Newcastle APEC Trip
Last Friday, thanks to George W Bush and the APEC conference it was declared a public holiday for the Sydney CBD (translation: it was a long weekend because of APEC). So to take advantage of this new found freedom, Maz, Lil, Tez and myself went up to Newcastle to meet up with EZ, Kel and Ronnie. Yupz its another road trip up north :P. We were also going to meet up with the PwC secondees (Wanyi, Gin and Lizi) who were coincidentally also up north for the long weekend :) Lets all give thanks to APEC! haha... Anyway to start the morning off Maz invited us over for a cooked breakfast (thanks Maz!) of salmon omelette, bacon, and toast (yummy). Here is a picture of the 3 cooks in action (actually it was mostly the gals who did all the cooking) haha... We needed the energy for the long drive ahead haha... the weather didn't look too good unfortunately, but that didn't dampen our spirits or optimism for a good day out for this 'unplanned' long weekend. By reason of background to my overseas friends, the Fri was declared a public holiday (see previous blog) by the NSW government because Sydney became Fortress Sydney during that weekend when the APEC leaders were here (closed train stations, closed roads, 1000+ policemen, etc) so it was pretty much a lock down, they even built a 5km 3m high fence around the Opera House (the site of the conference).. ruining a beautiful landmark temporarily :P. So thats the background for why we got a long weekend! Anyway here are some of the picture that we took whilst waiting for breakfast to be ready...
Me making coffee/latte
Lil manning the bacon and fried tomatoes
Maz with her eggs
Tilly (Maz's dog...very cute, but a little fat ;P) 
Tilly waiting for food :P 
After a huge breakfast, we headed off...thinking it those who were going away for the weekend, would have already left earlier...how wrong we were, it seems that most of Sydney were thinking the same thing (it was such a jam along the freeway leading out of Sydney, we spent about an hour just to travel 15km as per the odometer :P shocking!). Anyway we had lots of time to take photos and chill whilst in the car (Maz was driving the way up). We left at about 11pm...and got to Newcastle at about 1.30pm...an extra hour of driving. The other gals had better luck having left Sydney much earlier :P oh well at least it was a cool and enjoyable drive up. After a couple of hours in the car, we finally reached Newcastle, where we linked up with the rest of the Newcastle people and the PwC gals for lunch (finally).
Us (the PwC secondees...whom you may have recognised as having gone on the Aug ski trip with us...they are very adventurous and good for them! to experience and enjoy Australia whilst they are here) at the 'fish market' area of Newcastle, where we unfortunately arrived too late for Fish & Chips...but had to settle for about 2.5kg of Fresh Tiger Prawns and Chips :P oh well it was late anyway haha... After the 'lunch' we went to Newcastle beach for beach volleyball! haha...yes there are beach volleyball courts in Newcastle, and with it been a weekday (well Newcastle doesn't count as part of the CBD so the APEC holiday doesn't apply to them :P oh well too bad haha)...so we had the whole court to ourselves, played a little 6 v 6...and I think the PwC gals enjoyed themselves ;) (my friends all enjoy volleyball anyway and play regularly). So anyway here are some photos from the beach...
See how deserted the beach was? (just glad that the weather is much much better than before and the sun finally came out...) too bad we weren't in our beach gear :P (as every1 was expecting rain haha). Anyway after the volleyball game, we all went for coffee + drink in one of the more happening streets of Newcastle (I forgot the name of it...I know it starts with a "D") where all the shops and cafes are (a bit like a Subiaco, or Bondi)
After coffee and a good long chat...we went for dinner at a Thai place
Still not done with Newcastle, we still went for Salsa class at the University of Newcastle (ahhh..being a uni student again and mixing it with the 'younger' kids..haha). In the end, since I learnt Salsa, I ended up being sorta like the teacher to some of my friends (only teaching them basic stuff...like single turns) hahah...ahhh good fun, and I also learnt very basic Merigue which is very cool, especially since I had a willing partner in Lil ;) who danced with me :) 
After a hard night of dancing haha...we headed back to Sydney :) tired but happy having known we didn't waste our free public holiday thanks to APEC!posted by Darren at
11:56 PM
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