Now there was a girl lying on my two seats sleeping away.
After some time she woke up and apologized and went straight back to sleep. Well, not too much of a problem since I could continue my sleep leaning agains the window.
AirAsia operates the same way as Ryanair, so there were no free dishes, snacks or even drinks. After the 8 hour flight I had finished all my muffins, snickers and two bottles of water.
The approach into Sydney was pretty cloudy for most of the time, until we were low enough and my left window seat allowed me some magnificent views of Victoria Harbour the Bridge and the Opera house.
All in all I can not complain about the flight with Air Asia X. For a 125 € from KL 8 hour to Sydney... that's pretty impressive.
After watching a couple of episodes of Border control on TV I was prepared for a long and horrific immigration and customs procedure but nothing like this. The Immigration queue was a little long but moved quick and the officer was friendly and up for some jokes. Then, after I picked up my bag, the Customs Officer just wanted to know if I had anything forbidden in it (which I denied) and he let me pass with my first Australian "no worries mate".
Now I was down under! Lulu, Karsten's wife was already waiting at the arrivals area and brought me over to the car park where we waited for Karsten to come around.
Unfortunately he had to go straight to work, where we dropped him off and then went home. I had a quick shower, no idea what time of the day it was (it was around midday), then we went to Aldi to get some shopping done and get a bite to eat in the Leichhardt food court just around the corner from their apartment.
Leichhardt is sort of a Little Italy of Sydney and just about 4 or 5 km west of the City Centre. I really liked the area, it is (I assume like many suburbs of Sydney a bit like the midwest of the US, with wooden houses on wide streets with plenty of space but with the difference that they also have some small cars here.
The weather was a comfortable 22 degrees and overcast.
Although I should have been tired and gone to sleep I couldn't resist a trip to town. I was really excited to be in Australia now and needed to go and see some cool stuff.
Lulu had to get some shopping done in town anyway, so we took the bus and had a look around.
We went through China town to the QVB (Queen Victoria Building), got a Sim Car for me and walked over to Darling Harbour and around to the bay. It's a big city with loads of tall buildings and athmosphere in the many harbours and coves. It's pretty expensive ( I would thing about 25 % more than Dublin for general stuff - with a good Dollar course of 1.50 AUD to 1.00 EUR). So a coffee would cost you 4 $ and a lunch meal at a food court 10 $. All in all this is cheaper than I expected - from horror stories of other travellers.
Karsten was gonna get off work around 9 ish and I felt the tiredness coming over me, so we headed back to the flat.
We used the new light railway, just finished two months ago. It was very relaxed and the passengers even gave me some advice on what's the best way to get around the city. I should get a Opal Card which I could charge with money (similar to Leap or Oyster Card) and use on all public transports in the Sydney area.
The best thing, after 8 trips within one week, I would be able to use it for free for any further rides on bus, subway, train or even ferries.
Back home Lulu made some nice Chinese Beef Stew and gave me a beer. Tsingtao of course :-).
This was the final nail in the coffin for me and I fell asleep on the mattress, full, exhausted and happy.
When Karsten came back an hour later or so which I only realized half asleep, I greeted him, we had a short chat and off I was again into the dreamland.
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