saturday - SWANS on the coastslept in after a late night, ate a quick breakfast, bid farewell to my sis and bro-in-law, and headed out to spend the rest of the day hanging with the SWANS crew as we prepared to bid farewell to SN, who's moving to sydney and a new job there. after some delays (does a group outing ever depart on time??) we made our way to the gold coast and ate a late lunch of fish and chips at pete's (not sure of the full/actual name... it's just past versace hotel on seaworld drive at the spit). then it was off to wander around at pacific fair where i got bored and was glad to find a wireless connection to check mail and do some reading while the others browsed clothes, perfumes etc. finally we ended up at the beach where we threw around a frisbee in failing light and marvelled at the rising moon, which promptly had us all scurrying to whip out our digital cameras.
while the others stayed on the beach, i ran to find a stable platform (the railing on the stairs leading from the street to the beach served nicely) from where i played with some shutter time and iso settings. when i rejoined the others and they saw my results, i shared some basic photography tips on capturing nightscapes (and rising moons :p), which sent them into a fresh round of snapping...
then it was more frisbeeing and trying to avoid getting decapitated in the dimness, before deciding that we were all hungry and needed to eat. out comes the entertainment book, more deliberation and then driving around trying to find the place... and a carpark. we made it in the end to what was supposed to be the
river grill, but our dining experience looks a bit different to what the website describes. anyway, i ate fish for the second time that day. i usually don't order fish for dinner cos i don't think it is sufficiently filling as a meal in itself, but i didn't feel like steak, and i always order chicken... so i picked the snapper fillet for a change (i think it was snapper... but that's from someone whose vocabulary for fish goes about as far as "fish") with cranberry sauce and asparagus.
it was a bit tough, but maybe that's the way it's meant to be - my lack of knowledge about fish extends to how it should be cooked and the differing textures of different fish. i ended up ripping up the meat, cutting the asparagus into shorter strips, and mixing the whole thing in the sauce. someone asked if i was doing a stir fry impersonation; i said i'm just trying to get a good, even distribution of the sauce (and to use it all up). i guess i don't handle knife and fork dining very well :p give me chopsticks... or hands ;) the sauce was quite nice, and while there was enough on the plate for me to not feel hungry, i reckon a 50% increase on the porition size wouldn't have gone astray.
more photography followed after dinner, and more tips and lessons. then we made a short detour to cavill mall in search for gelati, which turned into ice cream. waffle cones are the best :)
back in brisbane, we stood around for a while, saying goodbye and ending the night with a prayer for the departing SWANSter.
sunday - how do i describe this silliness?
it started out innocently enough... the plan following post-church lunch was to go back to shte2's new place (moved into the week before) and watch footage from sisters night 2005. this expanded into watching some
marimba ponies pieces and a few clips by
wong fu productions.
then i was invited to stay for dinner, and while brysie and dook went shopping, and shte2 showed me some
tommy emmanuel performances and instructional videos (impressive stuff!), algae, valley and the manchurian candidate amused themselves for (what seems to be) hours on end shooting videos of themselves play-acting in a world involving singing and chop-socky kung fu action. i only saw a few minutes of this weirdness (wonder what the neighbours thought!) before heading back indoors and hanging out in the kitchen where dinnner was being prepared. brysie's "taiwanese spaghetti bolognese" and dook's "whatever condiments could be found" chicken went down very nicely indeed... i wanted to go for seconds but was already full from my first serving :p
alas, the silliness continued after dinner. growing bored from watching the re-made "the ten commandments", the camera-loving people decided to take photos of themselves using the custom timer setting... after draining brysie's battery, my camera got seconded to the snapping duties.
i'm a bit particular about what i shoot, and reclaimed by camera after two sets which i thought was sufficient... but it was not to be. so i sacrificed my battery for the good(??) of the group and brysie's camera kept flashing away... if you think the above photos are silly, i think there must be close to 100 more on brysie's camera!
so much so much youthful energy struggling to find an outlet... so much posing... so much vanity ;) oh i can't keep up... must be getting old!
