Back to the Grand Adventure…Bondi Beach by Sydney
Bondi Beach (pronounced “BOND-eye”,) is a historic and popular beach and is located 7 kilometres (4 miles…wish I would have learned how to convert in school!:) east of the Sydney central business district.
Much of this video shows the main street called Campbell Parade and it features many popular cafes, restaurants and hotels, with spectacular views of the beach. Hotel Bondi (where we stayed) is a famous landmark opposite the beach.
Bondi Pavilion is right across on the beach itself and is a community cultural center, which features a theater, gallery, rehearsal, meeting and function rooms, art workshop, studios, restaurants… It is used for major festivals and performances throughout the year.
A few interesting tidbits about Bondi Beach:
Hosted the beach volleyball competition at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
On 6 February 1938, 5 people drowned and over 250 were rescued after a series of large waves struck the beach and pulled people back into the sea, a day that became known as “Black Sunday”.
In 2007, the Guinness World Record for the largest swimsuit photo shoot was set at Bondi Beach, with 1,010 women wearing bikinis taking part. (Now if this would have been 1,010 men in Speedos that would have been something!:)
Has been used as a location for a few Australian and International movies and television series.
Bondi blue, a colour name coined by Apple Computer for the original iMac computer. It is believed to be named for the color of the water at Bondi Beach.
How to Communicate from Down Under…Thank you Skype!
While in Bondi, my Hubby got a cell phone right around the corner from the hotel and the learning process began! The Australians don’t call them cell phones…they’re “Mobile Phones” and the companies that offer the service drive you crazy because they don’t tell you how many minutes you get at what rate. Instead, they give you a “value” of the calls made…for example “that plan is a $165.00 value”. When you try to pin them down as to what that really means…they couldn’t tell you!
And did you know that when you call a mobile number from a landline, they charge your landline! Mobile phones are quite expensive to run it seemed to me and if you don’t use all your minutes by the end of that month…you lose them and start from scratch! It all actually reminded me of the cell phone companies 10 years ago.
And as far as the landline company, “Telstra”, just try to get a real person on the phone or meet a real person at a Telstra office? Forget it…and I thought Qwest was troublesome!
But I’ve got to tell you…if you were at my grand opening, we gave you a demonstration of “Skype”. Well, after going through all that with the phone companies, WE LOVE SKYPE and I signed up for $5.95 mo., I can call anyone at any number in the US and talk for as long as I want. PLUS I get a phone number in the US that YOU can reach me on from any phone (doesn’t require that you have a computer.) My hubby got a plan to call 37 countries for $14.95/mo.
If you haven’t checked out Skype…you really should! It’s free to download and use if you make calls from computer to computer.
My good Ozzie friend, Janet Beckers, of Wonderful Web Women, also gave me the scoop about phone cards which you can buy very cheap online or at the “News Agencies” in case I needed to make calls from our landline to be sure the calls were not dropped (The only drawback to Skype).
The Miracle of Networking…
Talking about my good friends, I started calling around to set up face to face meetings with GutZy Women I had met online, but who lived in the Sydney area. In the next video, I will introduce you to one of them…Randa Magdi. We had a blast at the “Bondi Icebergs” restaurant.
Come back soon for Part 6 of the Grand Australian Adventure! And if you’ve missed any of the previous 5 videos just click on the link below:
