When Kitty comes to town...

22 July 2007, Sunday - "Stolen thunder...."

Who else but Uncle Sam would send his representative to make his presence felt in the world and boast of it's military prowess....

The air craft carrier - Kitty Hawk - has come to Brisbane.

F-16s on deck under full exposure to the Australian sun... (perhaps to get rid of the mouldy smell?)

Having not seen an air craft carrier before (except Esmond who saw the same Kitty Hawk when he was attached to the SG Navy during his NS days), Heng Onn, Haw, Yan Er and Rach pooled into the green Mazda and went in search for the big, metal kitty...

There were even boats that you can charter so that you can get nearer to the air craft carrier....

Not long after, another ship appeared.... The appearance of this ship seriously stole the Kitty's thunder...

Where's Kitty?

Overshadowed by the cargo tanker.... Kitty's not that big after all...

And this big ship is maneuvered by 2 other ships a fraction of its size... tug boats...

They push and they pulled to get the tanker in position for docking....

Apart from the tanker stealing Kitty's thunder, there were other items that stole its thunder...

A busted Isuzu ute?

2 dead mullets that are about 1m long.... (salted fish anyone?)

Big foot?

Hot dogs and ice creams...

Last but not least, police on horseback....

How not to have thunder stolen?

Congratulations - Graduands of 2007!!!


20 July 2007, Friday - University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland.

Dear Sis,

After almost about 12 months, your BIG day has come. A very big congratulations to you. You did it! You are now a Graduate!!! We are all so proud of you! This is one of the bigger milestone in life and you've crossed it with flying colours ...

It's a day where parents, family and friends beam with pride when they see they child /sibling / friend go up the stage to accept that much coveted piece of paper (in actual fact - just an empty plastic tube) from the old Chancellor's hand (and in Australia's case, have your name - especially Asian Dialect Name - read in a most amusing manner....)









You are now a Graduate of the Bachelor of Science!

Here's a recap of your graduation ceremony.....

Your graduation ceremony was held in the morning session, so you had to be at the uni to sort out your gown etc by 8.30am. Guests start arriving at 10am before the official proceeding begins around 11am.

The ceremony starts with the MC addressing the guests, followed by graduands' entrance into the auditorium, procession of the academic staff, speech by the Vice Chancellor of UQ, speech by guest of honour and finally the Chancellor giving out the "priceless" tube of plastic....

After about 2 hours, the graduands are officially off the Uni's books (or pasal...) and released into reality (i.e. the cool, cruel corporate world). But before you people proceed with your further studies / career, you goofeed around a little and take shots after shots to commemorate one of your biggest day in their life. We have.....

The classic pose....

The Class Photo....



The lend me your "square hat"group ....










The 3 friends who did not go up to receive their Bachelor scrolls and chose to wait for their Honours paper (so had to resort to borrowing gowns and hats from friends who had graduated that day)

The family photo....


And there were also some not so conventional poses....













Graduates from the school of wizardry....














The Hip Hop Graduate and the Kawaii ones?













The very important phone call and the friend who didn't make it to the ceremony but came armed with a present ...

Photo after the return of the gown and taken in the famous hallway of University of Queensland.

Last but not least - The Graduand's Portrait.

Congrats Sis. You've made it....

P/s: Now you can go earn big bucks and belanja your sis!!!

The Most Eastern Point of Mainland Australia - Part 2

15 July 2007, Sunday - Byron Bay again...

This time, we went with Meng Li who couldn't make it for our earlier trip as she had gone to Stanthorpe with 姑姑。

As usual, we started our journey bright and early in the morning.

We headed straight for Cape Byron, and again started at the foot of the hill, making our way up to the light house.

We also made our way to the "real" most eastern point... and this time, we really went to the point....

Esmo and ML decided to skip the stairs and take the "rolling path" (see previous entry...)

Getting close to the edge... er... a little too close perhaps?

Crystal clear blue water!!! How I wish I could jump right in!!! Don't you?

And as usual, there are still men sitting on the ledge of a cliff. But this time, they've come armed with their weapons - fishing rods....

and knife - to gut their catch...

Sharing the catch (mainly guts) with seagulls....

There were also some impromptu artist that left his work in the sand....

But there's no denying the works left by Mother Nature....

Good Trip - as usual....

1m Long Pizza.....

14 July 2007, Saturday - Milton

Good company, good food.... what more can we ask for?

Dessert! (of course!) haha... Which we had, at Freestyle - Rosalie - Yummy....

FestItalia

01 July 2007, Sunday - RNA showgrounds

After hearing so much about FestItalia on the radio, we decided to check it out and fill our tummies with delicious Italian cuisine...









As expected, parking was a nightmare. Fortunately, after much patience and a lot of rounding the neighbourhood, we found a spot.

It was quite a long walk towards the showground and when we got to a gate, we were told that we were at the wrong gate!!! So we had to go back round and get to the other side of the showground.

When we were there, we found that it wasn't as big as we had thought. We made a beeline for the food and queued, and queued and queued....

As there were no ATMs in sight and we had limited funds, we had to choose really carefully at what we wanted to get our hands on. So we decided to try some Italian food that were not common. It was no easy task having to choose from a galore of delicious looking food.

But we still filled our tummies with some very nice grub!



Forgot what this dish was called. Though it didn't look appetising, it was quite yummy... much to our surprise..







The mini, mini pancakes were also very very nice!







Apart from food, there were also some cultural shows and plays.













There were also Italian cars and bikes....

Last but not least, the famous mask....

There was also something very strange....

He scared the shit out of a few people - adults and children alike...









However, despite all these stuff going on, we found that there are some people that are just not interested....


Who could forget the famous bubble wraps? How many of us have compulsively, obsessively GOT TO burst those bubbles?!









Conclusion, good fun. Not bad for free entries.