Sunshine Coast Day Trip (Sunday, 23/12/07)

I went on a day trip to Sunshine Coast yesterday with a bunch of people. Apart from one person (Van), the bunch is made up of members of our Clay group. The day trip was the idea/suggestion of my buddy Ivan, who is back in Brisbane for the Xmas break. We went in 2 cars - Ivan, Maria, myself, BT & Wong in Maria's car; Van, Minnie, Suzanne & Sandra in Van & Minnie's Mercedes. There were lots of banter & laughter in our car, both to & on the return from Sunshine Coast.

Despite the bad weather (there was considerable rain), the roads were busy with commuters travelling up north. We had lunch at the KFC/McDonalds stopover at Caboolture. We then visited the Grace Christian Church Buderim (Suzanne's parent's church) for the afternoon service. However, the service was in Mandarin so most of us couldn't understand! Suzanne might have been the only one who could. Anyway, the church had afternoon tea after the service & we joined them.

Then we hung out at Suzanne's parent's place (nice house!), & had a game of poker, which was apparently won by BT. We later had dinner at a some bar/cafe/restaurant that serves modern Australian cuisine (albeit with selection of various ethnic dishes which were somewhat westernised). The dish I ordered (Thai yellow curry chicken) initially was ok, but as my eating progressed, I soon realised it was not authentic. Phhhahhhh. Mental note for future - only order Thai dishes at Thai dining places. After dinner, we returned to Brisbane.

Unfortunately, it was rainy for large parts of the day, so we couldn't go to the beach, as Ivan had planned (and I borrowed a soccer ball for nothing!). I felt sorry for Ivan. He said Sydney & Melbourne (where he works) were rainy & he came to Queensland for the Xmas break to get the sun, sand & sea (or so he said). But the rainy weather contrived to make that plan impossible. I joked that the reason it rained was the rainy weather followed Ivan all the way to Qld. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed each other's company; as Wong rightly said, it's the company together that counts.

Thank God he brought us all safely back to Brisbane. The 5 people in our car hung out at Maria's place for a while, & I played football with Ivan a couple of times on the Xbox (he hammered me both times) before heading home. It was an enjoyable day!