12 City activities to do in Sydney

If you pay a little attention to the previous posts, you would discover that I already checked off the things I listed in the first post, including Blue Mountains, Great Barrier Reef and Taronga Zoo. So in this post, I am going to check off “Strawberry Watermelon Cake” and share a bunch of other things that can be planned and visited together in Sydney.

Table of Contents

• 1. Western - Central part of Sydney

  • Sydney Fish Market

  • Strawberry Watermelon Cake

  • Queen Victoria Building

• 2. Eastern part of Sydney

  • Australian Museum

  • Saint Mary's Cathedral

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales

• 3. Southern - Central part of Sydney

  • University of Sydney

  • Chinatown

  • Tumbalong Park

• 4. Northern - Central part of Sydney

  • Sydney Opera House

  • Royal Botanic Garden Sydney

• 5. Suburb

  • Coogee Beach

1. Western - Central part of Sydney

Sydney Fish Market

Quite a few tourist went here for a fresh seafood meal, but you may want to think twice before buying. I bought a lobster roll and found out the bun is dry, the ingredients is plain and the lobster isn’t amazingly fresh:/ I’d say you may want to save that amount of money for something more worth a try, like Strawberry Watermelon Cake. I did consulted with a friend who’s been living in Sydney for 8 years, and she said locals usually go to the warehouse-kind building there for buying seafoods, not the one gathered with many instant-cooking restaurant.

I also noticed many of the restaurants there are run by ethnic Chinese, not sure why though. But the way they run business - you order any type of seafood you want, and they cook it instantly for you, is very much like what we have here in Taiwan, so I found it interesting.

Strawberry Watermelon Cake

17-minute bus from Sydney Fish Market. If you search online, probably everyone who’s been to Sydney would say it’s a must-eat. Initially I thought it’s a traditional dessert that Aussie usually have, but it turned out to be a trend starting some years ago when this bakery - Black Star Pastry Sydney released its Strawberry Watermelon Cake.

It’s definitely the most interesting cake I have ever had, but in a good way! The flavor of the flower, strawberry and watermelon just fused right. There’s no “sweet throat” feeling after eating, it’s very refreshing! Even though it’s not as attempting as a chocolate cake I usually get, I personally feel like it’s that kind of dessert that would be listed in a French dessert competition ha.  

Queen Victoria Building

1-minute walk from Strawberry Watermelon Cake. It’s a 19th historical building, served different purposes, now a shopping mall with lots of luxurious brands. I am not a fan of luxurious products, but there’s one thing that catch my attention there - Haigh's Chocolates! It’s said to be the oldest family-owned chocolate maker in Australia, so that definitely is worth a try 😋

2. Eastern part of Sydney

Australian Museum

It’s Australia’s first public museum established in 19th. I am not a super fan of museum, but I enjoyed a lot exploring there. One of the highlights of its collections is the life-sized dinosaur model created by National Geographic for testing purpose and is donated to Australian Museum.

Saint Mary's Cathedral

5-minute walk from Australian museum. Nice taking a walk around the Cathedral after staying in the no-sunlight museum for a while. You can go into the Cathedral for free. But when people are conducting rituals, you are not allowed to take pictures.

Art Gallery of New South Wales

10-minute walk from Saint Mary’s Cathedral, and is free as well. I personally don’t find it particular special, but if you are aiming for getting some nice art postcard, this is a spot for you since they have souvenir shop inside.

Martin Place

15-minute walk from Art Gallery of New South Wales. I love walking here because you can get a sense of what people working in CBD look like and it’s where imagination starts to work. For example, if I saw people dressing professionally and talking on the streets, I imagined their topic is about business; if I saw people wearing a nice dress-shirts and sitting in a cafe umbrella, I imagined they were talking a break ha.

3. Southern - Central part of Sydney

University of Sydney

It’s a big campus but I guess most people going there for seeing the Great Hall, which is Victorian Gothic revival style and shares many similarities with University of Oxford in the UK.

Chinatown

20-minute bus from University of Sydney, and is a hub for Asian food, including Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. I like to visit chinatown whenever I travel for 2 reasons: I need some Asian food to serve my Asian appetite; I like to discover the variations or the preservation in the food that I am familiar with.

Tumbalong Park

8 minute walk from Chinatown, and is such a nice place for a walk (or for a date 🤭). Going to the North, you can enjoy Darling Harbor; going to the South, you can find foods around Darling Square. I really love this area because it seems to be designed for everyone and includes many nature elements.

4. Northern - Central part of Sydney

Sydney Opera House

This is what Sydney is famous for, so doesn’t need much introduction. But I do want to mention one thing - it’s surprising to see it has an open-air dining area that is close to the harbor, which you won’t know if you only see the landmark on a postcard.

Royal Botanic Garden Sydney

6-minute walk from Sydney Opera House. Personally think there’s not much to see there. But if you want to kill some time when you are around the area, it doesn’t bother visiting. I saw many people laying down just chilling or reading a book.

5. Suburb

Coogee Beach

20-minute drive from downtown Sydney. It is said that this is a place where people with higher incomes live and where you can see beautiful sunrise and take a nice coastline walk! I came here at 5AM, and was surprised that many people were already here doing exercise. I made a conclusion when I saw the scene - Australia is the paradise for fitness.

I did a coastline walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach, which takes 1 hour to finish if you walk at regular speed (It took me 2 hours because I was talking photos on the way😗). It was fantastic to take a walk along coastline and see some ocean pools and I highly recommend you do so if you are a nature lover!

You don’t have to go to all these places all at once, just some ideas for you to plan so you can have a smoother trip! For next week’s newsletter, I’ll share things about New Zealand!