Day 03: Saturday, 4 March 2006: Coogee, Bondi, Kings Cross

The day started, again, around 10AM. Dita had a work-shift at McDonald's, so we went with Dan and Sisca to the Coogee beach. We had our first western-style breakfast there: bacon, egg, and toast (Turkish-style). I think I prefer some normal toast rather than this Turkish one. Btw, I forgot to take any pictures.

We then strolled along coast-line. Some people were playing games on the beach; there were also lots of people on the nearby park. We hiked the rocky area to some remote, not-too-many people, spot. The view here was awesome, the Pacific Ocean view if I'm not mistaken. We spent about one hour around the area. The only thing I didn't like was it was really hot and I think we managed to get our skin burnt. Siska told us that if we followed the walkway, we would reach the famous Bondi beach in about an hour. Thank God, we decided not to walk, and instead took Dan's car to Bondi.

On our way to Bondi, we passed by a cemetery; a really nice one actually, it had a nice beach view. It was about 1PM when we reached Bondi beach. This was the most famous beach in Sydney and I think it was much larger and more crowded than Coogee. Dan dropped us here as he wanted to play tennis. Compared to Kuta, um, in some ways Kuta might be more beautiful, but the sand here felt much softer and smoother. We sat in some hidden-from-sun spot; I was busy digging a deep hole :) while Sisca and my wife chatted and shared stories.

It was almost 3PM when we decided to go back home. We headed to the nearby Bondi Junction, where we saw a mall, Westfield, which was like the largest mall in Sydney, because they were two separated buildings connected via some bridge. Yet, it was relatively small compared to Tunjungan Plaza (I couldn't believe that I couldn't find any website for this largest plaza in Surabaya). Things were pretty much different here (and in the US) compared to what we had in Indonesia. There were not many big malls or plazas here, but there were lots of shops, cafes, restaurants, along the roads everywhere. Of course this was due to the fact that pedwalks were pretty much more enjoyable, more pleasurable weather (no need for air conditioning), and less polluted air. If you know Kuta Square in Bali, that's how it looked like everywhere here.

Around 6PM, we (with Dita) went to Kings Cross suburb for dinner. It was, for the fourth time, another Malay restaurant, except that this one had some kind of romantic atmosphere. We had fish, and I forgot what else we had (and forgot to take pictures), but it was really plenty. My wife thought that this was the best dinner we ever had in Sydney. After dinner, we walked around the area. There were many backpackers' hotel around this area, lots of adult-show places, and tons of shops/restaurants.

Afterward, around 9PM, we rode on Dan's car and proceeded to Star City, the biggest gambling site in Sydney. Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures here as I thought it was disallowed. It was Saturday night and this place was packed with lots of people. We initially had some problems finding a place to park. To enter the place we had to show our IDs (Indonesia's KTP was ok) to prove that you were of enough age (18+?). This place was huge and you would find many different sorts of gambling here, from poker, blackjack, roulette, the old-fashioned slot machine (well, it wasn't really old-fashioned, because they were all digital machines, with screens and digital buttons), and many other games that I had no idea. The roulette was also interesting because it was also provided in digital format, where you could play singly against a machine (no real tables, no real roulette wheel); this was like playing some kind of computer game actually, except real money was in stake. There was also this semi-digital format where a real roulette wheel was played with real people, but instead of placing your bet on the table, well, the table was "digitalized" and you placed your bet digitally via the screen; this format could accommodate much more people than the old-fashioned style. I didn't really notice the odd of winning any gambling game here, but I noticed there was this one person who won quite lots of tokens playing roulette. It must be his lucky night. We also spent some time watching people playing blackjack (because this was the only game I was most familiar with). No, we didn't play any game. We simply thought $10/$25/$50 was too much money to be placed on bet :). But seriously, there was also this slot machine with only 1c of bets if you just wanted to test your luck. The problem was I didn't know how this slot machine worked; there were simply too many unfamiliar buttons. It was like 10PM when we decided to leave the place. And once again, we had problem finding where Dan parked his car, because Sisca forgot what floor the car was parked on. The night ended when we found the car and returned home.