Aussie Day 5 - Manly Beach Babes

13/09/05 Tuesday
We scrapped our initial plan to ski in the Snowy Mountains as we felt there were too many risks involved driving up. Threadbo seems like a great place but with our limited knowledge and finances, it didn't seem like such a sane idea. Hence, we had a bit more time to explore the city and the less risky suburbs.

Once again the SEP folks were in school in the morning. Our first stop for the day was the AMP tower, the city's tall phalic symbol from which you could get a bird's eye view of the region.

And the view from the top looks something like this. Having been around a bit, and clutching our maps as we gazed into 360 degrees of miniscue Sydney was enormous fun in itself. In this photo we could see Wooloomooloo, (which we almost drove to) and the NSW Art Gallery...

....and the Harbour Bridge and North Sydney. (The SOH is blocked)

We spied at unsuspecting individuals though the powerful binos... (above: ZX though the looking glass)
There was also a snazzy multimedia presentation with multiple screens and fancy pneumatics that tickles your senses as it takes you to explore the vast expanse of Australia. Quite an enjoyable experience all in all.

We met up with YH and gang at Hungry Jacks, and headed down to Ali Baba's for lunch. For the uninitiated, Ali Baba's is the local Kebab fast food joint. There were discussed and decided to take a cruise down to Paramatta.
Yet for some unknown reason, we got sidetracked and were convinced to visit Manly Beach by another tourist.

Chinks (at information counter): Hi, We'd like to know how to get to Paramatta please.
Info: Sure, here'll some free brochures, you need to go to Circular Quay to check out the departure times
C (in unison): Okay, thanx!
Strange Tourist: Hi! You guys tourists too?
C: Nooo.... just very lost locals.....
ST(delight): Ooh! You should go visit Manly, it's soooooo beautiful....
C: Uh, yeah, sure, but we dun really wanna see more sand.
ST(fervour): Oohhh.... but you HAVE to go to Manly, I just came back from there....
C: Umm.... That's very relevant to us but we'd rather be going to Paramatta.
ST (Hysterical): But Manly was sooooo beautiful.....blah blah blah...must visit..... blah blah.....
C: Ok, now you're being incoherent. Stop babbling, strange tourist, we're going off....

And so we made our way to the Quay, but on the way....

Me: Hey anyone noticed the crowns on her #11 and #21.
C (unison): Yeah!
GF: Wah Lao.....
Captain Cook: Hey folks, wanna hop aboard Captain Cook Cruises? Only obscenely expensive and totally not worth it. But you're dumb chinks, no?
GF: Uh, actually we just wanna get to Paramatta....
CC: Huh? Sorry I work for CCC, can't tell you more, oops, it's 430! Time to knock off and get piss drunk. Finally I can take off this ridiculous wig... (disgruntled snort)
Shafiq (Giggles): Yeah that looks pretty f***ed up...
Someone: So how? We still wanna go to Paramatta?
C (unison) : I anything.
Someone else: Wanna go Manly? Paramatta like nothing wan leh...
C (unison): I anything, but first I need to get some of that Gelato from Gelatissimo.....


On the ferry to Manly Beach.
You can't actually tell but to our right is a sharp decent to the Ocean. From the top we can also see the town of Manly.
We're supposed to be topless and flexing our beef boosted bellies in this shot, but some of us were too modest....
GF got butt cramps and got stuck in the railings as we climbed back in.... And boy did we capitalise on that.
With Manly behind us

Dinner was an exemplary display of Singaporean kiasuism. We found a food court with 2 rival economic rice (cai fan) stalls that offered stack all you can deals for AUD $5. And they offered quite a good range of dishes. Bad mistake for them. Baaaaadddd Mistake. Being the model citizens that we are we ravaged the stalls like the Talented Mr. Ripley.
ZX and Charles strategized and set their foundations of fried rice before builing an ivory tower of lemon chicken, kalamari, fried prawns, venison, and an assortment of chinese dishes.
To give you an idea of how much food there was, GF and ZX could barely finish their food. This is GF of "2 plates a meal" and ZX of "2 steaks and a bangers" fame we're talking about.


Not quite the paradox you might have thought.