Theme Parks in Gold Coast, Australia

Studying in Australia for 1 1/2 years from 2005 to 2006 gave my family and me a lot of weekends to explore Brisbane as well as the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. 

Travelling by public transport and going to theme parks is not a problem as you can plan your journey by simply logging on to Translink, a website which gives you the schedule and what buses/trains/ferry to take and where to take it. 

Fortunately for us, since I was a student then I got a concession fare with a 50% discount, my daughter rides for free as she was less than 6 years old then. It's only my wife who pays full fare.

It takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hours one way to get to the theme parks in Gold Coast, so a day trip there coming from Brisbane is possible. We usually wait for discount vouchers found at the back of grocery receipts to save some from the entrance fees.

It was only through browsing my multiply account that reminded me to post these photos. Multipy by the way will no longer be supporting the photo sharing by the end of the year but will focus instead on e-commerce or something to that effect

Dreamworld

This has the fastest and wildest rides among the three parks. Unfortunately, most of them cannot be ridden yet by Angel at the time because she was too young.

This is also the place where the Australian Big Brother is being shot.

watching a show of sponge bob and friends

the claw

Lunch at Home on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon

When not on travel, Sundays are usually spent at home to laze around since the following day is the start of a new work and school week.

Having done our grocery and attended an anticipated mass the day before, that's what we did. We slept late and woke up late. Aside from a cleaning lady who visits us twice a week to also cook for us, the food preparation is left to my wife for the rest of the week.

Since we had some left over food from the previous week, we decided to eat pangat (or pangatlong init or third time to reheat the food, ha ha ha). We are a green family after all. We reduce, reuse and reheat, he he he

Raiding our ref, we saw the pack of spicy bangus (milkfish) bought the previous week and which my wife wanted to eat ever since we bought it. However, since we always get home late, she was unable to have what she wanted. Now was the day where she had a lot of time. And that's what she did. It was not as spicy as we would have wanted. Also, we later found out that it was not boneless.

Don't Worry, Be Happy: It's World Smile Day!

This Friday, 5 October 2012, we celebrate World Smile Day.

It was Hervey Ball, a commercial artist from Worcester, Massachussetts, who created the smiley face in 1963. He was hired by the State Mutual Life Assurance Company from his hometown to create a happy face to raise the morale of the its employees. He drew a face with a bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, full smile and creases at the sides of the mouth. The happy face was done in 10 minutes and Hervey Ball was paid $45 for the creation.

However, Hervey noticed that, through the years, the symbol he created beceme over-commercialized, and that its original meaning and intent got lost. Because of this concern, he conceived the idea of a "World Smile Day", so that at least one day each year everyone could devote it to smiles and kind acts throughout the world. He declared the first Friday in October each year as the "World Smile Day" which began in 1999.

Brunch at Papa John's

Nope, Papa John is not a term of endearment for somebody's boyfriend. It's one of the newer pizza joints that sprouted in Metro Manila.

Being a Sunday, we woke up late, which was the reason why we didn't have the time to have our breakfast as we had to catch the 10 AM mass.

Ox Brain: Food for the Brain?

We got a chance to have lunch again at Behrouz near Shopwise Sucat last weekend. When we asked our daughter where she wanted to have lunch, she immediately said Mang Inasal. But when she found out that we're going to do our weekly grocery in Sucat, she immediately changed her mind and blurted out "Behrouz".

We parked our car at Shopwise and walked our way to the restaurant, which is about 5 minutes away. When we entered the place, it was half-filled and we picked up a booth, sat and started to order. We're not the adventurous type, so we asked for the same food when we usually dine there.

While waiting, I asked my wife is she wanted to try the ox brain, which had piqued our interest ever since we started eating there but never had the courage to try it. A plateful costs P80, so what the heck, we called the waiter once again and asked to have the ox brain also.

from left (clockwise) - ox brain, 2 small shawarma, beef kebab and shawarma rice without the rice