It's back to Sydney and I check back into the Sheraton at Darling Harbour. Admittedly I need a few more hotel days before I go back to Hostel living. This is the same Sheraton I stayed at for 1 night before I headed to New Zealand. I spend the next few days sight seeing the hell out of Sydney. I head to the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, and the Royal Botanical Gardens.
I also opt to head to some old stomping grounds from my trip with Tom V my college buddy. I head back to my favorite Thai restaurant Longrain in Sydney, but this time it is disappointing. They won't sit me upstairs because I am alone so they put me in the bar downstairs and I am limited to a smaller bar menu of food not their full menu. Drinks were still excellent but food was disappointing. I also head to the Blue hotel formerly known as The W Sydney where Tom and I stayed and ran into Stiffler and Jason Biggs from the American Pie movies. Hotel was still the same, posh as hell, but no Stiffler sightings.
On Saturday I opt for a full day tour to the Blue Mountains which is about a 2 hr drive from Sydney. The Blue Mountains are supposed to be incredible to see because they look blue due to their rock coloring. A highlight is seeing the Three Sisters rock formations. This probably would have been a top 5 Australia excursion but it turned into a bottom 5 because the day we went it was completely fogged in. From the pictures below as you can see I spent the day taking photos of fog.
Thank God earlier on our tour we did stop at a wildlife sanctuary where I got to pet Koalas and feed the Kangaroos. The Koalas was a highlight and I can't help but think there is a strong resemblance to Gizmo the Magwai hahaha!
Our tour at least ended with a stop at Olympic Park where the Sydney Summer games were held a few years ago. What a state of the art complex complete with several stadiums and walking areas. We then boarded a Ferry back to Sydney. Too bad the weather was terrible!
I leave my Sheraton Darling Harbour and opt for some beach time at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach. I check into the Bondi Backpackers hostel. Time for some new roommates. When I get to the room I meet 3 English blokes. What is with Australia and the English? It seems everywhere I go English are everywhere. Are you all taking over the world? God save the queen! Anyways, they are all super nice which I am thankful for. In addition, they are all working or looking for work so a lot of their time is pre-occupied with hunting down more income.
I head out on this 5km walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. I do it at sunset and the walk is spectacular. In between the various beaches I pass on my way to Coogee are beautiful rock and cliff formations. I definitely recommend anyone heading to Bondi to do this walk. If you don't believe me just check out the pictures below.
The next day I head to the famed Bondi beach for some sun bathing, body surfing, and plain old relaxing. The beach is not as crowded as it normally is but there are still a ton of people. It's probably due to the fact that it's a weekday. Nevertheless the vibe is hopping and I can't help but notice how many topless women there are on the beach. I think it's probably European tourists but again this is not something you see everyday as an American. It's down right distracting at times. I need to also mention the waves because they are down right perfect. I did some of my best body surfing at Bondi Beach and now I am kicking myself in the foot for not taking surf lessons while I was there.
That night I head out with the English blokes to the Bondi Hotel for drinks. We ended up meeting these 2 girls who were American and ironically were from Danville, CA. Bay Area peeps a slice of home. They were also in Bondi living and working. Jesus am I the only one not working? These girls were staying in a rented apartment where they pay by the week and certainly live on the cheap. Most people in Australia pay weekly versus monthly. It's definitely not high class living but they seem to get along.
The next day I find out that two of the Melbourne crew are coming into town Kat and Mel. We meet up at Bondi for drinks that evening and that's when we hatched our plan to do a roadtrip the 3 of us together. I was always planning on renting a car and driving from Sydney to Brisbane as there is a lot to see up and down the east coast. Now I had 2 partners in crime to join me and help me navigate on the "wrong side of the road"
But before I could head out on this awesome roadtrip I had to spend the worst 2 nights of my trip thus far in Manly Beach. I had heard good things about Manly, nice beach, lower key then Bondi, great waves to surf, etc. I was looking forward to it when two things got in the way. 1st the weather sucked literally it rained for 2 days straight and didnt seem to let up. I canceled my surf lessons because of this. The second was I had the worst roommates of the trip at the Manly Backackers Hostel.
When I checked into Manly backpackers they put my in a coed room of 6 where 5 of the other roommates had been living together for the past 2.5 months. Can you spell Clique with a capital "C". It gets better also adjoining to our room was 2 other rooms that shared a common balcony with ours that were also filled with members of "The Smoking Clique" (I'll call them that the rest of the way because they all smoked like chimneys). So these 15 or so people had been living together for the past 2.5 months. Everyone is hooking up with everyone. They sit on the balcony smoke weed every night and yell things at people walking down below. And then there's me the guy who came in and disrupted the herd. It felt like I was joining the Jersey Shore cast as a new chump of the street in season 4. They were not receptive to me in the least bit. I would ask questions, be polite, try to crack some jokes. All I could hear was crickets. Screw them I'll do my own thing.
The first night was not that bad because I stayed up late working on my blog and I met these two nice girls one from Italy and one from Brazil in the lounge downstairs. We ended chatting the night away and when I returned to the room they were all asleep. The next night I was not so lucky. Our hostel but on a BBQ for everyone staying there and I thought I would take part try to get to know some more people. I get my plate full of BBQ set it down next to the girls I met last night and head to the kitchen to grab a beer. As I come out I notice my plate had been moved and one of the guys from "The Smoking Clique" is now sitting where my plate used to be. No big deal I sit at the place where my plate is now sitting try to talk to other members of the clique to no avail. I run back into the kitchen to get more ketchup and when I come out the second time the dude is now sitting in front of my plate and it is clear I am still eating. So I walk up to him and sarcastically say, "Oh I'm sorry let me get this out of your way". And I move my plate and sit down in an empty seat. I finish up and head to the kitchen with my utensils but leave my beer still half full on the table as I will come back out to socialize. When I return from the kitchen I notice my beer is now a dark cloudy grey color and it has been stuffed with napkins and cigarette buts. I immediately look over at "The Smoking Clique" and they all have these funny smirks on their face. By this time I had, had it! I tried to be nice to them, tried to get to know them, etc. It became obvious they were just plain assholes. So I grab my beer look them all in the eye and say, "I bet you all think you're pretty funny!" I then take the contents of my now decimated beer and pour it out all over their table and walk off. I'm done with this group!
I go to bed early because I'm not feeling well and I need to meet Mel and Kat to pickup our rental car back in Sydney. What I thought would be an easy night sleep turned into a nightmare. At about 3 in the morning I'm awoken to all the lights being turned on and 4 drunk roommates all girls coming into the room screaming and laughing. Are you F-ing kidding me? Can't you see I'm trying to sleep? They head to the balcony where they continue to be loud. I get in total about 4 hours of sleep that night. I wake up early not feeling well back my stuff up, there would be no goodbyes. Thank God that's over with. I need another night at the Westin soon! I head to meet Mel and Kat and like that my Sydney visit is over!
I really like your pictures from Sydney especially the beaches and the ice cream eating kangaroo. Sorry about your bad experience at the Manly backpackers hostel with those smoking idiots. Hopefully your next hostel stay will make up for this bad experience.
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F those Jersey Shore chumps....wish I was there to smack them around :)
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