Saturday 24th December 2022
We started the day with a breakfast Bahn Mi at Banh and Boba. We shared a pork crackling Bahn Mi, and it was a decent Bahn Mi – fresh crusty bread and a very generous amount of cracking.
We continued on to Chatswood station, where we caught the train into town. We disembarked at the Town Hall station, which is in a shopping centre. The first thing we spotted was a little ice cream shop selling banana ice cream. Obviously we had to give it a go, along with a scoop of salted caramel. It was decent ice cream, though not as good as the one from Gelateria Gondola Chatswood that we had yesterday.
The Queen Victoria Building is just round the corner, so we went there first to check out the huge Christmas tree.
We then walked down Market St to the Sydney Tower. There’s a $33 entry fee to go up the viewing deck. The ticket price includes a 3D film, but to be honest the film wasn’t amazing (and the 3D glasses were made of cardboard so not the best, which meant the screen was often a little blurry). The views from the top are pretty impressive, especially if you’re there on a clear day as we were. There are also touchscreens all around the viewing area, with each giving information of all the things you can see in that direction.
Hyde Park is right by the Sydney Tower, so we had a wander around the park. It’s a very attractive park with fountains, lots of large birds, and a great view of the Sydney Tower.
We continued to the neighbouring Hyde Park Barracks, which has a $12 entry fee. I very much enjoyed this museum, the exhibits are very well thought out and the audio guide (included in the ticket price) is excellent. It was fascinating learning about the history of the place, and how it evolved from a place to house convicts, to being a depot for female immigrants, and finally acted as an asylum for the infirm and destitute.
We next walked to Martin Place Christmas Market. It felt odd to be wandering around a Christmas market in bright sunshine! The market was smaller than I was expecting, but very enjoyable. A lot of places were offering free samples, including spirits and cocktails, wine, honey liquor, and Sicilian biscuits. The Sicilian biscuits were particularly good, and we bought a few to take back with us.
We then headed back to the hotel, as we wanted a few hours to do some preparation for tomorrow’s Christmas dinner. My main tasks were to confit and debone some chicken wings, then use the bones to make a stock (which I wanted to simmer for several hours). I also decided make the mushroom duxelle, chive pancakes, and flaky pastry for tomorrow’s individual beef fillet wellingtons and then assemble them so they’ll just need popping into the oven tomorrow.
While I was doing this, Pete went out to get a long overdue haircut and also try and find some of the ingredients we’d failed to buy – scallops and tarragon. Apparently tarragon is very hard to come by Sydney as despite going to a lot of different supermarkets we couldn’t find it anywhere. Pete did however manage to get us some scallops – yay!
I also made a steak and red wine pie for tonight’s supper, and wanted to slow cook the meat for a few hours so it was nice and tender. I was quite happy with how the pie turned out, so hopefully tomorrow’s Christmas lunch will be equally successful.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 