On Wednesday, we continued our exploration of the suburbs. We did a A LOT of walking around, but it was fun to see different areas. Here was the basic route we took for the day:

George Street

George Street is actually in the heart of the CBD, so we aren't looking for housing there. It's actually the street where the new Atlassian offices will be, and it's also where our bank headquarters are. We stopped by here to go by the bank, which I think I mentioned looks somewhat like Gringotts. (Toby doesn't seem to think so as much as I do, so at the very least, it's a pretty lobby.)

Being on George Street, we also got to see how I would get back and forth from work. The bus happened to be the most convenient way to get to our next destination, so we decided to check it out. That was somewhat of and adventure, since there was no way to know when the stop we needed to take was coming up. So we ended up getting off way past where we should have and walking back. We decided that next time we take the bus, we'll have to study the cross streets near our stop before we ever get on!

Woolloomooloo

No thanks to the bus, we made it to this cutely-named area!

A cute way to remember the name

There wasn't a whole lot to see and we weren't as charmed with the area as we were with the name, so we moved on.

Darlinghurst

Next we walked up the road a bit to Darlinghurst. This was an interesting area: it's located fairly close to the CBD and it's right off a bustling road that reminds me more of a busy 4-lane highway in the US than anything else here has so far. There were lots of "big" businesses - like a giant running store and a big car rental place - which your haven't seen much of here.

The residential streets of Dalinghurst were nice though. Toby and I agreed that it reminded us of the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco: slightly gritty but full of unique architecture and people doing their own thing. Ultimately though, we decided this place wasn't on the top of our list either (especially since you get relatively little for your money), so we meandered on.

Kings Cross

Now we didn't actually get into the heart of the Kings Cross area, we just caught the train from the Kings Cross Station to leave Darlinghurst. I mention it though because Kings Cross is the heart of the red-light and drugs in the city. The guidebooks say it's very common for tourists to visit during the day just to see the sights, but we were most certainly not looking for housing here. Needless to say, we saw some interesting things at the station and Toby was NOT to pleased to be there. We did agree that we'll go back one day as tourists and see what the guidebooks call "up and coming boutiques."

Surry Hills

We took the train to Surry Hills and walked around a lot here. This was by far our favorite area of the day. There were lots of residential streets lined with trees, and many of them intersected with some main roads, so it's easy to get to shops and such. It's also very close to Hyde Park, a big green area next to the CBD, so overall, it seemed like a pleasant area.

Wrap-up

Overall, the day was quite an adventure. There are two more areas we want to check out, but we'll be ready to go for a place this weekend I think. We topped off the evening by cooking spaghetti for our roommates. We had a really nice time talking about Blegium and Reunion (where they're from), and sharing stories back and forth.