Day 3: Broadbeach

Today we did not plan to venture far. We had all agreed to have a sleep-in this morning but I woke up as usual at dawn and started writing the travelogue. That was the only time that I had some peace without any interruption.

The internet access from the apartment was erratic and charged by the minute, and so I wrote on Word, with the intention of transferring the writing to Blogger. I have included more details than usual so that as I told hubby, if we ever had Alzheimer’s, we could read the blog and remember what we did. Ya, morbid.

Recording on what we did reminded me of those times more than a decade ago when my hubby and I used to travel – before the children came along – and how we used to develop and arrange photos - printed on paper - in real 3-D photo albums and painstakingly wrote the narration in the old-fashioned way, using paper and pen. Hah, that would probably go down in the history book. What, this was how humans viewed photographs in the 20th century? Lol!

When we were ready to go out, it was time for lunch. We drove to the Broadbeach town center (see below), a couple of blocks away. There was a Sunday market at the beach there every 1st and 3rd Sunday, and as it was the 3rd Sunday of the month, we were lucky to catch it. It was cool (I don’t mean it in the weather sense). Son No 1 bought a long sleeve blue shirt which purportedly was specially manufactured to block off sunrays up to a power of Sph 50 - Son No 1 was terrified of getting sunburnt. According to the vendor, the shirt was light in weight, could dry quickly under the sun and could double up as swimwear - wow. Hubby thought it was all hype but we succumbed to it anyway. Although the stalls were interesting, we did not linger long as some stalls were packing up to go.

But the children had a lot of expendable energy and were in a good mood after a good night rest. They were full of antics.

We had lunch at an Italian restaurant, with a half-price menu for lunch. Mama Mia, it was good. We had steaks and I particularly enjoyed the fresh greens that went with the steak. There was even a live performance at the mall that provided the entertainment.

After lunch, the children couldn’t wait for the main highlight of the day which was the beach. The beach was one block away but somehow, we ended up driving there. Parking was not a problem. However, by the time we reached the beach, it was after 4 pm and the weather had turned cool. Nevertheless, the children were exhilarated. The wind was getting strong - they could not even play with the beach ball, which was getting blown away. The two younger boys frolicked on the sand for a while while Son No 1, wearing his brand new sunblock shirt, just enjoyed getting his feet wet, splashing along the shore. I stood huddled, with my arms across my chest, and my back against the direction of the wind. Cold, cold.

We did not stay for long. We had missed the best part of the sun, which was in the morning and early afternoon, and we vowed to return to the beach another day…this time, in the morning.

Back at the apartment, we had a movie marathon starting from 6:30pm. Mid-way, hubby went to buy pizza for us from Pizza Hut which was just a short walk away. We watched Home Alone on DVD, followed by Surviving Christmas, a 2004 comedy starring Ben Affleck, which was shown on Australian TV. The Australian TV networks have lined up many Christmas-sy programmes everyday.

The first night we were here, we watched Santa Clause 2, starring Tim Allen, and last night, there was a live telecast of an outdoor Christmas performance by Aussie singers.

Needless to say, the Christmas spirit was well in the air.