It’s Sunday again, and it’s Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Chai! It’s not a Chinese New Year celebration, unless you have a massive dinner to go with it. This year is no different. After last night’s BIG dinner at Marissa’s parent’s house, I can proudly say I can still feel the food lingering in my stomach this morning. Definitely not helping in the weight loss department. As usual, Chinese New Year is not that big a celebration for me. No firecrackers, no new clothes, no countless visits to friends and family’s place. Basically, it’s just another Sunday.
So what do we do? We decided to go to Canberra for the second time. The last time we went, it was relatively rushed and only managed to cover the parliament house and a the Telstra Tower. We decided to go again during our breakfast at a cafe in Rhodes yesterday. We stumbled across an advertisement in the morning paper for “Cockington Green Gardens“, where it’s the little things that count. It promises lots and lots of fun and little people & buildings. Reminds me of the Disney song that I hear a lot as a kid, “It’s a small world afterall, It’s a small world afterall….”
Anyway, we were off by 7:30am, leaving Darren at home. He’s got an ‘appointment’ with a lady-friend all day to play tennis. So it’s just me, Marissa and JB off to Canberra. After a good 3 hours drive, we were finally there. Straight away, you can tell the architecture of the entry building is rather ‘English’. I’m guessing they are folks from the UK. The entry price is $14.50, which I thought was reasonable. We headed straight for the restaurant to have breakfast, since we skipped it this morning to make it here early. Wouldn’t say I would come here for food, that’s for sure.
The garden itself is definitely quite interesting. The word ‘eye-opener’ comes to my mind after I walked through the whole garden. Pictures speak a thousand words, and will do much better job than I can describe it, so here it is..
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These guys not only know how to make little miniature building, but definitely have a sense of humour too! Yes, that’s a streaker running naked on a football statdium, and yes, that’s a golfer looking some lady’s skirt.
After strugglling to find some decent lunch venues, we settled for “Rolls Choice” (Meant to sound like ‘Rolls-Royce’) at the food court in town. Naturally, the sandwiches all have names of different car brands. I ordered a Mercedes, JB ordered a Jaguar, while Marissa ordered a Western Star.
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After lunch, it’s time for the second adventour of the day. It’s time for National Gallery of Canberra for the exhibition on “Egypt”. No pictures are allowed, which was a disappointment although hardly surprising. It’s definitely a very educational exursion, where I learn all about life after death. We learn about sarcophagus, amulets, various gods like Osiris, Horus, Anubis etc etc. I like Anubis. She’s the god that leads people to the Underworld. Anubis weighs your heart against the feather of Ma’at. If your heart was heavier than the feather it was eaten by a demon. How cool is that!??
It’s pretty interesting to see just how little the ancient world and the modern has a lot in common. If you’re rich, you die in a nice over-decorated stone coffin. If you’re dead poor, you’re wrapped up in canvas, and buried in sand. I don’t think it’s really that different today! Speaking of mummy, we didn’t get to see a mummy! We did, however get to see a mummified cat. What a rip-off!!
To end the exursion, I got busted for taking photos near the entrance to the Egyptian gallery… Just what I needed to end the day.
