PLANET DT: Fun, eventful weekend :)

The weekend that just passed was a pretty good, fun-filled, eventful one.

It started on Friday nite, with work's Xmas party at Era Bistro in South Brisbane. It was held after work. We finished early at 4pm so that we can get ready for the party which started at 6pm. I chose to stay at work & hang out with a few colleagues until it was time to head to the Xmas party. The party was a black & white cocktail party. On the whole, it was good, but the food provided was not enough for my liking. It was all finger food & nibbles. The main attraction for many was, of course, the alcohol. Wine was in plentiful supply. Likewise, the beer, but the tab was limited only to Hahn. I can't quite believe that, & was a bit disappointed by the lack of variety. Nevertheless, I drank what I could - but still didn't get quite as drunk as some others. I spent nearly half my time outside the Era Bistro premises chatting with those colleagues who chose to hang outside. At around 11pm, I left & caught a cab home safely.

I spent much of Saturday recuperating (slept in a bit & all that, & so skipped the Clay group picnic) & relaxing. Then come evening, it was time to head over to Sono Japanese Restaurant at Portside Wharf, Hamilton to have a group dinner with a few ex-colleagues - the ones I was close to at my previous workplace. Some of them brought their spouses. We had booked out a private room to ourselves, which overlooked the river. A good decision, according to my friends. We had our shoes off. One of my colleagues brought her baby along, & she misbehaved for a good portion of the dinner (always trying to knock anything that is on the table). The food was delicious. Among other things, it included the sashimi & sushi platter, plus we had the Sono banquet. Very nice - I enjoyed the meal. The seafood was all fresh, everything was clean & superb. The only downer was the green tea ice-cream, which didn't have a strong green tea taste as I would have liked. That aside, it was enjoyable & relaxing. I mean, with the private room, we were pretty much shielded from the noise in the open dining area. Maybe next time, we can seat in the open area. All up, there were 6 of us (including myself, but not counting friend's baby) so the dinner set us back at $69 per head.

That Saturday nite dinner meant I missed out on family dinner with Val & Andrew coming over, for Val's birthday (which is really today, 15/12/08). But never mind, because I was going to catch up with her on Sunday evening at her surprise birthday BBQ at Val & Andrew's complex. It was a late, last minute thing organised by Andrew. Just a few of Val's friends plus myself & BT (my parents were at farewell dinner at their church). BT & myself were initially watching Qld Roar v Newcastle Jets at home. Newcastle opened the scoring in the 25th minute, whereupon BT & myself agreed that we had seen enough (sick & tired by Roar's poor showing) & immediately headed over to Val's surprise birthday. We thought we missed the surprise, but not we didn't - we were the last invitees to arrive at the BBQ area, but didn't really miss anything as Andrew had not yet arrived with Val. That happened shortly after. Val (who had been wearing sunglasses & possibly was made to close her eyes) was escorted by Andrew. And when Andrew gave Val the ok to take off the sunglasses, surprise!! She said she had no idea & didn't suspect anything. We thus had our BBQ dinner & fellowship, saw Val cut her birthday cheesecake, before cleaning up & heading over to Val & Andrew's townhouse to hang out for a while. I finally saw Val & Andrew's new plasma TV. After a while, we said our goodbye & headed home. Happy birthday, Val! Thanks for being u! May God continue to bless u abundantly!

Good, nice, enjoyable weekend I must say :)
Even Qld Roar won - they came back to beat the Jets 2-1....me & BT followed the live score from BT's mobile while at the BBQ. We were happy with the result. That was Roar's first win over the Jets at Suncorp Stadium. About time, too.

Some pics from the weekend: