in.

One of the gates to Chinatown, located off of Dixon Street. (just in case anyone is planning on coming here hehe.)

After Chinatown, we visited the Chinese Garden, which was built in 1984 as a gift to Sydney from its Chinese sister city of Guangdong. We spent a little while walking around inside and enjoying the peaceful serene atmosphere it had to offer. :0)

Entrance

Remember this pose Kacey?? Hehe... we saw some girls in Singapore doing this and thought it was silly.

Jacob is lost in a deep reflection of thought.

Jacob is mocking me. :0) per usual...

Pagoda!

After the Chinese Garden, we walked through the park on the way to the wharf to go to the Aquarium and Wildlife park.

Cockle bay

Darling Harbour 

We went to the Aquarium first! We had actually bought tickets earlier this week at the Tower Eye because they have combo tickets you can purchase instead of paying for everything individually. The aquarium was a little smaller than we expected, but it still had a lot of interesting fish and other organisms.

These guys were neat, sawfish sharks! They used their nose to detect the heartbeats of their prey, because their eyesight is poor. Once they find their prey, they stun the prey by swiping it with their nose.

They had a section devoted to the Great Barrier Reef, so there were lots of colorful fish and corals. I have always loved looking and learning about coral, and how corals are animals, and actually carnivorous. They have symbiotic algae that lives in their tissues and causes the coral to have different colors, and that algae undergoes photosynthesis to create nutrients that the coral needs to survive. One of the issues that the Earth is having (people of course attribute to global warming) is that when the temperatures of ocean waters get too warm, this symbiotic algae leaves the tissues of the coral, so then the corals turn white and can't get the nutrients they need to survive. Very interesting.

After the aquarium, we ate lunch at a little restaurant on the wharf called Pontoons. They had pretty good food for a decent price, and a great view of the water. :0)

our view at lunch

After lunch, we went to the Wildlife Park. This basically was another collection of Australian animals, so more kangaroos and koalas!!! It was a good little park, but the Featherdale park we went to earlier this week was much more up close and relaxed. We still enjoyed our time here though, they had a lot of great exhibits and interesting facts to learn from!!

This was funny, a koala had gotten out of her habitat and into the kangaroo exhibit and they were trying to get her down from this tree. A little "escape artist" they called her. :0)

This little wombat was named Sherman! He was so cute and funny! They had given him a cardboard box with treats in it and he was trying to figure out how to get them out! It's like Jacey's kong with doggie treats!!

These guys were both 10 years old, which is old for kangas! They are so tall and their hind legs are so big!

I know, more koalas!!!

Rhinoceros cockroaches! Kacey - I thought you would like these! They looked like our huge madagascar hissing ones!

haha... yeah I guess his exhibit was the floor...  

We then took the ferry back to the Circular Quay to enjoy our last night on the water. We went back to the opera house to get a Christmas ornament, we had seen them Saturday night and hadn't seen another one since then. I always like to get a Christmas ornament from each vacation we take, so I was glad they had one! We then spent some time looking through little shops, then watched the sun set behind the bridge and then had dinner. It was another good day!

Maritime Museum

Our ferry ride!

Just chillin' on the ferry! 

I put on my Chinatown scarf because it is cold!! Burrrr!!

Love me some little wombat Sherman!!!

And now I can be a koala too!!! Jo - these are your souvenir gift!! hehe...

BUUUURRR!!!!

We found this place called Pancakes on the Rocks to eat dinner, we read on our trip advisor app that it was super good and had great reviews, so we thought we would try it out. It was seriously some of the best pancakes I've ever had in a restaurant (can't top Ma-ma's pan big as your plate pancakes!) but these were so yummy and flavorful! I had to be rolled back to the hotel!

This. place. was. awesome. My pancakes were like a huge plate of strawberry shortcakes, and just like so many other things here, they put ice cream on top! It was super yummy!!!

Last subway ride to the hotel!

 So I have to give a quick shout out to the app we've been using this week! You download the city maps before you go or while you have internet, and then can use them without service to your phone. We have gotten so many great restaurant suggestions and maps to places, it has been a really great tool for our trip so next time you go somewhere you need to use it! They only have a lot of the major cities available, so you'll just have to see if where you are going to is one of the cities they have loaded. Anyway, just thought I'd make a suggestion!

Alright, that's it for today! Marathon post to end our trip here! Tomorrow we will be grabbing some breakfast and then heading to the airport for our 1:05 p.m. flight! Say a prayer for us for safe travels and that we can make our connection this time! Silly LAX!!!!! Silly United!!!! Thank you for all of your emails and comments on my blog this week, I truly appreciate the support from my family and friends! Love to you all!! :0)