Parramatta

Gallery

Down Town Sydney Town: Part Two

In my last post I reported about the first five days of our trip. The food, the friends and family and the wedding. But there was more…

Day 6: Movie day. When you have a huge tv that has a 3D funktion, comfy couches and a great sound system, you would too. We invited the cousins over, watched a couple of action films and in between had some Domino’s pizza. It really is the little things that one misses when you’ve moved out of home and so far away, too.

At night, we met up with my school friends at Mizuya (Japanese Restaurant/Karaoke Bar) and had dinner, minus the karaoke. Michael had his first sticker-photo-booth-experience and enjoyed it. Here’s us being super Asian:

Sticker booth photo fun!

Sticker booth photo fun!

Afterwards we headed off to the Opera House to take some night shots and were pleasantly surprised with fireworks (see last picture in my last post).

Day 7: During the day we relaxed and hung out with the family at home and in the evening we met up with my ex-colleagues at Criniti’s at Darling Harbour. Let’s just say we had a lot of pizza.

2 meters of yum

2 meters of yum

Day 8: Mum’s birthday. We went to the unveiling of the Mercedes CLA and it was a funny feeling coming from Stuttgart, the home of Mercedes, to watch an unveiling in Sydney. We also met the sausage guy who was from Hamburg and spoke German with him. It was a nice event but we had no time to lose because mum’s birthday dinner at Ribs n’ Rumps was on afterwards. Still, we couldn’t resist a hot dog, a few pieces of woodfired pizza and a gelato.

My first time at Rn’R but it was a goodie. I shared a Ribs and Rump plate with my dad and just managed to finish it. Here’s us not looking so amused by the bibs:

Ready for some Ribs n' Rumps

Ready for some Ribs n’ Rumps

In the evening we brought out the cake we made for mum’s birthday. Somehow I don’t have a picture of it here but it was delish. It was a Oreo chocolate fudge ice cream cake. Quite easy to make and very heavy. One regular-sized (whatever that is, really) slice is really enough for one person.

Day 9: Our second-last day and we had a little gathering at home and one of the best foods ever. Popiah. It’s like a giant spring roll only you cook the ingredients and just wrap them up in the spring roll pastry and eat it ‘raw’. It’s healthy and oh so good.

Michael wrapping his first ever

Michael wrapping his first ever

Some of the ingredients: chinese sausage, prawns, eggs, finely sliced beans and vegetables, lettuce, bean sprouts, cucumber and sauce

Some of the ingredients: chinese sausage, prawns, eggs, finely sliced beans and vegetables, lettuce, bean sprouts, cucumber, peanuts and sauce

Day 10: Our last day in Sydney and we got ourselves ready, had some Shanghai dumplings with the family in Parramatta and then we were off to the airport for the long journey home.

It was a very, super short holiday but it was so worth it to be home for a bit and to enjoy mum’s fine cooking and to spend time with family and friends. Looking forward to our next time there already! And of course, I’m hungry after writing this post so until next time, keep safe everybody!

Gallery

GTA V: The Collector’s Edition – Wait, you don’t have anymore copies?

You’ve heard the hype and seen the trailer, character intros and gameplay video, ok maybe if you’re a huge fan of Rockstar Games’ iconic Grand Theft Auto series or “GTA” as the standard mum’s basement gamer would say, you would know everything about GTA V. I thought I was the biggest fan ever!

wallpaper292968c

I’m a huge GTA fan- ah crap

I found out quite quickly that I was not a huge fan (a reasonably/medium/fair sized fan?) because by the time I thought I could get myself a copy of GTA V Collectors Edition they were already sold out. Oh man! I really wanted the deposit bag to go with the safe deposit box:

3538_gtaiv_special_edition

Gym bag for gym things and safe deposit box for things like money or diamonds or sachets of Easy Mac! – gta4.net

I checked online and everyone is either sold out or just not selling it (Thanks EBGames for ruining my dreams). And then my hunt was blessed by the answer “Yes, we do have a one left”:

GTA-V-Collectors-Edition

Glory of glories! – Rockstar Games

After some riding at high speed from work to my hallowed destination in Parramatta (west of Sydney in NSW Australia) as well as a mistaken address (oh, so it’s in that part of town, you got some body armour on you?), I made it and in one-piece too! Slapped my card through the slot and I have in my hot hand/wallet a receipt for the deposit I put on my very own copy of GTA V the Collectors Edition! It just goes to show that even though it’s all sold out and Kotaku says it’s all done and dusted, a call to a difficult to get to shop can change all that (JB HiFi Parramatta on George St). Also small pieces of paper can sate the gamers desire to get his hands on a piece of gamer history, man I’m a dork.

Now that a copy is reserved I can think about what all this “Collectors Edition” mumbo is really about:

– More stuff than the average “stock” and even the “Special” version, because that’s for plebs and people who shop at EBGames.
– Cool GTA themed NewEra cap and deposit bag in a cool box, because difficulty to carry is a must, you can’t just slip this under the old rider jacket and zip on home.
– Loads of cool DLC – This used to be a kind of cop out to me as nothing was really beyond the 1337 haxxors (Elite Hackers) who with a deft code or two could just unlock those nice exclusives. These days it’s a little harder to obtain and especially in an immersive game world like the GTA series it makes the difference.
– Bragging rights – as long as I can get home without being mugged for my copy you can watch me get all un-PC and give Jack Thompson something to to be annoyed about.

This post is more of a “I am so happy and a little proud of myself that I needed to post about it” – kind of post, I apologise if you were looking for something a little more informative. Normal service will resume after these messages from our sponsors.

September 17 couldn’t come sooner.

Checkout the Rockstar Games site for more info and a “more biggerer” image of the collectors edition: http://www.rockstargames.com/V/img/en_us/collectors-full.jpg