buter's BABY blog

Someone commented to me recently, that I do weird things for someone who's lived in Sydney all their life. I was waxing lyrical about a coffee and chocolate tour DTM and I went on one Saturday morning. More about the tour later. Much, much more!

But the thing is, I guess I do explore Sydney doing touristy type things, because I love my city, I love going in and feeling the buzz, I love seeing the old buildings and I love having stories to tell about all the places you see. Like, "here is a sculpture that looks like a public urinal". "And here is one that doesn't". Stuff like that.

I also like to try seeing things with new eyes every now and again. And seeing as we're not going on holidays till (at least) the reno is finished, (at which time we will buy a new house, and then we will have a new mortgage and we won't be able to go on holidays anyway till 2099), by turning on my "see Sydney with new eyes" ability, it's just like being on holidays in a new city without all the hassle of passports and language barriers. I'm sure at this point all my well-travelled friends and acquaintances will jump on me saying this city or that mountain is "like, waaay better than Sydney", but that's not the issue. What I'm trying to say is, we often don't appreciate things we have right here, and I'm one of the people who wants to try that. That is, in lieu of using passports and language skills to travel, because - well, see above about renovations and mortgages. (Speaking of which, why does the credit card company offer me *more* credit when interest rates just went up? Isn't that just like handing a waterbottle to someone who's drowning in the ocean?)

Aaaaanyway, a very close friend gave me a couple of vouchers for this coffee and chocolate tasting tour of Sydney. Mmm, coffee. Mmmmmmm, chocolate. Here's the rundown:

You start at the Strand Arcade with a cup of coffee then go touring round Sydney's CBD visiting chocolate shops (and sampling! Oh, the samples!). We started at Haigh's - and I very nearly stopped there, I love Haigh's. Oh, the truffles. Oh, the dark chocolate buttons. Oh, the divine hand made chocolates. Oh, the friendly staff. Oh, oh oh ....
Then we visited Darrell Lea (ok, I'm not that much of a tourist here, I must say it bored me), Jeff de Bruges (oh my, it's expensive!), Lindt (mmm, Lindt balls) and the DJ's food hall chocolate store ... which, while conveniently located opposite Max Brenner's, was not our final stop ... no, we ended up at the Sheraton on the Park having a very civilised final cup of coffee.

Chocolate samples, and the two hot drinks, were included in the tour, as well as discounted shopping at all the stores we visited and loads of interesting tales about that good brown stuff. I must say, after 2 1/2 hours of nothing but chocolate, really really good chocolate notwithstanding, I was choc-full! But oh so happy - in fact the entire tour group were getting on very very well by the end ... must have been those endorphins!

Next weekend DTM and I are going on a dinner cruise round Sydney Harbour. Maybe this time I'll take photos .... naaah, I'm a local, why would I need to do that? hehe.