Sydney, NSW, Australia - any recommendations?

I'll be spending most of February in Sydney. Does anyone have any recommendations for the city? Bars, shops, pretty much anything.

Looking around this site, it would seem that Melbourne is way ahead when it comes to tiki. Surely Sydney has something to offer?

I'll be stopping over in Hong Kong en route, so any recommendations for that city are also welcome. I already know about Disneyworld HK, thanks.

Sydney is a great city. I am jealous you get a month there. I don't remember a whole lot of tiki going on, but try to check out the following from the top of my head. I will try to stay away from the obvious you will get from any book (like Darling Harbour):

• the Rocks - hit the Fortune of War hotel and grill your own dinner (if you like steak)
• Lord Nelson pub - great brew pub outside of the rocks (don't get confused with Hero of Waterloo, which is a couple of streets away and also named after Nelson)
• wander by the Opera house through the Royal Botanic Gardens and through the Domain. morning is best when you can see all the cockatoos, galahs and bats in the trees
• art gallery of NSW - great museum near the Domain
• there is a pretty good buffet at the top of the centrepoint tower. great way to see the city and try different foods
• take the ferry over to Manly
• bondi beach - lots of bars, restaurants and just a great beach
• late night shenanigans in King's Cross and on Oxford Street in Paddington (home of the Albury Hotel and great Thai restaurants here)
• gotta try Lammingtons, tim tams, potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce
• Find a Lee's Malasian restaurant and try the chicken satay. The restaurant looks like something you would find in a mall food court, but just try it.
• meat pies at Harry's Cafe de Wheels near King's Cross. don't forget the peas and mashed potato
• buy your souveniers at Paddy's Market near Chinatown - much cheaper than anyplace else.

that's all for now...

Try and get tickets for a rugby match while you are there. Tri-Nations just started.

Stop in New Zealand and bring us back more Ti-toki liquor! While your in Oz try the Bundy too!

Okay, thanks for the tips! I'm leaving tomorrow!

Dunno if you're a SHAG fan, but Outre gallery looks pretty cool to me - I'll definitely be checking it out on my next trip across the ditch:
http://www.outregallery.com/

Check out outre gallery for sure but that will take up about 20 mins..
There is almost NO Tiki in Sydney.. sad but true... I live about an hour north of sydney and would more than happy to have you come for a drink in my bar.. may be a good excuse to get hewey and some other aussie tiki central ohana over for a drink.. Hewey?.. the train ride up to the central coast is quite scenic too.. i have a spare room..
Cheers!

Hey mate, Sydney is a gorgeous city, we'll be happy to have you! :D I'm in Penrith, which is an hour West of the CBD, basically the edge of the 'burbs at the base of the Blue Mountains. Leisure Master looks like he has a good handle on things. I would add:

• Sydney harbour Bridgeclimb - pricey but bloody awesome! Did it for my 21st, awesome view.

• 3 Sisters up the Blue Mountains, pretty Aussie mountains.
  

• Kanangara Walls at the Blue Mountains. Awesome sandstone cliffs, off the standard tourist trails too.
  
  

On 2008-01-29 20:44, Tiki Trav wrote:
Check out outre gallery for sure but that will take up about 20 mins..
There is almost NO Tiki in Sydney.. sad but true... I live about an hour north of sydney and would more than happy to have you come for a drink in my bar.. may be a good excuse to get hewey and some other aussie tiki central ohana over for a drink.. Hewey?.. the train ride up to the central coast is quite scenic too.. i have a spare room..
Cheers!

Yeh, Outre is our best lowbrow art source, with tiki stuff, hot rod art etc. But as Trav said, there's not much to do there.

The trip up to Trav's bar sounds awesome too - yet to get there myself! I'm booked out completely the first 2 weekends in Feb. though, so that doesn't allow a lot of free time! If I did go up, I'd drive, and there would be room for a couple of bods in the car. How many people are you over with? Time permitting, I'd be up for spending a day as tour guide for the blue mountains too.

I'll PM you with my mobile phone number :D

Wow! I'm amazed by all this hospitality! All I was really wondering was whether there was much tiki in Sydney --- but what a response!

Sorry for not checking in and making any contact sooner. I'm actually here for my brother's wedding, which took place on Saturday, so I've been a bit busy with family stuff this last week. Now the wedding's over and I'm looking after my brother's flat while he and his new Mrs go on honeymoon in Sri Lanka. Hewey, I will definitely give you a call in the next few days. I'm here with my partner and 3-year old son, so I can't be too flexible, but we'll see what happens.

Thanks again for all the advice and hospitality!

Rozelle market, I've found is usually a sure bet for finding some Tiki Bits and pieces.
New Town Old Wares has cool furniture.
Hit the Beaches

Hey QVI - anything to report? Still drunk? Hope you had a good time.

Actually, I have another friend going over to the Big Smoke soon and would love to hear about anything new you may have found (restaurants, bars, etc.). They do not have to be tiki, just anything worth checking out!

Thanks

Hey leisure master! Sorry to have taken so long in getting back to you. I've been busy with work ever since I got home, and it's only been in the past week or so that I've started to hang out here again and see what I've missed... Probably too late for your friend, though. Sorry about that.

Sydney was excellent fun, as ever, although this time I was very much wrapped up with my family, so the focus was a bit different from last time's endless beer-drinking and record hunting expeditions.

So what did I discover?

Well, incredibly enough, I never got round to visiting Outre, even though it's very close to where I was staying.

Like you say, there isn't a whole load of tiki going on. The closest thing I found to a tiki bar is the restaurant Rambutan on Oxford St, which has an Asian food/cocktails combination going on. Good food, good drinks, but not really tiki as such. I did spy a few front yard tikis in King's Cross, and then there's the huge Vanuatu slit drum in the Botanic Gardens. Too bad our digital camera gave up the ghost or I would've posted a few pictures.

I also found that the Australian Museum had a few Sepik River carvings for sale in its shop, at a much more reasonable price than the tourist shops. I bought a couple of masks and an ancestor statue.

I also did a bit of record shopping. There's a place on Salisbury Road (Camperdown) called Pigeonground that has a pretty decent selection of exotica and Hawaiian LPs. I also found a few cool things at the Vintage Record store and stumbled across a second hand bookshop in King's Cross (Bugden's Books, I believe) with a back room full of LPs to dig through. I found a few choice items here, and the shop has a record player for customers' use, if you're having difficulty making up your mind.

We made it up to the Blue Mountains for a couple of days. Being based in Katoomba, with no car and a 3-year old limited our sight-seeing options drastically, so we didn't manage to see Kanagara Walls. It was still amazing.

I did make it over to Rozelle Market, but I didn't find much. Too bad --- I remember going there on my previous trip in 2002 and finding a few cool things.

The beaches were a huge hit with my little boy, especially Bondi. He was easily the youngest kid out there, fearlessly leaping around in the surf. He now says he wants to be a surfer when he grows up!

Hopefully it won't be another six years until I go back again.