dragons and roar

Looks like I have some catching up to do - its been a week between posts. Well, here's the highlights package:

Monday-Wednesday: Can't really remember the first half of the week. Couldn't have been that exciting. All I remember is rain, lots of it, and getting my shoes and socks wet walking through a flooded tunnel on the way to the gym one afternoon.

Thursday: Went to Chinatown after work for a Chinese New Year dinner. It was good, both the food and entertainment. Oh and the company was awesome too of course. The food consisted of an 8 dish Chinese banquet, which was good, some stuff there that I hadn't tried before. They had the dragon dance which actually came into the restaurant and was right beside our table at one stage, that was entertaining with some sweet acrobatics involved, as was the drum beat the dragons danced to. Highlight of the night was actually this Chinese magician dude who came around to the tables to do all sorts of tricks. With some of them it was obvious enough to spot the trick when you looked closely enough (what do you expect from a table full of engineers?), but there were a few which stumped us. The one in particular which had us amazed was one which involved placing two twenty cent coins on top of each other under a glass, swirling the glass around and making one of the coins go through the table. We were convinced he was using trick coins, but after giving him our own coins, he did it again. They say a good magician never performs the same trick twice to a certain audience, but this guy pulled it off.

Friday: Headed up to Brisbane again, this time to watch the QLD Roar play Sydney FC in the second leg of the A-League minor semi final. The trip there was interesting to say the least - I had to walk from Roma Street station to Suncorp Stadium, and was less than a quarter of the way when it started bucketing down rain. When I say bucketing, I mean bucketing. It was almost horizontal at one stage and absolutely stung my face as I tried to walk into it, so I managed to find a little shelter, but by this stage I was absolutely drenched to the bone and all I cared about was the wellbeing of my phone, ipod and digital camera. Anyway, it eventually died down a bit and so I figured that since I was already soaked I may as well go for it. Got there, and my seat was about 5 rows from the front, behind the Sydney bench. The match was delayed by half an hour because of the wet field, but the rain had stopped by the time I got there, and when the action did start it was definitely worth the wait and the sogginess. Roar won 2-0 and I lost my voice by about the 20th minute. Caught the train back home in the cold of the air conditioning, which didn't help when I was wearing a wet shirt...

Saturday: Took advantage of the sunny day and dried out my car, which had a pool of water sitting in the foot well of the back seat - a result of wet weather and the damage I sustained from the accident letting the water in. Absorbent paper towel did the trick, in a move inspired by a Simpsons episode.

Sunday: Went to the beach today, had a great day. Exhausted by the end of it. Got a sunnies tan again... I never learn, do I. I forgot to put sunscreen on my face.

Anyway that's about it, I'm off to bed. Though I don't know if I'll be able to get to sleep very quickly though, had a nanny nap this arvo after getting home from the beach.