Family Holiday

Its been an amazing 2 weeks. I dun think so much "family time" has been spent in 1 go for ages.
Brief account of what we did:

• Jack and mum arrived on thursday - we stayed home for dinner
• Friday went to buy sashimi, then picked up dad. Took jack out for a run to one tree hill except we never quite made it there....Stayed home for dinner, then went out to meet some good friends for dessert (and received many nice presents, thanks!), went home for cake, then went out to skycity again to chat and hang ard.
• Saturday slept most of the day - and eventually had 團圓飯 at night - awesome steamboat that mum prepared. Jack taught me heaps of drinking games and we played while drinking =)
• Sunday passed by in stupor
• Monday lunch we went to lunch at Empress Garden with Madelene and Miles (our neighbours), had an awesome meal, so much duck. Then we went to Muriwai beach to walk around (initially wanted to take this walk, however it was very bushy full of thorns and dad refused to take it), so we ended up going to see the birds again at muriwai ( i havn't done that for many many years). Its interesting to see that surf beach again after so many years... Then we went to eat at Wendy's (Jack's fav, at his request), afterwhich i went home and come back to hamilton
• The rest of the week passed by uneventfully until...
• Thursday, family came down in the evening. Vidya and me took them to the South Indian restaurant at Peachgrove Rd for dinner. Dad really enjoyed the Curry, and i havn't seen mum eat so much rice in ages! Then we went to the hamilton lake to walk around...that was my 1st time walking around the lake, and first time walking ard the lake in complete darkness too! How i wished we owned a house right beside the lake...
• Friday after half a day at hospital, i met up with family for lunch. Mum took us to this sushi lunch bar, owned by koreans, who happened to supply the sushi to the hospital! So i ended up eating like 20 yummy sushi, the same as the ones i have in hospital all the time. Hehe. The salmon sashimi they had on the sushi was huge tho. We then went to explore hamilton gardens for a while before returning to auckland. Went to 天府四川restaurant in manukau for dinner. It was nice - except the restaurant has deteriorated in quality over the years - they used to have performances and long teapots where they pour you tea etc ...but not now. The food was ok tho. Then it was home
• Saturday drove to coromandel. Woke up like afternoon so we only got to coromandel by 430, went to walk around in long bay, took this kauri tree walk but i was talking and missed seeing the tree!! so dumb. We then went home and went to Pepper Tree restaurant for dinner. Had this seafood indulgence thing and pasta and soup. Nice and expensive. Went home, initially disappointed cos mum fell asleep! but 3 hrs later she woke up and we taught mum n dad how to play bridge, and we played all the way till 330am =P
• Next morning woke up, had a nice family breakfast with toast and cheese with earl grey tea. And watermelon after. Then we went to take the Driving Creek Railway into the forest. We had to wait for 1 hour for the ride, it was crowded and we didn't book but we eventually did make it. Then we left coromandel for Ruapaka Gardens to visit the Cascade waterfall - it was a nice walk, nice garden, and a nice waterfall = ) Cost $10 tho... After that we drove the scenic route (pacific highway) back to akl through Kawakawa bay and Whitford. Stopped at Pakuranga mall for a very filling dinner at the Thai restaurant there. I ate so much once again its not funny. Then we had the stomach to drive to mission bay for more ice cream!! AFter lining in the queue for ages (how come movenpick is ALWAYS filled by asians?? like mostly asian customers...) finally got the ice cream. It was too windy and cold (surprisingly) so we stayed inside and didn't walk the beach. After that we returned home and I almost crashed into bed right away.
• Monday morning and afternoon was taken up by burning CDs for jack and sorting out stuff...AFter sending jack and dad to the airport, i returned home then caught a ride back to hammy with nilofer (thanks niffy...who filled me in with some really interesting stories)

And that concludes my Chinese New Year Holiday!

Now its time to study for OSCE...

Internet is a bit slow now so i can't upload photos - but will do so when i can be stuffed =)

Hope Chinese New Year was as fulfilling for you guys!! Man, the amount of food i ate ... how many millions of starvation can be relieved...!!!

Question: My brother keep asking me that he had this beer called Amber Ale in Sydney. Has any one had that before and seen that in NZ? I've never noticed it before...!!! Probably me bad since i only had bourbon in sydney....=P