Sunday, July 13, 2003  

Where: Uncle Manjit's House, Brisbane
When: 7:02pm local time

My brother turned 10 on Friday and to celebrate we've been taking the kids -- that's all 13 of us grandchildren -- out to theme parks on the Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane. All the major theme parks are located out here, and there were even proposals to bring Disneyland here before Hong Kong offered a better deal. The only downside is that for some incredibly bizarre reason, the theme parks close at 5pm. Yes, it's winter, and thus it gets dark by around 5, but still it's ridiculous, especially since Disneyland -- the gold standard for theme parks -- only really comes alive at night.

And so because we tend to be late-rising people and because the parks close early, we spent both Saturday and Sunday at Dream World, a generic Aussie park with the usual rides and a local touch in the form of native wildlife attractions (koalas, kangaroos, etc). I've got a ton of pics to share from that, but my laptop still doesn't have a reliable connection to the Internet so I can't upload them just yet.

There's no rest for the wicked either because on Monday we're finishing off the madness with a trip to Warner Bros Movie World, the big park out here. It should be fun but to be honest I'm totally exhausted already. I've never been one for rides -- not being a fan of heights things like roller coasters are not exactly my thing -- so I've been trying to look after the kids instead ("trying" being the key word). I gave up on Sunday and just strolled around instead. Oh, and I ate a lot of ice cream too. Ice cream is good.

Posted at 7:20 PM

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