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Published: January 11th 2010
RUN UP TO XMAS
Wow, we want to see everything in 3D at IMAX, took our breath away! Avatar wasn’t a great story but the spectacle of it more than made up for it. Plus it didn’t feel like nearly 3hrs. Then a nice little walk home, though Sydney (the last Train had gone about 20 mins earlier) past some rather ugly prostitutes all of which were gazing a Charlotte’s chest as if to find out where she got them done. Home, beer and bed, a great end to a great day.
Necessities day, desperate need for laundry being done. So as usual we’re up at the crack of noon, and in to the laundry, then some Chillaxing, and brainstorming for the day’s events round the hostel while it finishes. Off to the pool today, we think a little stroll up to Woolloomooloo bay for a nice relaxing swim. Except it’s a salt water pool! Bit of a shock to the system to say the least. Charlotte couldn’t help but float around and Liam was just trying not to drink his own weight in water.
After about an hour we head back the Jolly Swagman before meeting up
with Charlotte 2, en route we happen across Harry’s Pie and Peas. A stall type thing by the side of the road. Bet you can’t guess what it sells. We stop for a mid afternoon snack (meat pie, with a scoop of mushy peas on the top. Cryptic isn’t it!) This place is world famous, everyone from Pamela Anderson to Billy Connelly via Ainsely Harriot and Colonel Sanders (yes the one from KFC).
We meet up with Charlotte 2 for a drink, she has been hunting all day for a hostel for her Jason for New Year. They were all really expensive or wanted a large minimum night stay. She opted for a hotel with air-con and a swimming pool, heaven! Whilst in the Sugar mill we discover we can get free Wi-Fi there to, so do some photo uploading.
On Thursday (Christmas Eve) we got up and decided on a trip to Paddy’s market, so called up Charlotte 2 who met us for a mooch around. We got lots of bits like sun hats, bits of string for the hat & necklace and wedges to go with the dress for NYE. We had a late lunch/early dinner
in Chinatown of dim sum. Back in for a bit more shopping before heading out to meet up with a friend of Charlotte 2 that lives over here.
We hang out at Paddy Maguire’s opposite the market for a bit, waiting for Toya to arrive from Manly and get chatting to a local, Brad, who is a DJ & bass player part time and in the advertising industry the rest. Toya is still down at Circular Quay, so we tell her to meet us at Waynard station where we get a bus over the bridge to Neutral Bay, to The Oaks.
My god it was heaving in there, we pushed through to the beer garden and found a tall table to plonk our drinks down on! Liam was most delighted to find that you could buy a raw steak behind the bar and BBQ it yourself on their red hot BBQ. Charlotte stuck with the Chicken Kebab, which Liam cooked to perfection. Charlotte discovered a very camp chap, Adrian, who had moved to Brisbane from Sydney several years before, but was back to visit friends for Xmas. As the end of the night approached we jumped on a
bus back to the centre of town.
Little Liam had a couple of friends partying the night away at a bar in Central, so we all walked up that way. After an hour of walking we found the bar and more importantly, the queue to get in the place. Charlotte 2 flagged down a cab to ask how much back to Glebe where she is staying and how much to King Cross. It turned out to be $15, a lot cheaper than we thought and as we had enough by then we jumped in and headed home.
We are not home long and the fire alarm goes off! About 3am in the morning. We had passed Anton in the hallway, who was three sheets to the wind! It turns out he had been smoking bongs in the room and that is how he set off the alarm. Still we all had to traipse outside until the firemen (Charlotte’s favourite) had reset the alarm.
Bah Humbug! Christmas morning! Down stairs for free brekkie, it’s free every day between 8 & 9:30, (but in the spirit of Christmas they’ve extended it till 11), this is the first time we
made it down in time. After a hearty meal of coffee, cereal and toast with vegemite (from an almost scary sized pot) We’re off to Bondi Beach for Christmas lunch and a bit of a party, the weather is a little overcast but looks like it could improve.
En route through Kings Cross we spot Santa on his Harley Davidson Trike, who waves at Charlotte in her Reindeer head dress. We arrive at Bondi Pavilion (sounds grand but is mainly outdoors) and queue up, as we near the door staff we notice they are checking everyone’s I.D. Oh dear! We don’t have any on us, we never need it (apart from Las Vegas) we say this to the staff and they ask if we are 18? We reply “years or stone?” and we’re in! (Humour always works!)Off to find our dinner.
Turkey and ham slices, potato salad, some lettuce and a bread roll and butter, in plastic bowls with plastic cutlery (Kings don’t live this well). Not what we were expecting, but pretty good none the less. Now the music starts thumping bass (with the ones and twos) Holy crap it’s a rave Liam goes from ‘Bah Humbug!’
To ‘Oh F@%k’, but as the beer keeps flowing he really starts to enjoy it and despite the rain we all have a great time. (We managed to sneak Charlotte 2 in as they hadn’t taken Charlotte 1’s ticket off her as we came in).
At some point that afternoon whilst watching a great set by a DJ and a Trumpet player (check out the video, when we get them up), a passing boy gave Charlotte 1 his additional sun visor, which she proceeded to wear for the rest of the day.
By 9 o’clock we’re cold and wet but full of Christmas cheer having phoned home to the family and friends. Time to call it a night me thinks! Charlotte 1 bumps into the man who owned the sun visor prior to his mate giving it away (he knew it was broken at the side!), so she returns it, then we grab Charlotte 2 and go on the hunt for her friend who has borrowed her sun hat. He is nowhere to be seen, so it takes a while, but we find him on the final sweep (he really wanted to keep it!). On to the bus
we pile and back to the hostel.
Boxing Day we had planned to go to the races, but over slept! Some of the Irish lads and lasses were getting ready, but the girls were taking forever doing their hair and makeup and everything else. Also one of the girls set off the fire alarm again this morning blow drying their hair. Here we go again with the standing around outside waiting for the firemen! We also pestered the front desk for the parcel that was sent to Liam from his best mates Ben & Elen. It was a wonderful hamper full of Wine, Cheese and Biscuits, Chocolate and Bombay, nutty type mix. Perfect treat for a day of rest!
Sunday, a day of culture(ish!), off to the Australia Museum. Beautiful old building, with a T-Rex sticking out of the window. To Charlotte’s absolute delight because of school holidays it’s full of unruly children and parents who don’t give a rolling doughnut if their little cherub has just drawn all over a picture of a prominent Aborigine or knocked over 20,000,000,000 fossil. We see the exhibitions we wanted to, including a great crystal display and Liam takes Charlotte away
for a drink before the war cry of kill, maim, and disfigure all useless parents’ echoes through the museum.
Coffee and a slice of cake will soon soothe the savage beast, we find a little coffee shop in Hyde Park. We decide the next thing on our little day out should be to go to an area called ‘The Rocks’. It’s the area just before the harbour bridge and is a little bohemian. Lots of crystal shops and markets stalls, unfortunately we had left it a little late and most were closed or were closing. So we went for a little walk along the other side of circular quay.
We get a text from Charlotte 2, she will be meeting some friends in ‘The Scubar’ and did we want to join them? Never one’s to turn down such a polite invitation to drink we make our way to meet them. A little lost in a area of Sydney we haven’t been to before trying not to look like tourists, we see a friendly face Little Liam is waving from across the street and has now move hostel from manly to the YHA above the Scubar so he leads
us to the bar and has a coke with us and a bit of a natter and catch up. We meet up with one of Charlotte 2’s friends from Thailand, Deb’s, she was travelling to Oz to start a new life with her husband Alex. Alex is a freelance photographer and Deb’s is studying accounts. They are looking for a flat for the first year.
We head home via the last tube and wonder along the strip back to the hostel, it really gets quite crazy at night here! We chill out at home for a bit before Liam starts the call’s home to the family via MSN. Funnily enough Liam’s family have got together at his mum’s house the same day Charlottes family got together at her Dad’s. Liam started out on the laptop, but the computer is too slow to run a proper connection, so we head downstairs to the proper computers for a proper chat, amongst the partying that was still going on in the lobby at 2 & 3 am! Charlotte gets to speak to her lot next, but it is getting on for 3 in the morning as Caroline is running late! We come
away from their tired but happy at speaking to everyone though.
Well it is a late start after a late night, luckily we do not have too much planned as we knew we would be making those calls late into the night last night! We head down Kings cross and pop into Wicked Travel & see a lovely girl Keira who sorted us out for the rest of our time in Oz. We booked our Greyhound tickets, Frazer Island and Whit Sundays sailing with her & she threw in some cheap accommodation vouchers along with a free Noosa Everglades canoe trip.
We left there with one thing on our mind, New Years Eve! We headed down to Circular Quay to hunt for the bar that Caroline had been in 4 years before, she recalled in our MSN talk that was above the fire & Ice bar, so off we went. We visited every bar & restaurant there. We had offers for a 5 course meal and a bit of wine at varying price from $250-$550. The Ice bar was full, although they normally do entry only from $30 (worth remembering for others travelling, but they do book up
well in advance).
Then on a final sweep we spot the hotel, which we had over looked before, but Charlotte thought, well we will just ask any way! We hit pay dirt! The ECQ bar in the hotel is the one Caroline spent NYE in 4 years ago and they are doing the same deal, all you can drink, with canapés coming around in a 5 hour extravaganza! Woo Hoo! We have a drink to celebrate and call Charlotte 2, who is on her way down to meet us anyway. She gets hold of Jason so we book up and get our tickets there and then!
After we head over to Scubar again and meet up with Toya, who was quite upset as she had heard from her ex that evening, so we done our best to cheer her up. We ate the ‘eat as much as you want pizza’, we managed about two each, before a bit of crab racing. It started getting a bit crazy & young, so we headed down to Scruffy Murphy’s to meet up with Deb’s, stopping for a quick one in Paddy Maguire’s at a reggae night in an Irish bar! Strange!
Also to our dismay Toya got ID’d but the rest of us did not, so we teased the bouncer mercilessly! On to Scruffy’s and up to the sports bar where we could order from the bar and get a seat! A few drinks, a bit of a boogie to a great little covers band and that was us done in! We said our goodbyes to Toya and Charlotte (Deb’s had already gone, when we were dancing), who looked like they were up for the whole night on the tiles and our faithful taxi took us home.
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Lorry
non-member comment
G'day!
Hey Char and Liam I see you're still having loads of fun! Still sooo jealous. I can see you had a great crimbo and NY. I know that Julia was thrilled to bits to talk to you. Missing you loads but enjoying Reading your adventures!! Love to you both. Lorry xxx