beautiful Sydney sushi

Am now safe & sound in good old Welly, but first I must update you all on my stay in Sydney

with Jonathan and Courtney! (Jonathan is my mum's cousin and Courtney is his lovely Canadian wife.)

It turned out I was sharing a plane with Will and Anna! (2 other 4th year medics who will currently be chilling on the island paradise of Samoa!) We got to Sydney at about 7.30pm Oz time, and after a rather stressful bag search to make sure we were harbouring no forbidden foodstuffs, it was through to arrivals where Jonathan and Courtney were waiting! I have rarely been so glad to see a relative... exactly what one needs after being stuck on a plane for 22 hours (give or take).

wine and a chat before crashing on their immensely comfortable sofa. Was very well-rested by Friday morning though, and awoke to the most gorgeous sunny view of Bondi!!!

On Thursday night I wasn't up for much more than takeaway gluten-free tacos, some w

Jonathan - in exemplary host fashion - had left me a map, his keys, and a bus pass! So I got dressed and toddled off to find the bus into Sydney, but not before I'd had some takeaway coffee at a little cafe on Bondi Road. (OH MY GOD. AUSTRALIAN COFFEE IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!! I actually stopped walking to appreciate it the more...)

Got into Sydney and met up with Will and Anna pretty easily - by bumpin

g into them on the harbour! We went to the Sydney Tower Restaurant for lunch which was fantastic - 3 course buffet with revolving view of Sydney..... excellent. (I ate perhaps a little too much and this, combined with the revolving, made me sightly nauseous, but am not complaining; the experience was just too fantastic :) )

After lunch, we waddled our way back down Sydney Tower and went to Chinatown for an amble round Paddy's Market, which is an excellent street market full of basic tourist tat, but great for a look around. Made our way back to Sydney Harbour for some coffee/tea at the Opera Bar - best view EVER (photos to follow once I work out how to upload them). Then alas it was time to bid farewell to Will and Anna as they had their plane to catch (have fun in Samoa guys!!)

Jonathan met me shortly after for a G&T (me) and a beer (him) at the Opera House Bar, before we went to meet Courtney for sushi at Zushi in Surry Hills (halfway between the city and Bondi). Unfortunately I really wasn't on the ball when it came to photographs, so I have no photos of the awesome sushi we had.... :( but you'll have to take my word for its utter awesomeness! I absolutely stuffed myself - and we had some lovely New Zealand wine too :)

After this epic meal we headed back to the flat for a cuppa tea, some chocolates and Masterchef which is huge in Australia! Great fun - kind of a cross between real Masterchef and The Apprentice.

An early bedtime because my flight to Welly was at 8.55.... I still feel bad about waking Jonathan and Courtney up at the ungodly hour of 6am, but they assure me that they're morning people (well Courtney definitely is!) so I don't feel quite as guilty.

Will write about Welly in the next post, but for now I just want to say a massive thanks to my lovely hosts in Sydney - I hope I can pay you back sometime! lots of love to you guys and everyone else xxxxxxxxx