The Ice Bar - "Minus 5"

I've been meaning to blog about this for quite sometime, actually ever since about the second week of January but just haven't got around to it. I've only just uploaded the photos of this place to my computer. But what do you expect from the laziest chick on earth???

Yes so that's right folks, on the 10th of January my good friend Adam Cramp (did anyone ever call you Adam Crap at school??? ~ Cecilia Frisch) came to visit me for the Christian Conference "Planet Shakers". But the conference didn't start until the next day, his plane just arrived on the Tuesday. So anyway, before we headed off home, we (Adam, Elyse and myself) spent the day in the city, mostly in Circular Quay but visiting Centrpoint Tower just for a browse, a rip curl shop and other shops (Adam, is a shopaholic whose aim was to become the richest man on earth until God challenged him at Planet Shakers about being rich and earning money etc). I should probably mention at this point that earlier in the morning we had a Krispy Kreme brunch at Mascot with Mooj.

Ok so we were in the Rip Curl shop and i suggested visiting the Ice Bar which many people had heard of but very few had ever set foot in the place. So we asked the tender in at the shop if he'd heard about it, he said he had but that he thought it was only a New Year's Eve thing and was never open again.

Wrong - but he did mention it was at Circular Quay. So off we trotted down to the Quay, on the train which thrilled Adam to pieces - he loves trains, poor deprived country boy that he seems to be, although we figured out that we are both living each others lives unbeknownst to us.

Anyway, we got to Circular Quay and after enquiring with various people, we stumbled across a little bar in the edge of CQ (Circular Quay) we waltzed on in and thought we were in the notorious ice bar. We sat for awhile and realised the ice bar was a flight of stairs further. So we walked up the stairs and there before our very eyes was the lady sitting behind the reception of THE ICE BAR. Otherwise known as MINUS 5.



WE MADE IT!!!!!

We were so excited that we could hardly contain our excitement hahahah.....but our hopes and dreams of entering into a world of ice were quickly dashed and faded as the receptionist informed us that contrary to what the NSW population believed, for half an hour it would cost each of us $30 to experience this wonderful place. I was sad. But Adam was the visitor and he wanted to experience Sydney in all its entirety. So he offered to pay for himself and another person to accompany on his journeys which was fair enough considering he didn't want to go on his own and he was the guest. So i offered to opt out of the equation and allow Elyse the honour.

Myself and Elyse feeling quite inadequate and uncomfortable sat on the lounge while our guest paid for the two tickets. He returned to us with not two, but three tickets. All three of us would get to enjoy the thrills of the cold ice bar on that blistering summer's day, i was beside myself with absolute happiness, a happiness that brought tears to my eyes and a permanent smile to my face. This was all mixed in with a feeling of guilt that i hadn't paid for the experience. Adam you will be my friend forever and i won't divorce you if you become rich, i promise!!!

The three of us rugged up in big, furry, hooded jackets and proceeded into the next room with the "tour guide" where we dumped our personals in a locker style drawer. We were then given two pairs of gloves, thermal/disposable socks for the people with open toe shoes, a free cocktail/mocktail voucher and a tag around our necks. After watching a video about what to do and what not to do, we were led into - THE ICE BAR.

This is what we walked into.....

That's right,everything was made out of ice. The cowhide was used to prevent slipping off the seats. We even found out from the bar tender that it was all non-stick ice so if we liked (and trust me, i did like), we could lick the ice!!!!! I was in ice heaven, i was loving every second of it and savouring as much of it as i could because i knew that i would want so desperately to go back in there after i left. Although every man and his dog in NSW has probably licked that ice, i couldn't resist the urge.

After our initial shock, awe and wonderment had subsided, the three of us proceeded to the bar to collect our free drinks. Boy, were they chilled?! Our cups were made out of, that's right you guessed it - ICE. I felt like a little kid in the original Willy Wonka entering the land of candy, eating the cups and saucers and for the sake of being able to eat the crockery, i took a few bites out of my cup. Gosh, i couldn't have been more happier if you'd have put $100 in front of my face....(actually that's a lie)......though i was truly in my element!

At one point though, i was nearly ready to cry because i was seriously having issues feeling my fingers. Actually they were so cold that they were very seriously starting to hurt. We were abiding in -9 degrees temperature, what do you expect????

At our 25 minute mark our tags/beepers started going off to warn us that our time in the Ice Bar would expire within 5 minutes. That was very sad! I took a few more snaps and a extremely brief video and pretty soon our beepers went off again and we were expected to leave.

We grabbed our belongings, gave back their property and left. On our exit the heat hit us, quite hard in the face. My fingers started tingling again and soon they started to sting readjusting to the outside weather.

Below i've included all of the other photos that I took for your interest.

Anyway, it's very worth your time let me assure you so i encourage you to take that trip you've been putting off to MINUS 5 and just do it, you know you want to and believe me, you won't regret it. Bring me back a cup!!! Floating $5!!!

That's one thing i'm disgusted with though. Where do they throw the cups???? What a waste?! I wanted to take a cup home with me and i also want to know where i can buy them from - coles frozen section???? Where?????

Freeze on suckers....

Tink xoxo