Champions League Final 2008

It was a dark and stormy night.

At least it was in Moscow, where the 2008 Champions League Final was to be played.

Well it wasn't that dark and stormy, but it did start raining in the middle of the match.

And what a match it was. The best player from each of the sides (Man Utd and Chelsea) scored to effectively cancel each other out. Header from Cronaldo, then a way-too-easy goal for Lampard.

In all fairness, Chelsea should have won it, even though I hate them. They were the better team. But football doesn't work that way. If you win, you win.

The reason I say Chelsea should have won was because, out of nowhere, Drogba pulls off a rocket from 20 metres out and hits the post. Then Lampard does pretty much the same thing in extra time.

Drogba got sent off for slapping Vidic. That was pretty anti-climatic. Then penalties.

There must be a better way to decide who wins a tied game. Surely. I can't think of a better way, but someone, somewhere in the world should be able to. Something that tests skill, teamwork, creativity, endurance and heart, rather than a spin of the wheel of luck.

What happened during the penalty shootout was both ironic and unfair. Cronaldo, 42 goals for the season, almost never misses a penalty, decides to unleash the tool within on the third Man Utd penalty. He tries to fake the keeper, who, after watching him jig around for about five minutes, knows he's going to go right, because he can't possibly hit it left. So he saves. And Cronaldo falls to the ground, crying. Then on the fifth Chelsea penalty, el Capitano dos Chelsea, John Terry, takes the penalty for the win. Except he slips. And the ball goes out off the right post. John Terry, who tries his heart out every game for Chelsea, misses the penalty that would have given Chelsea they're first ever Champions League trophy.


Sorry, this is a bit of a delayed post. I kind of forgot about it, then remembered about it today. I'm sure you've all been hanging out for it. Enjoy.

Stuff

Yeah, stuff happens at uni. Uni's like a catalyst for random happenings. Take, for instance, the following incident.

So me and Chen were on the bus, enjoying ourselves, having a good time. Or, a good a time as you can have taking a bus to uni. So yeah, we were happy. Or at least I was. Then we got to uni, and got off the bus. What happened next was weird. This then-unknown girl got off the bus as well and asked us for our numbers. Chen and I, being the obliging fellows that we are, said yes. Upon reflection, we're too nice to people. So after grabbing our numbers, she asks us for our names. Andrew x 2. That'd be alright. Except now that she's armed with our numbers, we get a call on our phones at about 11 the next week. So I ignored it (as you do). And all was well.

Then last week, somebody with the initials JC who does law-commerce and shall remain unnamed, stole my phone and messaged her. And now all hell will break loose because of that one message. Just because of that one message, I'm forever in fear of her (name's Jing, by the way) finding me. Sleepless nights from fear of my phone going off. I hope your conscience eats at you, JC.

In other news, I've supposedly seen the new Arsenal Jersey. It's supposed to look like this:


I don't like it. I like the old one more. I don't know who the hell designs these things or if they have a brain. I hope it's fake.

Pho-am

The title is not pho-am, contrary to what any sane person would think. As in, you'd think it was pronounced [fo - am]. But no. According to Nigel, Master of Unlame Jokes, it's pronounced FOAM. Like, I was made to think it was pho, with added amness. But apparently not.

Now, how did we get into this dumb conversation about pho-am? Banh's pho party, of course. The 18th that never was. All very exciting stuff. Location: Banh's house. Time: 7 o' clock Friday. How to find it: invisible balloons tied outside the house. And car with headlights on.

So I got there, chilled with Jono and Tim(?) for a bit, watching 30 Rock. Then Nigelz rocked up in his scarf. After everyone got there (I can't be stuffed naming all of them), we rocked the party of pho. Yeah. We all got pho. Of the chicken variety. And ate. Then spring rolls. It was good. Thanks Banh's mum for the spring rolls.

Harry Potter was up next. It seems so much funnier when you have a bunch of sick-minded freaks in the same room watching it. A good laugh.

Before I knew it, Meng was calling me on Banh's phone. Dot dot dot, you might say. Well, I say that Banh's house has no reception, except on his phone. Anyway, Meng was calling me to tell me to call my mother because she was looking for me. What do you know? Anyway, it was time for me to go. So I said some tearful farewells, and promptly left the party. I was the first one out of there, but you know what they say. You should leave a party before you're the last one there. Or something like that. Thanks Banh.

In other news, nothing much else has happened. Upset a few people, futilely looked for a new pair of jeans, etc. I must work on my social life.

It's been a while

Hey friends. Long time no see. A lot has happened in the 3 months (I think) since I blogged. To put that in to perspective, that's a quarter of a year. It's a long time. Basically, this blog will just sum up all the stuff that's happened so that I can get on to some actual stuff of interest.

So after our interesting journey to Harbin, we came back to GZ. Then we took off to Macau. I'm not going to go in to much detail there, because it's Macau, and frankly, it wasn't that interesting. We went there for a day, we didn't gamble, we went to a swanky hotel, had Boost there (we met an Australian lady there) and ate some Fat Burgers. Later on, we went to a place were they sold pork burgers and were my dad claimed he and Michelle got food-poisoned. Photos will be up on my Flickr page.

So after coming back to GZ yet again, we left to return to Australia. There were many tearful farewells, due to the fact that Carmen, my cousin/aunty (caunty? ausin?) was coming with us to study in Oz. Pretty much everyone cried, due to various reasons. But, I'm a man, and everybody knows that men don't cry. They can't afford to.

So yeah, back in Australia, we realised how lucky we were to be living in somewhere clean, mostly thief-free and just generally nice.

So yeah, birthday party on the 1st of February, 2008. The big one-eight. Basically, not that much to say. Like, basically everybody who reads this blog attended, plus others who don't. Just some thank-yous to be expressed to the people who attended the small humble get-together and thank-you for the gifts. Sorry to those who couldn't come. I tried.

2nd of February was my real birthday. So me and my family, and family friend, went out to dinner. While there, who did I see but Mr. Stalker himself...I mean, Banh. Again. Twice in two days. It was good though. Actually seeing a friend on my birthday. Anyway, dinner was good, along with Banh wishing me happy birthday. An enjoyable day, all in all. Must visit the casino when I get the chance.

Then uni. I'm doing Arts/Commerce, by the way. At Monash, Clayton. Enrolment was terrible. Like, no friends, had to find my way around the freaking place, all that jazz. Orientation was pretty cool. Caught up with a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a while. Had to go in twice due to double degree.

Then it began. The first week was a bludge. all introductory stuff. I wonder why. People (namely Meng) were all pumped about first lecture, first tute, first lunch at uni, first instance of falling on the ground at uni, first visit to the toilet. I just couldn't understand that. I mean, it doesn't have the same zing as high school. Maybe because we've already been forced through that whole acclimatisation process twice now. But then again, so has Meng. So I still don't understand.

I dunno. The moment before the first lecture was exciting, because I got lost along with Stef, so I met my first friend at uni. Then the lecture was riveting. For about the first five seconds. Then I was like: "She keeps going on about coffee and chocolate." That was microeconomics. I'm doing Accounting, Micro, International Studies, and Linguistics. There's a clash between Linguistics and Accounting lecture, so I'm supposed to be in two places at once. I was going to be like "Stuff you, accounting," but the bogan of a lecturer doesn't record lectures. I don't understand that either. Like, he says it's to stop people wagging. Why does he care? I'm understanding less and less.

So yeah, met a few new people. Not that many though. Basically because everywhere I go, I meet comrades who have been through many a battle with me. Not that I go that many places. Law Library, ftw.

Easter break was dumb. Seriously, a week. I have Mondays and Fridays off anyway.

Work's ridiculous right now. That's why I'm blogging. Remember how I had that ridiculous habit, where the amount of blogging that I do has a direct positive correlation to the amount of work I have due. I'm starting to settle into uni life, and starting to feel comfortable with new friends. I'll start blogging regularly from now on. I promise.

Harbin - the cold, the freezing, freezing cold

Hmm. Where to begin. A lot has happened in the past four weeks. As in, a lot. I can't even remember half of it. So I guess I better begin where I left off. I'll make it quick because I want to rave about Corey Delaney and his ill-bred antics.

So, I went to Harbin and some nearby states in China's frigid, frozen north with family and extended non-essential others for a week.

Day 1
Basically, it was alright the day we got off the plane. Had a bit of a wander around town. A very dynamic picture of the first day:


Day 2
Not so alright. We got snap-frozen. The temperature dropped to about negative 15. Like, it was cold. It's kinda hard to describe without using cliches. I felt like I was freezing from the inside. I thought it was cold then. I didn't know what was coming the next day. Anyway, on Day 2, we went to, I think it was, the biggest snow ranch in Asia. It was big, but there was nothing there. So we opted to go on a cable car up to the top of the mountain and back down on toboggans. The cable car was downright dangerous. What they did was, the cable car's coming, then they push you on to it. So I got pushed on to it, then I saw these support poles that were leaning at very dangerous angles. Plus my car was broken. Here are some photos taken from there:

This one's of my broken car:



After that debacle, we went on the toboggans. Even our native tour guide, who foolishly followed us up, complained of how cold it was on the way down. My nose was about to fall off after it. If you've ever been to Gumbuya Park, it's like those toboggans, except for the inexplicable stopping and starting. But yeah. It was cold. Like riding a bike in negative degree weather. Here's a picture I took during one of the stops.


It was so cold, my dad got a head cold, which resulted in him dressing up, as he described it, "like Arafat."

Yes, I am a merciless papparazo. My thought/question for that day was: "Why does it seem like midnight at 4 P.M???"

Day 3
We went to a country town in the mountains. The bus ride was adventure enough, with a combination of shoddy suspension and poor road building playing havoc with my brain and the food I was trying to hold down in my stomach. My head hit the roof three times. No joke. Like, I bounced up and hit the roof. From a sitting down position. Stationary. Probably because I was sitting in the back. Then we got off the bus. I felt like there were shards of ice sticking out from my body. There was wind. Fierce, fierce, bone chilling, freezing, arctic-grade winds, combined with negative 20-something temperature. It was cold. Then we six of us had to sleep in a bed for five. Yes. One bed for six people. As shown below:

Best sleeping conditions ever. They tried to split the men (me and dad) off from our family to sleep with other men, which was as scary as it sounded. My dad flatly refused, while making the point that we were already helping them out by only taking a five person bed for the six of us.

I also took these pictures:



Let me tell you how hard it was to take it. It was snowing, freezing and the wind was howling. My glasses had steamed up, which, in normal weather, wouldn't have been that bad. But in this place, the lenses on my glasses frosted over. So basically, those photos above were taken when I was half-blind.

Well, anyway that was pretty fun. Except for the fact that I had wind blowing on my freaking ear for the whole night. And the fact that the log fire under the bed stopped burning in the middle of the night. And the lack of showering facilities and minimal toilet facilities. So really, it wasn't all that fun. But it was all for the sake of the views that we attained. I'd like to tell you it was all worth it, but it really wasn't. I mean, I weathered torrential snow and painful cold to bring you photos like this (these were taken the next morning when it wasn't so bad):

Random photos taken when we were pretty damn bored:


Plenty more at my Flickr. Also, there were many fireworks. I think it was because it was approaching New Years Day, and government officials had siphoned off enough money to leave some over. This photo was taken at the mountain:

while this was taken somewhere the day before:

Day 4
After taking some photos in the morning, we hopped back on the bus, but not on the back this time. Then we found out sitting in the middle was almost as bad as the back, except the ceiling was higher, so you couldn't hit your head. When we arrived at our destination, we found that it was at a frozen waterfall. It was actually pretty nice.

Then we went to this frozen lake, which was also pretty nice.

Me being fully tank and chopping a board of snow:


Then we went to a hotel with a communal cat. Then we had a full-on laughing session after my cousin said to the cat "Luckily for you, we're not you're typical Cantonese people, otherwise you'd already be supper." But in all seriousness, the cat wouldn't leave even when we wanted it to. It curled up and slept. Like so:


I mean, what if someone had a cat allergy?

Day 5
Alright, I wiped up some coffee with a towel on Night 4 (or the night of Day 4, to simplify things...or not). So the next day, the hotel tries to make us pay for it. Then my parents had a massive tiff with management. I mean, get over it. It's a coffee stain on an already ragged looking towel. I'm sure they would've preferred it if we left it to drip on to the carpet. So after we overcame that adversity, we trundled on to our next destination - Long White Mountain (direct translation). But first, a photo from the hotel that morning:

I also found a fake palm tree outside the hotel, which was really quite amusing. At least I thought so.


Fir trees I understand, but one should not dream of the impossible (palm trees in a frozen wasteland).

So we went to Long White Mountain, which was pretty much touted as the highlight of the trip. I was quite happy with it, and felt that we could've gone there for an extra day and skipped out on the five-person bed experience. We saw the Olympic snow statue thingo...

...and one with TB's posing in front (that's supposed to be a heart shape formed by the arms)...


...found out that even the bins look prettier there than the rest of the north-eastern bins...


...and met a neo-John Lennon wannabe on the way.


So we took a car up Long White Mountain to see the much-acclaimed frozen lake up there. And here is a picture I took while up there:


I risked my life (and my camera) taking that photo. The wind was huge. It was like a hurricane. And my glasses kept fogging up and frosting over. Did I mention is was cold? So I almost stepped on a rock and fell off the cliff. Just to bring y'all this photo. And another one:


This was another one that I took in the relative safety of the car back down:


As you can see, the shots aren't so great when I don't risk my life to take them. I say "relative safety" because we were lucky to be able to go up in a 4WD that day. See, when the path is snowed over, what they do is shove thirty people into an equivalent of a 4WD sized box with a shovel out the front and drive through the snow. We heard horror stories of people fainting of suffocation. Then I raised a point. Since they have snow shovelling machines, why couldn't they just shovel away the snow and let the 4WDs go through? It turns out they stole my brilliant innovation before I had even thought out it. So this year they actually did that. So we were lucky it was a non-snowing day, otherwise we wouldn't have gone up, because it cost a mint of money just to go up in one of those boxes with snow shovels. But it was a pretty good view on the peak of the mountain though.

A photo of me taking a free kick on a snowballish thing and generally being an idiot after we reached the foot of the mountain again:


Our next stop was the waterfall, which also happening to be on the mountain. So we trekked up a slope for about half an hour, beating everyone in our tour group in the process, and saw the promised waterfall. We walked past hot springs/rivers in the process:





I know, some of them aren't springs and stuff, but get over it.

Anyway, when we got there, we had trouble finding the actual waterfall. Truth be told, it was kinda hard to see. I had to use the zoom lens on my dad's camera to see it. Here we go with the photos. The first sight I got of the waterfall:


...and that's about as close as I got. In fact, I seem to have gotten further away from it:


When we went back down, we noticed a novel way that people were cooking eggs and corn, like so:


However, being China, I don't how real that was. Maybe they pre-cooked the eggs/corn and then kept them warm in the springs, instead of actually cooking them in the springs. Who knows. Not me. Anyway, we bought some corn and eggs because it was cold. If there's one thing I learned during my trip to the North-East, it's that anything tastes good when the constituency of your body is more icy-pole than human.

Day 6
Owing to the spectacular breaking down of our top-drawer 50-year-old antique tour bus overnight, we spent most of the morning waiting for it to be repaired. So we took photos in the hotel lobby of course. What better past-time.



There's a rainbow in that pic above. It's on the right.

So around lunch, our tour bus got fixed, so we hopped on and went to lunch. Outside the restaurant, we saw a "snowman":


I say that with sarcasm, but that's just the way I am. It's actually a pretty good snowman and you can see that a lot of effort has gone into it, indicated by the tin hat and red scarf and all. Like, you'll never see one like in the movies unless someone specially sculpts it with professional equipment (funny, sounds like something Hollywood would do). At any rate, it's better than any snowmen that we created.

Then we buckled in for a six-hour drive, stopping by to purchase some Chinese medicine. It was here that I took some very innocuous-looking photos, one of which is here:

However, I was informed by certain people that, had the people in the shop not been busy flogging their goods of dubious usefulness to our group, they would've charged me ten dollars per photo that I took of the plane. And there was also a sign there saying so, which of course, I couldn't read. Almost owned hard was I.

So at about seven that night, we got to Kunming, which was the next state. Anyhow, they still somehow managed to take us to the places that the promised to, in roughly 25% of the original planned time. So we didn't get any money back. So then we went out for supper of sorts. It was really, really cheap. Like, we fed our whole family for like 20 AUS dollars.

Day 7
This was the penultimate day. For this last day, we experienced the splendour and wealth of China by visiting a square that they had built for the people, all while the said people were starving and cold. Then we went and toured a picturesque river thing. Photos below.




We then visited this temple thing, which was next to the lake thing (man my vocab is huge). There, I took awesome photos of pegs:


Well, we flew back to GZ that night and, even though it was 15 degrees, it felt sweltering. Anyway, just a thought: The presence of snow usually indicates very cold temperatures. Should've thought about that before we went there. But it was fun. I'll leave y'all with this photo and see you on my next post.

Happy New Year 2008

A very late happy new year to you all. Readership of my blog has been quite low lately, so I'm probably talking to myself.

Anyway, I've been in Harbin for the past seven days, so I've been missing out on football and general internetness. I'll probably blog about it when I can be stuffed in the next few days. It was cold. That's all I can be stuffed saying right now.

So yeah. This is the first year since 13 years ago when we won't have proper schooling. Aren't we all excited? Yeah. I didn't think so. Anyway, have a great year. May it bring you much, much more joy and happiness than last year. I hope to God that this year will be better.

Hong Kong - the hustle, the bustle

So, Hong Kong was mostly shopping and eating and walking and talking and going to the toilet. There were a lot of people on the streets. Like, a lot. As in, you couldn't walk a 50 metre street in 10 minutes. This was probably owing to the fact that we went the few days before Christmas, it was the weekend, and general Hong Kongness i.e. people walking around, but not actually buying stuff. It was pretty hot for "winter".

There was a highlight that was really, really awkward. Like playing-Backstreet-Boys-on-your-phone-in-the-elevator-when-a-complete-stranger-walks-in awkward. Which is exactly what happened. Hilarity abounds.

We went to Disneyland on Monday, which was the pretty funs (photos here). It was a bit small though. We finished walking around in about four hours. We went on this space ride thingo, the train, and went to see the Lion King show. We bought lotsa stuff. Which pretty much sums up our Hong Kong adventure.

We'll be travelling to Ha Er Bin (further north than Beijing) for seven days. A bit of negative 30 degrees. Until next time, ciao.