Yesterday we completed the popular walk from Bondi beach to Coogee beach.  We started at Bondi, and only managed to get a brief glance at it before we headed down the path away from the beach heading south to Coogee.

Whilst I must admit, a ‘walk’ from one beach to another didn’t sound particularly exciting when it was described to me, it turned out to be really nice and far more interesting that I had expected.

Here are my top 5 from the Bondi to Coogee walk…

1. Sea pools

I am sure there is a better name for them, but ‘sea pools’ is all I can come up with at 9am after a heavy night of drinking.  There were 2 or 3 of these pools along the walk which appeared to be full of sea water, but provided wave/shark free swimming for those who don’t like to be in the sea.  Some of the pools had a beautiful setting in the side of the mountain.  Many people were sunbathing/chatting on the rocks around the pools, whilst fitness fanatics were doing length after length.

2. The path

Rather than having to walk the 3 miles between the two bitches in the hot concrete streets, the purpose built trail provides a scenic, mountain side and sea view journey which makes the walk a pleasurable, sea breeze accompanied 1 to 2 hour stroll.  Each corner of the path revealed a different type of landscape, an interesting building or some other beautiful view to entertain on the journey.  The path from Bondi to Coogee is by no means simply a means to an end, it’s most definitely an experience in itself.

We also walked past a number of beautiful, and obviously ridiculously expensive houses, which come complete with panoramic sea views, outdoor Bose environmental speakers (everyone else notices details like that, right?!) and stunning interior and exterior decor.  As we walked past people sitting on their balconies, I couldn’t help but feel a bit like a peasant being looked down upon by the higher classes.  I also couldn’t help but wonder whether I should be inspired by those people and aim to be there myself one day, or whether I should simply be content with the fact that there will always be bigger and better!

3. The graveyard

OK perhaps it seems a little strange to have a graveyard on my list of top 5s, however it was pretty much the most impressive graveyard I have seen, so it warrants being in this list.

The graveyard is enormous, impossible to miss on the Bondi to Coogee walk and has a unique (for a graveyard) hill top placement which provides each of the graves with a beautiful sea view.  Whilst I think that people who have passed on probably (hopefully) have better things to do than sitting on their tombstones as ghosts looking out to sea,  this spot would be a beautiful place for friends and relatives to come and remember their loved ones.

When looking out to sea I always get the sense of endless opportunities and a general state of relaxation and happiness.  It was a little weird to standing next to the sea AND the graveyard, which represents the complete opposite – the end of any opportunity (at least in this life).  I wasn’t sure whether to feel sad, inspired, respectful or something else, so I just ended up feeling a little awkward and if I am honest was pleased to get away from the graveyard as quickly as possible.

4. DHL Sponsored lifeguards

They had better not be late!…

5. Coogee Beach

Whilst Coogee beach (and Bondi in fact) were not the most beautiful beaches I have seen in the world, I did find it a great place to hang out for the day, have lunch, enjoy the beach and do a bit of a good old fashioned people watching.

We had lunch at the Beach Palace Hotel, which was a popular place right on the beach providing food, roof top terrace, pool, a bookmakers, outdoor/indoor music, in door lounging section and a lot more.  They had free wifi, which is not that common in Sydney, so I spent a few minutes playing around with my iphone/Windows Phone to get them online and synced.  Whilst sitting outside on the curb side terrace, it was easy to miss the 3 levels which the bar had to offer inside.  We returned later in the day to sample the roof top terrace and a glass of bubbles .

There was also a bike race going on whilst we were in Coogee.  According to one of the guys we were chatting to in the crowd, it was called a ‘Grand-prix’.  The race consisted of about 40 laps of a 1km oval shaped circuit, so it was pretty easy to watch from any point along the course.  We were a little confused by the rules, as there were a number of crashes after which the people involved in the crash were helped back up on their bikes, and allowed to join the pack when they came back around for another circuit.  There was also a point where more than half of the racers were split apart from the rest and then left the race, however the front part of the pack never stopped racing – presumably this their form of qualifying.

Anyway, it was fun to watch the race and the final few laps were very exciting with screaming crowds, an over the top fast talking commentator and ecstatic winners as they crossed the finish line exhausted and in agony.

I had to check out of my hotel this morning and I’m waiting for Zoe’s apartment inspection to finish before I move my stuff over there.  Was a bit peckish, so I decided to give the Hyde Park Cafe a try for breakfast. 

I didn’t realise it was table service, so I spent a few minutes queuing only to told (politely) that I needed to get a table.  I am guessing I am not the only one to make that mistake due to the fact that they have erected a sign (which I failed to see the first time)…

Thankfully there were plenty of tables available available.

Sydney is seemingly a city full of fitness fanatics, so whilst I have been here I’ve found myself walking faster, eating healthier and having an urge to go jogging much more than usual.  Funny because I find myself doing the complete opposite when in the U.S. surrounded by junk food, car loving Americans and Doctor Pepper!  So anyway, I fancied a hot breakfast, but really did not like the idea of eating fried sausages, bacon, hash browns etc… So I went for a HOME MADE beans, toast and tomato…

It turned out to be a great choice! The beans were indeed home made, with chopped up tomatoes and other vegetables combined to form a tasty accompaniment to any slice of toast!

I’m still in the cafe now, I’ve finished my breakfast, had two glasses of fresh orange juice and the cafe is starting to fill up.  I’m starting to (perhaps in a paranoid way) worry about taking up too much time on my table, so I’ll probably back up my laptop and go sit in the park in a bit.  Could do with getting some sunshine to my still pastey (apparently that’s NOT a word according to the spell checker, but I’m going to keep it in anyway) English skin anyway.

All in all, good start to the day

During my visit to Taronga Zoo in Sydney, I spotted this poor little mouse desperately trying to tunnel his way through the wall of the snake pit, to avoid his impending doom …

I landed in Sydney on Sunday morning at around 6am, met Zoe at the train station and headed to her place to store my luggage until I could check in to my hotel.  Despite not having managed to get great sleep on the plane, my body was in UK time zone and therefore wide awake.  We headed straight out in to the city center to explore.  It’s now Tuesday and in the past couple of days I have managed to get a 1.5 days worth of work in (it’s lunch time now), walked for MILES around the city, met some interesting people and gained a good wealth of knowledge on what Sydney has to offer.  It’s been hectic so far, but very exciting. 

My first highlight is the Sydney Opera Bar…

The Opera Bar has a unique location and view which is hard to beat.  Being sunken from the main walkway it is easy to miss, however it’s has so far been consistently busy in the evenings, and mostly deserted during the day.  They have a variety of live music playing, although from what I have seen so far not loud enough, or of a style to dance to.

We had dinner and wine at the bar last night and were joined by Zoe’s friends Dave and Paul, both of whom are from Liverpool.  Both of the guys were a lot of fun to chat to and had plenty of stories to tell about their experiences in Sydney.  Looking forward to some nights out with them later in the week!

A duo (2 guys) were playing acoustic music for most of the night, and I was very happy to hear several Matchbox 20 covers, along with numerous other artists.  I got a bit of a video of their first Matchbox 20 song, however I can’t get it off my phone without the Zune software (We need a Youtube upload option on WP7 ASAP!!!)

Sydney by night is just as beautiful as it is in the gorgeous sunshine…

The Opera Bar is a bit more upmarket of a bar compared to some of the traveller friendly places, and seems to be popular with office workers in the evening.  There were as many couples looking very much in love as there were groups of colleagues having a drink after work.  The bar places cushions along the stone seating area during the evening, making it a great spot to watch the sun go down and the lights of the city come on.

It’s been a stressful month trying to get everything in order before my trip, but I am now finally on the plane on route to Sydney, Australia! (via Singapore).  I left a very icy UK where Scotland has had record low temperatures of –20 degrees Celsius, my friends in Kent had 15 inches of snow and we were delayed on take off whilst they ‘de-iced’ the plane (I’m curious as to HOW they actually do that!).

We have been flying for about 10 hours so far and we’re 1 hour away from Singapore.  I only have one hour between landing in Singapore and taking off again for another 12 hours of flying to Sydney. 

The flight has been surprisingly comfortable.  I am flying on Qantas (BA code share), so didn’t get upgraded, however I did end up with 3 seats to myself.  So I have had plenty of space to use my laptop, sleep, eat and generally make a mess with the various gadgets and snacks I have in my hand luggage.  Whilst I thought that the flight would seem never ending, and I would be dreading the thought of disembarking this plane simply to get on another one, I’m actually quite content sitting here, listening to music, reading and catching up on work.  I have managed to get through all of my emails (40+ sitting in my outbox waiting to be synced with Exchange), watch a rather terrible movie with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, eat half a bag of dried apples and avoid conversations about the grandkids of the old lady sitting next to me.

Everyone is getting in to fidgety landing mode now, and I’m starting to get conscious about much of my bag I have managed to empty of the seats around me, so I am going to pack my stuff up, put my laptop away and relax to some Regina Spektor (just discovered her) whilst we prepare for landing.  I will get some photos of Singapore airport (which is the only part of the country I will see) when I arrive.

<BREAK>

OK, I spent less than an hour at Singapore.  Not much write home about really, however I am going to write about it anyway so that I can add another country to the ones listed in my blog tags   To be fair I only explored about 200 meters worth.  Here are a couple of photos…

Back on the plane now, just another 11 or 12 hours to go.  Very tired, not feeling sociable enough to talk to the daughter+mum sitting next to me…headphones on, pretending to be REALLY in to my book, going to sleep after take off.  Next stop Sydney…

Managed to find a great t-shirt thanks to the flourishing array of (near) trademark infringing clothing on sale in the Turkish markets…

Had a recent trip to Antalya in Turkey with work.  We stayed in an all inclusive resort called the Hotel Rixos, so we were well fed well (mostly non-Turkish) and our glasses were constantly full with Turkish wine, watered down spirits and champagne which tasted like sparkling cider.  The resort was very quiet due to the fact we were out of season.  The huge stage in the middle of the swimming pool, cheesy 70s music playing around the pool during the evenings and the equally cheesy bar/club in the basement of the hotel , suggests that the Rixos is a lively, family friendly resort during peak season, probably not for those wishing to have a quiet stay.

The Rixos and the rest of the resorts nearby included their own semi private beach (semi in the sense that there was a clear division between the beaches belonging to each hotel, but there was nothing stopping you walking through each of them).  The beach was not particularly spectacular, and was filled with mostly retired people enjoying the last bit of sunbathing weather of the year, but I did enjoy a 30 min walk along the sea on the last day.

Whilst I would love to provide a full write-up, I’m really busy at the moment and I don’t have the time to put in to a detailed blog post.  Instead, on this occasion I will tell the story with photos (+ 1 video of a beautiful waterfall flowing in to the ocean)…

1 bus, about 50 people and an impromptu acoustic performance from Ellie Goulding was all it took to bring tears to my eyes on Saturday afternoon at Bestival 2010. 

She walked on to the stage, introduced herself as ‘Ellie’ and then sang 3 beautiful songs with passion.  We only spent about 10 minutes outside the 3 bus, but I was surrounded by my best friends, along with a small collection of others keen to see Ellie’s raw talent without all of the glamour of the main stage.

This unplanned performance was my favourite from all of the festivals I have been to this year!  Here is Ellie’s acoustic version of Starry Eyed…

Despite having lived and worked in and around Reading for the past 8 years, the last time I went to the Reading festival was about 10 years ago…when I did not have the luxury of being able to get a train/taxi home, sleep in my own bed and shower. 

Whilst I wasn’t sure about going to a festival where I only knew 10% of the bands, I thought I would give it a try.  The festival got off to a great start when some random girls started conversation with me in the queue to get wristbands.  I am pleased to say that the friendly, unthreatening and inhibition free conversations flowed throughout the entire weekend.  For me, the people made the festival and a lot of the unfamiliar music pleasantly surprised me.  My list of favourite bands tagged on Spotify has increased significantly as a result of three happy, tiring and memorable days spent in the rain and sun.

Rather than a lengthy writeup, here are my 10 favourite quotes (in no particular order) from the festival…

It was not your fault this time

…which is of course referring to one of the main lyrics to ‘Little Lion Man’ by Momford and Sons.  I include this because they were one of the highlight bands of the whole festival for me due a number of reasons…

• the great album (‘Sigh no more’) I have been listening to for the past few weeks
• the great company I had from Gemma and Liz whilst watching the band…
  
• The awesome performance which included some songs which were emotional and audience arm sway educing, and others which had thousands synchronized in an energetic, drink spilling bounce. 

Here is the emotional opening performance of ‘Sigh no more’…

Would you mind if I sit on your shoulders to get a photo of the band?

…from the random girl (‘LOL’ painted forehead girl) who asked my friend Dan to assist her…

I love how everyone at festivals will say anything, ask anything and in most cases DO anything without inhibitions (see the next quote…).

 

Mate, can I borrow on of your spare cups? I need a pee

…from the random guy in the middle of the crowd who couldn’t make it to the gents toilets on the outer edge of the arena.  He quickly filled up one of the spare paper pint glasses I had, whilst the girls that were with him paid little attention…guess it’s wasn’t THAT unusual for them!

Mate, can I have another cup?

…yep, the same guy grabs another top quote spot 5 mins later when he asks me for ANOTHER cup! He actually managed to fill up 4 before we wondered off to another section of the audience!  Still, at least he didn’t throw the cups over the crowd…

At least it’s cold

If you watch a music festival audience for just a few minutes, you are likely to see music lovers throwing cups of liquid over the audience in front of them at least 5 times.  Now, bearing in mind the story of the guy from the previous quotes, and considering that the majority of people at the event cannot afford to waste drinks bought at festival prices…do you think all of the thrown cups contain alcohol?!

Most of the weekend was about rock music, but there was a refreshing dance music salvation in the NME tent on the Saturday night in the form of the computer game sound inspired Crystal Castles, Enter Shikari and crazily energetic Pendulum.

For some reason, we were in a spot which was repeatable targeted by cup throwers.  Every time we got hit, there was a lot of cringing, followed by “at least it’s cold”, which was the best method we had of determining that the liquid was at worst someone’s unwanted beer.

Here is a small clip of Crystal Castles with was accompanied by an amazing light show in the NME tent…

We’re staying over in Reading, but we haven’t got camping tickets or a hotel

…which sums up the care/consequence free attitude at the festival.  This lot didn’t seem to worried about the fact they were probably going to be sleeping on street (or not at all)…

No we didn’t offer them a place to stay! Well…at least I didn’t! I did leave Dan with them when I went home, so who knows?!….

 

You just lost the game

…which after a few glasses of wine I was very excited to see written on this guys t-shirt…

…even though none of my group knew what it meant, so looked at me strangely as I tried to explain.  For those who don’t know, here are the details…

Lose The Game – The World’s Most Infamous Mind Virus

 

Would you like a poncho?

…from the kind girl who gave me a free poncho as I walked through the Sunday afternoon rain in just a t-shirt, jeans, a flowery hat and a scarf.  Thank you strange girl – I was already soaked, but you did save me getting any wetter.

A British festival would not be the same without a bit of rain and mud…

I’m just a Teenage Dirtbag Baby

…for the awesome, audience pleasing, surprising and very memorable performance from Weezer! 

They sang a few of their hits which I didn’t know (but still enjoyed), as well as covers of ‘Kids’ by MGMT and ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus…

During the hour long performance the lead singer put on a blonde wig, danced on top of the speaker, high fived the entire front row of the the audience, rolled around in the mud and entertained the main stage audience will all of kinds of other stunts!  Weezer went from being a band I only knew from their ‘Buddy Holly’ song which was included as a sample ‘avi’ video file with Windows 95, to one of my favourite live performers this year!

We will meet you by the ice cream van

…which were the instructions my friend gave Mark to another friend Sam so that we could find her when entering the site.  Upon entering the arena, we discovered a little flaw in the plan – there were at LEAST 10 ice cream vans spread around the main arena.

Despite the challenges with finding people in the middle of huge crowds, with strong competition for limited space on the cell network and with numerous different acts playing on different stages at the same time, we did all manage to get together and share the experience of seeing some awesome bands playing live.  Top weekend, with top music and top friends!…

Last night we went to the Pacha restaurant in Ibiza.  The restaurant is part of the club and consists of an outdoor terrace section, along with an indoor air conditioned bar section which also has dining tables.

We had booked for 12:30am (which was practically the only slot available), however when we arrived the (seemingly typical) unwelcoming Spanish reservations manager told us that we had to wait 5 or 10 minutes – that turned out to be more like 35 minutes.  Whilst we were waiting at the entrance to the restaurant, along side an increasingly large number of others who had booked for the same time (all English) a Spanish couple arrived, hugged and kissed the door staff and were immediately escorted to their table. 

Whilst it may well be to the lack of understanding on our part as to how to greet and treat Spanish bar and restaurant staff, there has been an obvious difference in attitude from the waiters and waitresses when they serve Spanish customers, as opposed to us (2 English men and 1 Czech girl).  Establishing and maintaining a network of relationships on the island is essential for getting on to guest lists and receiving the special treatment, but I get the feeling that it would be much easier for us next time if we bring a Spaniard along.

When we were eventually shown to our table, we were pleasantly surprised by the cool decor of the terrace section where we were seated.  Individually lit tables, palm tree surroundings, softly lit fabrics above our heads, rustic beach style chairs and stylishly decorated table tops with a hint of Asian influence created a very relaxing and trendy place to eat dinner.

The menu consists of mostly Spanish fish dishes or a Spanish/Japanese sushi fusion selection, however there were also some impressive meat dishes including chicken, beef and duck.  The sushi was prepared in an open kitchen, by Japanese chefs who went to the excruciating effort of creating rice rolls, wrapped in seaweed with the Pacha cherry shape in the middle using various different coloured raw fish.

I chose the duck leg with sweet potatoes, which was cooked perfectly so that it simply fell off the bone as my knife slid over it…

Ilona opted for sushi rolls (and avoided the wasabi)…

I can’t remember what Mark had, but it didn’t look that interesting on the plate, so I never took a photo of it.

Providing you spend 70 Euros per head or more, entrance to the Pacha nightclub is free after eating in the restaurant.  We didn’t know about the minimum spend, and only ordered one course (we were keen to get in the club ASAP), so we had to top up our bar bill with a few more Vodka Redbulls (which also helped keep us awake since we didn’t leave the restaurant until after 2am!).

Unfortunately, the club itself was PACKED! And apparently Swedish House Mafia who we had gone to see were ill .  We forced our way through the crowds for a while, made it up to the top chill out bar for some fresh air and ended up only staying for a few hours before calling it a night.  On this occasion, the pre-club meal was more to speak of than the club.