Bondi Beach = Tourist Trap

After our morning run, we got ready to head over to the infamous Bondi Beach. We took our 30 min ferry ride over and then took another 45-50 min bus ride over. The sad part was that we were on the "express" bus. After an hour and a half of traveling, we finally made it. After grabbing some food, we met up with some Bain ppl at the beach. We settled down and here was our view. People EVERYWHERE! The person in the yellow/red are the lifeguards that patrol the area.


The waves were pretty big and there were a lot of shore breaking waves. Therefore, there were surfers everywhere. I was amazed that surfers weren't constantly hitting other surfers. Some people couldn't even make it past the shore breaking waves because they were getting knocked over.

In the very south end of the beach (which is in the distance of this picture), you can see Icebergs, which is apparently the club/bar that everyone goes to in Bondi. It's the white building that is closer to the beach. Their dress code is pretty strict and won't even let the girls wear their thongs (aka flip flops).


It was pretty windy all day. Lying down on the beach was bearable, but after a couple of hours, it was too chilly for me. We decided to take a walk along the promenade. Here's a pic of how big the beach is. It's about the same length as the beach in Manly, but not as deep and definitely not as many people.


Another difference with Bondi is that all the walkways/buildings are all set relatively higher up than beach level. So walking along the promenade, there are walls full of amazing graffitti. I liked the picture of this dude with his mac computer.


And finally, there was this strange art project in the beach, which was a bunch of cells, where people could enter and be contained while on the beach. They had umbrellas and some cushions in each cell. Some people had voluntarily gone into these cells to hang out. All I know is that it'd make some pretty awful tan lines if you sat in it all day.


After walking around and trying to manuever through tons of people, we got a snack before heading back onto the bus. The bus stop was swamped with people and we had to fight our way onto the bus. Luckily we were able to get a seat because it took us another hour to get back to the wharf and we had to wait another half hour before the next ferry. For a 2 hour commute, I don't know how many times we'll be going to Bondi to go to the beach when we can walk less than 5 minutes to hit our beach.

Australia strange fact of the day: Chips can be either Fries or Chips. But the variety of chips (the crispy kind) are uniquely strange. I picked up a bag of Vintage Cheddar and Black Pepper as well as a bag of Sea Salt and Lemon and Lime. Evven though they were on sale, they were still $3 a bag! Other common flavors are Thai Chili, Honey Soy Chicken, BBQ Beef, Chicken... Basically a lot of meat flavors within chips. Also, it is very hard to find a bag of plain Tortilla chips. They like their chips flavored, but unfortunately there are no ketchup flavored chips. Guess that's only a Canadian thing.

And yes, the 30 cent soft serve cone is in Australian dollars, which in USD is probably about 27 cents. Can you imagine getting soft serve in the US for almost a quarter?