1: Sydney Central YHA

Arrival

We arrived in Sydney by bus on Sunday October 23. ThoughtWorks has very kindly provided us with accommodation starting from Monday 24, so we needed somewhere else to stay overnight on the Sunday. The cheapest room for two I could find was the Sydney Central YHA.

Cost

$124 per night for a room for two with an ensuite bathroom.

First Impressions

	The location couldn't have been better. The YHA is directly across the road from where the bus dropped us off. There's a rooftop pool area with a great view of the City. Sydney welcomed us with a fantastic fireworks display.
	The room was pretty basic. You get what you pay for!
	We watched "Castle" in the TV room. The TV was a new flat-screen one. The in-store demo kept displaying along the bottom of the screen and we couldn't figure out how to turn it off. The couch was old split vinyl and smelled like my son's running shoes.

Community

As its name implies, Sydney Central YHA is located right at Central Station, near the top end of Pitt St. It's a fantastic location for travellers, close to transportation, restaurants, pubs, cinemas etc.
The Y is set up to foster its own community amongst the residents. There are communal kitchen and eating areas, a cinema, a common lounge room with a pool table, and communal TV rooms. It would be a great place to stay cheaply with a group of people, but as we were only there overnight we didn't have time to get to know anybody.

What will I miss?

Hmmm.... Let me think... Nope, nothing!

Departure

I had to head off at 8:15 to get to work, and needed to leave my suitcase behind. They've got a storage room where you can leave bags, but you have to pay for a locker. Oddly, the storage room is up a flight of stairs with no lift. As I wasn't travelling quite as Agilely as I'd hoped, I was grateful to have the assistance of the desk staff to get my bag up the steps!