Urgh hangover city!!! Didn't feel our best this morning so rather than going for a wander and going to one of the amazing food courts that are all around the city for some amazing food, we just about managed to stumble down to the restaurant for all you can eat brunch in the hotel :-) It really did the job - well for about an hour anyway and I went back to sleep until the afternoon! That afternoon we managed to get out and about and walked all around the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful but full of flying foxes argh they were horrid massive bat like things, and also massive spider webs with Orb spiders in them argh again!! From there we wandered to the Opera House which was a pretty amazing building. We met up with some more of Steve's friends Brett and Liv and sat in the sun and had a few hair of the dog drinks which went down surprisingly well (I'm trying to drink all the Aussie Sauvignon Blancs I can while I'm here just for research purposes obviously!!) and then Liv (whose family is Chinese) took us up to Chinatown and we went very adventurous in our meal - we had pigeon (served in quarters all crisped up and you dip it in pepper and soy sauce - was really nice), and jelly fish which looked awful but tasted really nice as was marinated in chilli. For desert they served kidney bean soup which I wasn't quite as keen on but it was great to eat some different things.
On the 2nd we headed up to the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) for the first day of the 2nd test between Australia and India - so far I had avoided any major third degree sunburns but did already have a whole load of strap marks and a seriously red forehead and nose, so was a bit nervous about a whole day in the blaring sunshine!! Our seats were great - quite low down nearly behind the bowlers arm (which is a good thing apparently :-) - here's a view of the Members and Ladies stands from our seats.
I came prepared with factor 50, hat, long sleeved top etc but by lunch our seats were in teh shade was brilliant and quite a relief. It was quite a small ground but very similar to watching cricket in the UK lots of beer, lots of atmosphere. We were really hoping that India would put up a bit of a fight as the First test was a bit of a walkover and we weren't disappointed - they took a really early wicket and a few more too - plus were robbed as Ponting and Symonds should have been given out but didn't walk the naughty boys just not cricket!
We left around 4pm and went out to Bondi on the bus which took about 30 mins. Bondi is really touristy and busy lots of backpackers and because the North Sydney coast was suffering from the back end of a massive storm most of those beaches were closed as the surf was so massive, so everyone in the whole world had descended on Bondi that day!! The waves were still huge and there was a massive pull back into the sea so yet again I didn't manage to get anywhere deeper than waist deep!! Lots of men in 'budgie smugglers' as the Aussies delightfully call Speedos!! and generally a great place for people watching with the surfers, body boarders and lots of Japanese people fully clothed with umbrellas to keep the sun off getting washed over in the first wave - oops.
Off to Melbourne tomorrow - we feel a bit sad to be leaving Sydney as just love it, but time to move on and see more of Australia!!