Australian Open 2010

I was a guest of ANZ at the Australian Open this year. :) One of the brokers said they had the Superbox for Day 4 (Round 2) of the Australian Open and invited me to join them. ANZ is one of the main sponsors of the tennis this year.

The timing has been pretty awesome. The event was yesterday, 21/1/2010 and I had today off (it is my rostered day off) and I am flying to Canberra this evening, for the Australia Day "long" weekend. I've arranged to take Monday off as annual leave and Tuesday is Australia Day. So, if I had been privileged to be invited to the later days, in theory better players at quarter/semi finals, I might not have been in the state to attend!

Anyway, my cousin was also a guest of the Herald Sun and they had almost courtside seats. I think maybe the 2nd or 3rd row. It was at the end of the day session and they had spare places so I got in to watch the end of the match between Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) and Donald Young (USA). Hewitt won. Courtside is really cool!!! Hung out with my cousin a bit - then I made my way to the lifts that take people up to the corporate boxes.


The Corporate Box is not that big... apparently it caters for about 18 people and there were about 30 of them in total. Met a couple of people that I talk to on the phone a bit so it was nice to put a face to the name and the voice. Most of them are really friendly and nice. They served dinner - which included prawns and fresh oysters, lamb, fish (I think it was barramundi - it was yummy!) and chicken. For dessert there was pavlova and trifle and some really rich looking cakes. I had just the pav and that was pretty sweet and quite good.

So, for the evening session on Day 4, Round 2 - we saw Roger Federer play an unseeded player, Victor Henescu of Romania. The match wasn't very exciting. 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 and it was over in 99 minutes. The highlight though, was when Prince William made an entrance! He is visiting Australia and he dropped in to watch. Everybody got up to try and get a look of the Prince. He went away shortly after the men's match ... and I thought he had left... but apparently, he had gone to meet Federer. Jim Courier who is a commentator for the Open, asked Federer to 'welcome to the australian open' ... and I thought he was a bit taken aback at first, but he managed to say... "Your Royal Highness, Welcome to the Tennis". :) Everybody cheered at that...

After that, it was the women's match, between Casey Dellacqua (AUS) and Karolina Sprem (CRO). I would say that they are "evenly matched" ... scores were 7-6, 7-6. They went into tiebreakers for both sets. However, I thought overall - they weren't that good ... each of them made so many errors, giving away points and games ... you sort of think that the only way someone is going to win, is if they make less mistakes than the other person. Here's another bit of interesting information ... Dellacqua is going to face Venus Williams, next. For her sake, I hope she doesn't keep making so many mistakes or she is going to crash out and really badly at Round 3.


Disclaimer: Prince William / Roger Federer pic is copyright of Australian Open

Birthday 2010

"Celebrated" my birthday two weekends ago. Was in Canberra because I thought it would be "appropriate" as the last time I was up there was in November. However, Daniel's brother stole my thunder! ;) He got engaged - about 2-3 months ago ... and he got married on the same weekend as my "birthday weekend". ;) So, Josh and Wendy were the main stars for the weekend. I'm not going to blog much about the wedding - as I don't know if they're going to appreciate their photos being put up on the internet for the world to see. So, if you really do want to know more about it (or see some photos), message me (friends/family only please), and I will send you a link.

As a present to myself (sort of) I bought a new mobile phone. A Nokia E71-3 (or E71, version 3). I bought it off eBay and it was a very "exciting" auction. ;) There were quite a number of E71s up for auction ... but this one in particular, was originally from Telstra and works on their Next G network (UMTS 850). Previously, I had a Nokia N73 that was a 3G phone - but because it doesn't work on the same band, I have been using EDGE for the last 3 years... very, very frustrating! Anyway, the auction ended at 2.36am - and I woke up at 2.30am to watch it and bid on it. I was concerned that the price would be much too high, but it ended up being $355, which is appropriate. My N73 was $600 - eBay price, 3 years ago and Telstra sells the E71 for $589 outright.

Anyway, up to about 3am - I was emailing and texting the seller - sad, I know! I was hoping to get it on Friday before I left for Canberra, after work ... and the guy was hoping that I could pick it up from Chadstone, at 7pm. My flight left at 7pm! After some SMS table tennis, including him asking if I could meet his sister at Crown Towers (on the other side of the CBD from where I was) - he said - "I'll just leave work early and drop it off at your office?" I'm like - sure, that would be awesome!!! Usually, when a pick-up option is offered (i.e. save on postage), the buyer has to go pick it up at the sellers agreed location ... but this guy dropped it off, very cool! So, I got it - just in time, for "birthday weekend" hehehe.

I'm still working out how to use GPS... but other than that, I like the QWERTY keyboard (still getting used to it) but yay!!! New phone!!!! :) I blame (formerly) working in a telco for my obsession with nice phones ... but having lasted 3 years before changing phones - I think that is pretty reasonable, isn't it?

Belatedly... Christmas 09 / New Year's '10

Took a few days off over Christmas... Cheng was in town, courtesy of Air Asia specials... so we arranged for Daniel and me to stay in Melbourne - so I could catch up with her. Saw Wai Hoong too ... but he left after brekkie ... he really wasn't in to going "window shopping" at the artsy fartsy shops around Brunswick St. It was a bit rushed as we were trying to cover a lot of areas in less than a day - including Smith St and Lygon St. and we did a quick lap around the CBD. Took Cheng to Koko Black, which I think completely chocolated her out - and she gave up on the Lindt Cafe altogether. :( I've always been meaning to try Lindt Cafe ... but I guess, that will be on another occasion.

Went to Paul and Kylie's place for Christmas Eve. Kris Kringle (sort of like random gift exchange) was fun... I picked up a serving dish thing with two little dishes for sauce. Am slowly starting to accumulate household stuff... :) Unfortunately though, before arriving at the party - I got some really, really, really bad news. :( My aunt passed away of cancer. :( :( :( She was only diagnosed less than 3 weeks earlier ... and it was really, really, sudden. :( :( :( She will be terribly missed during Chinese New Year this year as well as in the future. :( :( :( I thought some of my other cousins (one in London, and the other in Adelaide) that sent flowers did a good job of making people laugh and feel better. In their message, they asked... "Do you know where auntie kept the recipe for Curry Prawns?" :) And my brother was even better - he asked my cousin if she knew how to make "Tamingung". It's a Foo Chow dish ... that my aunt made every year during Chinese New Year when the family got together... my cousin told him to google it ... but I don't think no one really knows how to spell "Tamingung". :P I miss my aunt. And I really missed my family during the period.

Daniel and I had made bookings to go to Mornington Peninsula for a few days after Christmas, so we went ahead with our plans - just to get away and try to relax - and recharge the batteries. Still, felt really, really bummed out about my aunt. We went back to the Peninsula Hot Springs... (I've written about them before a few years ago). They have renovated and the bathrooms are really nice and new and somewhat hi-tech - magnetized lockers! It was really nice to soak in the hot pools... and thanks to the Entertainment Book - it was buy one get one free.

Hmm... what else did we do? Nothing much for New Year's. Oh - I got a lot of Chocolate for Christmas. This Santa Bear dark chocolate teddy is from my cousin - and it is a Koko Black chocolate teddy. It was yummy... and very decadent! The little hamper on the right - is from Heritage Chocolates. I rang a radio station (old habits die hard!) and won it. The downside was - I had to drive about half an hour to Rowville to collect it! I'm still not sure if it was worth the long drive ... but anyway - it was free! :)