Day 101: Sydney and Bondi Beach

Molly and I have a dirty dark secret.  We secretly love the The New York Times Travel Sections regular feature, "36 Hours in ..."

I know, I know.  It's horrible.  And really, we only love about half of each one.  Inevitably, the articles advise an expensive restaurant followed by expensive cocktails the first night.  We skip this. 

But the first morning is almost always quirky, arty markets, of the food, craft, or art variety.  Best if all three.  Sydney had all three in one.  A place called the CarraigeWorks, just Southwest of downtown.  A massive old warehouse with art.  A food and farmer's market.  Some arts and crafts.  We love it so much.

And for the afternoon, no trip to Sydney would be complete with a visit to Bondi Beach (Bond-Eye, not Bond-EE).  Home of the Speedo.  Great Surf Beach.  10 km from downtown Sydney.  It was pretty nice, and particularly so if you consider that it's a city beach: the equivalent of Coney Island for New York City.

Where New Zealand always had great play grounds, Australia does well with kiddie pools and waterfronts.

And as you walked along the edge of the inlet, amazing sandstone ledges.  At high tide, they'd be just covered, but at low tide, amazing and crazy.

Obligatory model in bikini shoot:

Much like Molly not quite getting a good picture of the photo shoot in July, I didn't get a good picture here.  Besides, the rocks and oceans were more of a show anyway.

Oh yeah, I'm still 8 and a half.  This seems like a strange name for ice cream.

The plan was for Molly and I to leave the next day, and in doing so, leave Mary and Monroe.  So we went out for a last dinner at a hole-in-the-wall seafood place, but with very very good food.  Mary and Molly split oysters (I prefer my sea flavored snot cooked, not in the half shell).

And the place was BYOW, so we brough a bottle of Australian bubbly to celebrate.

Oh yeah, I'd be remiss not showing you this monstrosity:

Our hotel had a four head Pod coffee maker.  You insert a pod of your desired roast, pull the lever, and touch the button of the style of coffee and milk you wanted.  Instant barista coffee.  It wasn't great, but it was free, so I drank quite a bit of espresso while there.  Good thing Lent is coming, so I have an excuse to stop my coffee drinking for a bit.