March 7 - Lawn Bowling and Manly Beach

Today I went with Lee and his friend Julia to go lawn bowling. It was like bocce ball, and they took it very seriously here with all this fancy gear and rules about wearing shoes on the court, etc. We even got to bring Cooper (Lee’s dog!) along with us but he had to stay off the grass. The cool thing about the balls is that they are weighted, so one side is actually heavier than the other, and when you roll it, you roll it a bit wide and then it curves back in depending on which side you throw it.

The aim is to get as many balls as close to the white ball as possible and that’s how you score the most points. The game was fun, (Lee won), but I wasn’t too far behind! We had middle eastern food for lunch in Bondi and then some amazing gelato at Messina. We came back and I left for manly around 4:00 pm to see my friend Tae who I met traveling in Vietnam. I took the bus and then a ferry. The ferry ride was spectacular and I still cannot believe people commute normally on it. Manly was a very charming town, a different vibe from Sydney for sure. Tae and I just walked around and he showed me a special area at the top of this rockface where we saw the whole town at sunset.

We talked about all things in life, especially this book called "The Way of the Superior Man", and then we were joined (in the dark might I add!!) by an abseiling group of students. This is basically rappelling, and they had no fear at all- we had so much fun watching them go down into the unknown.

One pizza slice and ferry ride back and I was ready for bed! Manly beach's beauty gets a 10/10 from me.