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I don't normally plug or gush about high-end hotels while traveling, but this trip to Sydney I decided to forgo the adventurous hostel or even the corporate 5-star house and do the hip boutique thing for 6 nights.
Highly recommended by all Sydney-siders, The Establishment in Sydney's CBD (Central Business District) is probably the most "pimped-out" hotel I have stayed at. You pay for serious dark and chic minimalist design, along with no-waiting, no-cover access to its in-house trendy bars/restaurants such as Establishment Bar, Hemmesphere, Tank, Sushi-e, to name a few. Can you say “chick-magnet?” This is not a hotel you are checking into - it is a compound of nightlife (and as is quoted online) attracting wanker bankers, ladies whom they impress, men who wear hair product, and young professionals in the fashion, media, and finance worlds.
I'm sorry, but I guess the Bose soundsystems in the guestrooms sold me.
I get a drink at the bar before meeting Nick and Liya at China Doll (great by the way). Wow - wanker bankers they are! Maybe I was asking for it being a young female sipping Patron on the rocks for 10 minutes by herself at the
bar circa 8pm (prime hours for afterwork drinking snots). I also want to stress that I was not wearing anything lowcut, sleeveless, or too-short for school dress. I was in a highcut, elbow sleeved, 1-in above the knee silk print dress, and heels.
Below was an actual conversation:
Wanker: So, what are you doing in Sydney?
Me: Vacation
Wanker: Oh, well I work around here so we come after work a lot to grab a drink
Me: OK. What's work?
Wanker: I work in Asset Management, you know stocks, managing money… … I'm in Finance, money…
Me: Sure but thanks, I know what Asset management is… I'm in Finance too
Wanker:
I can buy you another drink?
Me: That's not the problem, but thanks!
I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't really work in Asset Management.
Gross - gag me - yuck - seriously?? Are men these days for real? Does this actually work on some women? If this doesn't work on a 23 year old, I would hope it doesn't work on anybody older. Maybe I just haven't had a lot of pure getting hit-on-at-bars by myself outside of Hong Kong (which actually is even worse but I don't drink by myself when not at a hotel) or maybe in Hong Kong its too risky to throw around the I'm-a-Banker line.
But seriously man, you have got to be joking. Getting hit on by older men at bars was grody before and I guess still very grody now. I decide I need a reverse wingman aka fake boyfriend.
The next day, being the huge, unabashed, smiling ear-to-ear, rip-me-off tourist I am in the first few days, was Bondi to
Bronte Coastal Walk Day (which I was too lazy for last time in February 2007.) So picture little solo Asian me (and you would think that with the Asian population in Sydney there would be more than the ten I saw on all of Bondi) walking along the beach constantly being approached by excited Aussie surfers who think I'm Hawaiian (certainly not a bad hook in Sydney if you ask me) - either that or it's a cheap (and effective) way to hit on deeply tanned Asian girls.
I've got my ginormous SLR (which on my side gets so many compliments that it is also a cheap - and effective - way to hit on Aussie surfers) which makes me look very official bolstered on one hand this entire walk/hike/jogging path. For those of you that know me, I'm pretty clumsy and I trip on everything like it's my job, but I surprisingly also never fall and end up just doing a strange little toes-inward dance to recover from looking like an idiot. I blame the magnified tendency to fall on the fact that I walk around very mindlessly and am that person that people always stop from walking
across streets in front of prominent 18-wheelers.
I trip nearing Tamarama and down I go - quick thinking lets me sacrifice my left knee to save my camera and now I have a gash that looks very menacing but I can only blame on a rather tame stair. I tell the Aussie surfers though that I was attacked by a shark. A shark with a 2 inch jaw-span. However I have to finish the rest of the 1-hr walk to the Bronte lifeguard stand sans bandaids or even napkins, so I am trudging along and taking my pictures with blood trickling in three rivers down my left leg and a very noticeable bruise on my right knee. "Dude, you know your leg is bleeding?"
I didn't swim that day for fear of attracting large tiger sharks to the happy beaches at Bondi. James thought I was being ridiculous. I prefer to think I was just saving lives.
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