Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The Race that Inebriates the Nation

On this drizzly Tuesday afternoon, the biggest annual sporting event in Australia was held. We sauntered up to the Retired Serviceman's League to catch all the action of the 2005 Melbourne Cup. The favorite, Makybe Diva, won for an unprecedented third year in a row. The announcers drummed her up to be as great as the mighty Phar Lap and dubbed this race as one of the greatest events ever in Australian sport, surpassing the time a kangaroo was used to tote around a six-pack of beer during the lunch breack of cricket match. We're glad we changed out of our pajamas for such a milestone.

The R.S.L. was packed to the brim with intoxicated pensioners and the like, all drinking and punting in anticipation of the race. Hard to believe that at 3pm on a Tuesday so many people found the time to get so sloshed. Again, the R.S.L. is the best place in town to snicker at the incoherence of Aussie speech and slang. Goes up exponentially with age, too.

In our first attempt at betting on Australian horses, we failed miserably. But with 24 horses comprising the field over a two mile distance, you couldn't expect much success. We wagered $40 and won $15.90. Interestingly, no horse was favored less than 2-1 odds, even Makybe Diva. Not a great outing overall, but if it weren't for The Diva we would have been all out.

posted by Peggy C. at 4:33 PM

Monday, October 31, 2005

Yum Yum Sum Sum

To celebrate our first meeting seven years ago this weekend, Peggy and I went to Yum Cha in the CBD today. Yum Cha is the equivalent of Dim Sum back home, but Dim Sum being a smaller component of the larger experience of Yum Cha. In western terms, Dim Sum would be ingredient of eggs and Yum Cha would be the meal, breakfast.

I've always held an aversion to unregulated commercial food consumption, due to the fact that I usually get summarily stuffed less than five minutes into the affair. All-You-Can-Eat buffets and Sushi Boat restaurants being the main offenders. More so the latter of the two, which falls into the Dim Sum category of not requiring the guest to have to stand up before consume further quantities.

Waistlines be damned, to the Sky Phoenix we went (with Thomas) for a pork-filled Sunday brunch. The Yum Cha cart ladies were really quite funny, especially when asked to explain the difference between Dim Sum and Yum Cha. After a few tries, we pieced together a composite answer to our question. I also pondered whether or not the cart driving ladies worked on commission, per dish peddled, or just worked as a flat rate. We had a hard time thinking of creative ways to tell them 'no', we didn’t want the mushroom sticky buns or prawn and spinach dumplings.

Peggy also dubbed the Yum Cha / Dim Sum experience as 'the worst place to let your toddler run amok', given that there are dozens of Chinese women narrowly intertwining the aisles with large metal carts, each one packed full of enough bean curd to knock at least a few years off a child's life.

posted by ncawthon at 4:57 AM

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Halloweenies

We celebrated Halloween in style Saturday night, at a party in a bar in Chatswood. We also celebrated a narrow defeat of my cricket team, as we lost by only 20 runs (that is a really close score in cricket.) Our best game in several seasons, according to the team veterans.

I made my Marge Simpson outfit. A few tips if you plan on making on the same costume yourself: if you spray paint styrofoam balls red for a necklace, some of the red paint may come off the styrofoam and coat your neck and chin with a thin red veneer that does not come off after two showers and lots of scrubbing. Also, the large blue polyester helmet is quite heavy, and wearing a 10 pound weight on your head will give you a minor headache for twenty-four hours, as well as cause lots of problems walking under trees on the sidewalk. But I survived my ordeal, and was voted unanimously by Nick to have the best costume at the party.

Keeping in theme, Nick attend the party as Sideshow Bob, using a rented costume. The folks at the Bondi Junction costume shop said that "no one in Australia sells ready-made costumes," and we fell for it and rented the costume. It turns out that the costume shop people were a bit wrong, as the dollar store in Bondi Junction sold ready-made witches outfits. Not a great costume, mind you, but the dollar store is just about in sight of the costume shop ... no one expects to find things easily here so both us Americans and the Australians bought the line. At least the cheap costume worked out well for The German Friend, Thomas, who got a witches' hat, a cape and some glow-in-the-dark face paint. The glow-in-the-dark face paint didn't glow, but it was scary enough as it looked as if he had a thick layer of moisturizer on his face for the party.

posted by Peggy C. at 6:58 PM