Dec 8 - Bondi and Hip Hop

Healthy cereal with strawberry milk again for breakfast. It's no Mcmuffin, but it'll do... After we finished, Dan showed up (although Enrico was missing in action) and the 4 of us (Dan, B, Sarah and myself) headed to the 7-11 to buy bus tickets. Then we had to ask for info at the bus center because we didn't know where to catch the bus to Bondi. We had to walk to Hyde Park, which is a decent distance away from where we were, so we hiked over there and caught the 333 over to Bondi beach. Ideal conditions; sunny, hot, perfect sand and nice medium breaking waves. We set up our towels and Dan and I headed straight for the ocean (while the other two lamed out and opted to sit on the beach) and jumped over and under waves for a good hour. The water was freezing cold; much colder than the water in Manly. Then we took a sun break on the beach and convinced Sarah and Brennan to join us in the water. We all spent a good hour or so jumping waves and Dan and I stayed longer, body-surfing waves. Then more sun to dry off. I went for a walk end to end on the beach and was pleasantly surprised with a whole lot of topless ladies suntanning. No shame... (not complaining) and odd to see at such a busy public beach. I enjoyed a tasty bagel with healthy stuff in it (salmon maybe? with lettuce, etc) and a smoothie that was like a Booster Juice. A short while later, the four of us packed up for the day and went to McDonald's for a $5 meal deal (cheeseburger, fries, drink, sundae) that classified as supper. We hit up a convenience store for a return bus ticket and took it back into the city, then walked back to the hostel. Dan took off in a different direction as he was going to help a friend put up posters, so we bid him adieu for the evening.

Showered up and got into fresh clothes then Enrico showed up. Apparently he went to Bondi and looked for us but couldn't track us down. He had run into 2 Aussie girls that were on the Magic Bus with our group in New Zealand and it was one of their birthdays today. He led us a couple KMs to the bar where the festivities were supposed to be taking place. We looked around but the Aussies were nowhere to be found. So we asked the bartender and she said they had left earlier to go to a different bar and gave us directions to get to that one. It wasn't close to this one and probably took 30-45 minutes to walk there, but eventually we arrived, got ID'd and went inside. The bar was weird, there was a VLT room when you entered, an outdoor patio through a door on the side that led to what looked like a fenced off backyard, a main bar in a room with a mini stage that had speakers and a half assembled drum kit on it and a larger back room with a bigger stage and another bar where there was a big group of people bobbing to a guy rapping. The whole place was painted flat black (walls, floors, ceiling, bars, etc) and had a bizarre mix of people in it: from goths to hipsters to dressed up people to rockers to long-shirted/flat brim hatted hip hop fans. The whole thing was a bit much and felt like a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or something along those lines. We went out to the smokers patio where we found the Aussies finally and had a good chat. Then we went in and watched the headline hip hop act (by the name of Urth Boy) which was a white Australian hip hop group with a lead singer who sounded sort of like Eminem and acted/looked like Rob Dyrdek (pro skateboarder with MTV shows), a girl who sang melodies alongside him and a DJ who scratched and spun the music and sang backup vocals (cool to see a DJ participating fully). The group was absolutely amazing and we stayed right until the end of the encore. The show even included a cool MIDI board solo by the DJ which was a remix of Sweet Dreams and easily the best remix I've ever heard of that song. The bar then kicked everyone out (at midnight...weird even for a Wednesday) and the Aussies wanted us to see another of their favorite bars, so they led us there, which took probably close to an hour and was so far away. It was a 2 level Irish bar and we went upstairs and sat down out on a patio. The Aussies however, left within about 10 minutes of getting there...so all that effort and convincing us to go there and they up and leave... I spent most of my time inside watching a mix of eclectic music videos on the wall tv, which were selected by people in the bar via a digital jukebox program. After maybe another hour, the 4 of us left (me, B, Sarah and Enrico) ventured back home and called it a night. Earlier Sarah, B and myself had booked the next 3 nights at Base, because our hostel is full tomorrow (as are many in the city for some reason...but only tomorrow) so we'll have to move over there tomorrow morning. And tomorrow I will officially look for a job online and at job agencies.