Tuesday, July 22, 2003  

Where: My flat, Brisbane
When: 2:41am local time

We're leaving Australia on Friday, so it's the last few days out here. It's been a really busy trip thus far and the last few days have been no exception.

On Saturday, we all went out for a family picture of all the grandchildren before heading off for a boating session on the river. Despite living in Hong Kong and by the river in London, I don't really take to the water too often or anything. In HK the harbour is way too busy and boat rentals too expensive to have any real fun on (unless you want to go drinking), and the Thames by my old flat in London is dull and lifeless. Here, on the other hand, the river is quiet and the boats are fast, so it was a lot of fun to speed up and down in a friend's boat.

And the next day -- at the extreme insistence of my uncle, who should be credited for his dogged determination to make sure we all have a great time here -- we headed out to do some fishing up on the Sunshine Coast in Noosa. We caught absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing: My uncle caught a branch and my cousin caught some seaweed. Still, I got to skipper one boat and drive it around, which was especially good because I don't even have a driver's license ("it's just like driving a car", says the instructor, "HE DOESN'T HAVE HIS LICENSE", shouts my family). And despite the other boat managing to run aground, stray into a danger zone AND flood their engine, we managed fine under my command. So much for skippers going down with the ship, eh?



That almost brings us up to speed. We're closing off all our affairs here before leaving and the stress of spending most of the day rifling through my grandparents' things (my grandmother died nine years ago but we just put all of her belongings in a warehouse) led the adults to desert the children and seek some alcohol. And the only place in Brisbane open late on a Monday night was the Casino... so, off to the Casino we went. Now, I hate gambling. I hate it because I really don't have good luck with these things, partially because I really don't know how to play most of the games and thus doom myself. I also hate it because I don't really think I have the right mentality for it. Take my uncle, for instance. He started with A$50, worked his way up to $150, but ended the evening back on $50. His reasoning is that he had fun gambling and ended up not having to pay for the priviledge, so it was worth it. I can see that, but I can't agree with it because I'd keep thinking about the winnings. To have had tripled your initial sum and then lost it again would not have been fun for me. But then having said all that, my mom forced me to shove $5 into a slot machine and I won $60 back immediately. I quit then and there and kept the winnings. A good night, for sure.

Posted at 3:32 AM

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