Manly Beach!

So today I decided to join some friends to go to Manly Beach. Yesterday we'd planned to go to the famous Bondi Beach, but we were told that Manly was much prettier than Bondi, so we (Ann, Axel, Nori, Su Wen, Tania and li'l ole me!) set off at approximately 10.15 a.m., and we took a bus to Circular Quay. We got a little distracted by the Sydney Opera House and whipped out our cameras, but we managed to tear ourselves away and got ourselves onto the ferry. We were able to get very good views of the Sydney Opera House from the ferry, and the cameras came out again.

Manly Beach reminds me a little of the beaches back home, except the shoreline is a whole lot closer, and the beaches are a lot cleaner. The place was crowded with people! But you know me, I spent most of my time sheltering under my umbrella and slapping on sunscreen.

We had lunch at one of the open-air restaurants there (I'm not sure if you can call it a restaurant, it was basically a tiny shop with lotsa tables and chairs set up outside under giant umbrellas. We kinda expected the portions would be bigger than the typical Malaysian serving size we would get back home, so Su Wen and I decided to share a platter of fish and chips. The portions were big alright! It came with a side of rocket salad (kinda peppery), and the fish was rather fishy, but it was a great experience nonetheless. After that we stepped into Coles (they seem to have Coles everywhere!) and bought a 1 litre carton of orange juice for 3 bucks. That O.J. was a real life-saver, I was so dehydrated!

We met the others and decided to go off to a much deeper area of the beach. It was tucked away at the end of a not-so-short walk, and again, I sat under some trees while the others swam and snorkelled. There was a little iguana hanging around the area, and a yellowish spider hanging somewhere above my head, but I was too comfortable to move.

It was around 4 p.m. when we decided to make a move. So with reluctant legs (my feet were killing me!) we caught the ferry and bus back. We walked through Victoria Park and got back in time for dinner at IH. Tonight's dinner was to my liking: penne with some tomato-ey sauce, green beans and spinach.

I spent the rest of the evening in my room, just lounging out. Way too tired to go anywhere else this evening, although Flavia did call me to ask if I wanted to do something. Victoria Park is all set up with tents and booths, and apparently it's for the Mardi Gras festival (there's even going to be a parade!) which is taking place this next week, so that's something to look forward to this week (try doing a little research of your own in Google or something and you'll know what it's all about).

So that's it for today, people! It's been a great day, and I'm stoked to have been able to visit one of the prettiest beaches in the whole of Aussie-land (or so they say). I'm overjoyed at having seen both the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and it's definitely one of those experiences I'll remember for a very, very long time.

Cheers!