Monday Blues?

How would you like to have a day off from work on Monday? Well, that was what I did on 3rd January - except that I don't have to apply leave, it's a Public Holiday in Australia! I'm beginning to love it here - so many holidays especially when most of them fall on Monday which makes it a long weekends!! Ha!

Saturday, 1st January 2005
My first Chinese food after my arrival in Melbourne was Tim Sum! 2 of my Singaporean friends who are studying in Melbourne brought me out to Doncaster for a typical Hong Kong style Tim Sum for lunch. It's really nice to know friends who are familiar with Chinese cuisine in a foreign land - they drive you around to suburbs you would never have known how to get there & they really know where all the good food is...

Tim Sum was really nice - the restaurant is so packed with people you can't go without making a reservation. They basically serve only 2 time slots: 11am-1pm or 1-3pm & we were there for the latter. They still serve Tim Sum the traditional way - pushing carts - something which we seldom see in Singapore now because instead of creating space for the push cart to go around, the space could have been used to lay more tables for customers... Besides, placing orders with waitresses are a lot quicker & guarantees higher turnaround time for the business than waiting for the "right" push cart to come around. Yea... the "right" push cart because some cart doesn't carry the kind of food you want to eat? So, you will have to wait again for the next one to come & believe me, they don't come that soon...

Came back to the apartment around 3pm & the rest of the day was spent doing laundry, lazing around watching TV & made myself another yummy dinner!

Sunday, 2nd January 2005
It's my brother's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (I know he's gonna read my blog... hee!)

Must confess that I've not been to Church for 2 Sundays in a row... Couldn't reach my ex neighbor to find out which Church he is attending - probably out of town or something...

There's a Christian radio station here where it plays mostly contemporary Christian songs & some secular ones occasionally. So I had that switched on & was enjoying my own Sunday "Service" in the comfort of my apartment!

This was one of those days I don't feel like going out - so stayed in & really rest my Sunday away...

Monday, 3rd January 2005
Went on a short road trip to Dangdenong alone - driving my rental car. There ain't much in Dangdenong actually - it's a rather small town... Had my lunch there & headed back to the apartment to prepare for an outing with a colleague in the afternoon!

My colleague (the same one I spent my New Year's Eve fireworks with) invited me to this Rodeo event in Colac (approx. 150km away from Melbourne). It's an annual event held in Colac for the cowboys & cowgirls to put their cowboy skills to a series of tests - riding bareback bulls & horses, roping the bull while riding on a horse, etc...

For some reason, the event started at 5pm this year while in the past, it usually starts around 2pm... I volunteered to fetch my colleague from her house & the journey took us about 2 hours - arriving in Colac at 5.15pm. The event started promptly at 5.30pm with drizzle as the people sat on hay stands to watch the first cowboy did his rodeo stunt on a bareback bull.

15min into the competition, the drizzle got heavier & it rained throughout the event - we were wet & cold (with the wind, it's probably like 14degrees) but that didn't stop us & the people from staying on in the show... It got quite wild when the bull tossed the guy off its back & you really watched intensely & prayed he doesn't get stampede by it.

Took some photos of the Rodeo but mostly I've got them on video... The problem is I can't post the video clips on the web like I did for the photos via Yahoo! Photos. If you know of any internet website that provides such a platform (for free), please let me know.

From the video (perhaps the photos as well), you can really see how the bulls & horses went "crazy" trying to get rid of the guy riding on them & you wonder why are these animals so wild? Well, what causes this is the people tie a belt-like thingy around the bull/horse - which is near the hind legs & when the cowboy takes his position on the bull/horse, holding tightly to a rope that goes round the front of the animal, another person will pull the belt-like string so tight that it really hurts the animal's testicle so much that it tries to rid the belt-like string by kicking using its hind legs - thus creating a rodeo ride for the cowboy who tries to balance & stays on top of the bull/horse...

Guess the only way the poor animal could take revenge is to stomp on the cowboy when he falls off its back - which was what happened to one cowboy... Unfortunately, it was not caught on tape... Anyway, the cowboy got up on his feet & walked out of the ring "bravely" - no sign of pain - but the moment he reached the back where most audience couldn't see, he actually collapsed on the ground! But he survived & I hope there is no internal bleeding & pray that he is still alive today...