"Sydney-the most happening place in... " a Sydney Travel Page by bkarjee

We visited Sydney in Mar'06 and I'll dare to say-it was a life time experience. We visited in what is called Autumn season, when the hot sunny season starts giving way to the cool winter. The days were still quite warm and the sun was hard on the skin. But Australians love their weather and that's why sunny day attracts hordes of Australians to the lovely beaches, where they just laze around to get good tan.
All said and done, Sydney is a place with multiple attractions and a visit to Australia is incomplete without a visit to Sydney. Its so well connected to all parts of the world that accessibility is no problem. In most part of the world, there are always some attractive airfare promotions going on to visit this beautiful city and its difficult to miss this. The airport of Sydney is right in the heart of the city, unlike other places, where the airport will be located several KMs away from the city. Upon arrival at Sydney airport, airport officials do a very aggressive screening of the baggages. This to prevent entry of any open food stuff, specially any dairy product, food items in the form of seeds, fruits and vegetables. If you are carrying these, you better throw them into the bins provided specifically for this purpose before you reach the Customs Deptt counters. Also if you are carrying medicines and packed food products, you will have to declare in the immigration forms and the officials will check these items thoroughly. You will have to open the bags and show the content to them before you are allowed to leave.
The custom official who was checking on my belongings was a very humorous person and this helped to lighten up the atmosphere. He told me to experience the four most important Australian identities-Koalas, Kangaroos, Opera House and Wines.
I said I will.

Sydney is a truly multiracial, multilingual, multicultural and a very vibrant city. I remember, having read some where that Sydney is the most liveable city in the world. And actually I was experiencing it. It has a population oif around 5 million and the the city area is mind boggling. The extreme north end to the extreme south end of Sydney city may be more than 100 KM and this poses problems in terms of transportation. The traffic is slow in the heart of the city and rush hours are to be best avoided. There is a good network of local trains, city busses and a very efficient taxi system. The tolls on the motorways are ridiculously high. I took a cab from Sydney airport to a north western suburb in the city called Quakers Hill. The distance would have been roughly 35 KMs. It took 90 mts to cover this distance (at 1600 hrs). The cab fare came out to A$ 130.00. Out of this, A$30.00 was Motorway toll and rest was the cab fare. Compared to Singapore, where I live, this was unbelievable. I Singapore, I wouldnt pay more then S$4.00 as toll. But if you are familiar to the city roads, there are ways to avoid the tolls.
The roads are very well marked and they drive on the left side of the road.