The Running Man

Yes...it has happened again! In the space of a couple of months, I have gone back to Brisbane again (right after Good Neighbour :P..from Tues to following Mon) for another holiday and relaxing session :P. This time Ant was going to go back for some business and so I thought I'd just tag along and visit his parents (and stay there). It was the start of mango season, and everyday I had...mangoes (kindly bought by Ant's parents)...now these were the mangoes that were on steriods coz they were just simply huge! and I am not exaggerating...some were even bigger than my hand :). Needless to say with the mangoes, I definitely had my fair share of Vitamin C for the entire trip :P You could also say that this trip was a bit 'overdue'...you see me and Ant had this tradition that I would go to Brissy once every 4 yrs (usually around the time of the Olympic games) and the last time I went to Brisbane to see his parents was in 2000...so I am about 2 yrs overdue since the Athens Olympics of 2004 haha...well better late than never :P


Ant's house, yours truely, Ant and Rocky, Mangoes!
Myself with Ant's parents at Yum Cha...have never met such kind, generous, nice and hospitable people before...and it does give me a chance to practice my mandarin haha..

Other things I did during my 'restful' trip..was play some basketball :P now this was a sport that I haven't really had the chance to play much while living in Sydney..and I missed it so much :P the intensity of the faster paced game where you are constantly moving and taking an active part in the game :P (also I think that its the sport to help you keep fit and healthy). It was a good sweat...and we managed to catch JB's bball game too


And yes we managed to catch the movie Borat...such a funny movie...toilet type humour but all a good laugh which we all need at times :P....cheap too! only $7.50 Looking good Ant! ;)

Luckily Weis was still in Brisbane when I was there (she was leaving back to S'pore in less than a weeks time)...so had some time to catch up and see whats been happening. Nice to catch up with her and she was nice enough to spend the day with me just walking around the city, going to the Brisbane museum, going to Newtown for a delicious lunch, and going to the powerhouse museum...and taking the Brisbane City cat which is the ferry service that runs down the Brissy river.


Waiting for the ferry...

Now in case you are wondering...this is the biggest 'gourmet' burger I have ever seen/eaten! It had like olive paste, gourmet lettuce, a hand made beef patty, swiss cheese, some special tomato sauce (not the one from a bottle)...it was absolutely delicious...and its from this little cafe in Newtown which we had to take the ferry for...highly recommended and luckily I have remembered how to get there...served with chunky chips and the triple berry shake was quite nice too :)

One of my more memorable meals :P good food, surroundings, weather, drink, and company :)

So after lunch, we went to the powerhouse museum, which had an exibition on about the researchers living in Antartica...it was pretty interesting and the decor was definitely old graffiti style. Here is me sitting on a wall outside the museum...looks a bit like St James in Singapore right (so I have heard)? haha...

Inside, it was pretty deserted (maybe coz we went on a weekday), but the displays and photographs were good and pretty entertaining...there was even a Tiger at the bar :P...inspired by the numerous photos...I tried my hand at the artistic photos

Of course one of the reasons why I went to Queensland was to do a bit of Scuba diving in the warm/hot brisbane sun...and it was definitely that when we drove up to Sunshine Coast. Ok...this was probably my fault for assuming, but I booked the scuba dives thinking that we were going to do a wreck dive (of a sunken naval frigate the HMS Brisbane)...but we missed the one and only morning wreck dive and had to settle for a normal reef dive. Saw the normal marine life you would normally see, but I did improve my bottom time and really controlled my breathing...even outlasting the DM who were accompanying us...haha :) Heading out to the deep blue sea...

Life in Brisbane is a bit like Perth...very peaceful and quiet with the weather a bit like S'pore (tropical..hence the mango seasons) and usually pretty sunny all year round (its in the middle of a drough atm..so the lack of rain is not good for the farmers).

Oh, and on 1 of the days Ant took me to one of these 'hidden' Taiwanese resturants in the suburbs (Qld has got a very large Taiwanese community). There were chinese magazines, bubble tea and even the menu was in mandarin (needed Ant to recommend and order for me :P) haha.. The pictures below show the outside of the resturant...looks pretty dodgey eh and run-down..ahah..but inside the decor was pretty pleasant :P good call Ant. Special mention needs to be made about the bubble tea they had (to those lovers of bubble tea :)..they had those bubble tea mocktails..where they mixed non-alcoholic flavours together to create some new bubble tea concoction...something other than your usual red, white, green tea. I had an Ali Baba (couldn't describe the taste except I am guessing it had some coca cola in it :P) and a chicken chop rice...delicious!

That night we had Philipino food for dinner, some very sweet cakes and desert at another regular Brisbane hangout..and played a couple of hours of pool :)

The next morning (4am) we left back for Gold Coast airport...and we took the plane back to Sydney...where I went straight back to work *ouch* soooo tired...well rested but still requiring sleep..haha