July 26, 2011 Bad Luck in Tennis and Complementary Mints

As you all know (or don't know), my tennis tournament was today. Very exciting. The actual results, not so exciting. Anyways, since I was the state champ last year, I was given a bye so I was automatically put in the quarterfinals. My first match was relatively hard at first but then got easier as I warmed up. So, the end score was 9-2, I won! The girl looked like she was about to cry during the match when I got the lead but I think I understand why. I proceeded to the semifinals which was at 1:00pm so I got to eat lunch between the matches (we ate Mexican food!). We returned to the courts shortly after we finished our food, checked in, and waited for my opponent to arrive.
Once 1:00 finally rolled around, my opponent (named Ruth) arrived. First, we warmed up for about two minutes and then began the semifinals match. This is a match I did horribly on. Well, I didn't do that bad, she was just super good (personally, I think she should've been in the Girl's 12 and under Singles Bracket 1 which is the best one). Ruth got almost every shot in so our rallies were long and drawn-out. Since she made almost no mistakes, I ended most of the rallies with a ball just barely out or slapping the net. In the end, the score was 9-1. I lost. Badly. Like the girl I played before, I cried because that was the first match I had ever lost when I was up against a girl (close to) my age. Now, I'm really mad that I lost to her but since she's probably 12, she shouldn't be in the 12 and under tournament next year so I have a chance to win next summer. I just have to wait...
After that, we went to get ice-cream at this amazing ice-cream shop so that kept my mind off the loss for about ten minutes. Once we devoured our ice-cream, we went to pick up my dad who was working so he didn't see me play. Then, we began hiking around for a bit and then drove to this restaurant called Baker St. Pub and Grill. My small soup and salad with oil, vinegar, and salmon was great but a bit bland (well duh, what's a salad without any real dressing). Wait, before you get confused, the salad was bland, not the soup. The soup was excellent but I had to put in a lot of work taking out the bacon because I wasn't in the mood for ultra soggy bacon. My brother and my mom ordered some buffalo burgers which tasted like regular burgers, and my dad got this tuna with mash potatoes and green beans (ick :6). When we left, we passed by this mint container that offered you complimentary mints. Of course, my brother and I took advantage of this feature and took about 10 mints each. Maybe I should start a mint collection like I have in Myrtle Beach...

That was the final handshake on the last match. I can't upload videos so I'm putting a bad picture. Anyways, enjoy these fail pictures and have a good night.

July 24, 2011 More Tennis, Rob's Music Store, Pearl Street, and Sticky Tack

Okay, you may be wondering (or you may not) why this is a day late. The answer is......... why not? Then again, who was actually looking forward to reading this?
Anyways, I woke up at 11:00am and we couldn't go where we originally planned because my brother and I didn't wake up early enough. Oh well. So, instead, we drove to a music store. Rob's Music Store to be exact. So, this place is like any old music store, it strives to torture little sisters by luring their older siblings to play instruments. Even worse, this place had little to no air conditioning! I was burning up and I had to listen to random people play guitars! At least I had my book. Eventually, my parents made my brother put away the guitar and then we payed for Ty's "much needed" guitar strings.
After that, we (to be more accurate, I) were getting hungry so we drove to this Vietnamese restaurant. Since you can obviously see that this is not in the title, I'm not going to explain it! Afterwards, we walked around and my brother bought a "used" Nirvana box set that contains so many songs. Ugh, he even plays it in the car!
Later, we drove to this outdoor mall called Pearl Street. I don't know why I chose an outdoor mall because it was 91 degrees outside! (well, that may not be much to people in Myrtle Beach but once you've come from winter (Australia and New Zealand), that is super hot! Soon, we came to this frozen yogurt/smoothie place called Maiberry. Here we bought a total of three drinks.
1) A Large Blueberry Mist Smoothie
2) A Medium Citrus Smoothie whose name I can't quite but my finger on
3) A Large Taro Boba Drink

We gulped down these drinks in a matter of seconds and then visited a few shops.
About an hour later, we came back to the tennis courts and began hitting around. Today, I received only three minor tennis injuries!
1) I hit my neck when I was just bouncing the ball and when I tried to catch it, it flew out of my hands and hit my neck
2) I hit my knee when I finished my serve (the serve was in!)
3) My right arm hurt so much after I served about a million times
Tennis is a dangerous sport. Anyways, I played a match with my dad and got 7......points in total. And he even gave me the doubles alley! (Again with the Mag-Net.) We played a volley game after that where he won, again. This time, the score was 15-9. Then again, these scores make sense because the following is a chart that shows the "rankings" in our family.
- My dad* (the best)
- My brother**
- My mom
- My brother**
- Me
- My brother**

*My dad plays in modes. Easy (which he plays me and sometimes my mom in), Medium (which he uses when he's against mom and usually my brother), Hard (which he plays when he's playing in his 4.0-4.5 team), and Impossible (I've never seen him play with this. This is before his two surgeries. He started teaching us tennis and playing for the team after he had his surgeries.) So, if anyone wants to play anybody in my family, they should start with my dad.
** My brother's playing depends on his mood, his hunger, who he's playing, who's watching, and the length between the last practice and the present. I've never actually played him because my parents think that we will just goof off the whole time (hmm, that may be true)
Anyways, I found 60 cents just lying on the ground in the tennis courts. I'm pretty happy that I found the money before my brother saw it/took it. I'm guessing that I only found it because I was almost wearing all purple (one of my favorite colors). If only I had black shoes and put silver and blue highlights in my hair, I would have found a lot more. Maybe a million.
Okay, I want to donate this little paragraph to Sticky Tack because it is that awesome! Since you read this far, I'm going to congratulate you with pictures. Also, please click here! Bye!

July 7th, 2011 The horrid name of a restaurant, Vegemite, Harbour Town, and Tennis

Today, we began our day by playing tennis......in the Margaret Court (which is an Australian Open court)! Here, we played for about two and half hours. During this amount of time, I somehow got the Small Potatoes theme song stuck in my head and began singing it for awhile. Little did I know that we were being watched. Hopefully, the cameras can't hear me. For the most part, I just goofed off while playing but it was still fun.
After that, we went to Pie Face (again) but this time, I bought a spinach roll instead of an actual pie. We are now two less pies away from getting the free pie. To bad we're leaving for New Zealand tomorrow.
We then ate dim sum/Yum Cha at this restaurant that I can't remember the name of (It was called something along the lines of Green Jade. The funny thing is, I got four business cards from this place, hoping I'd be able to get at least one of them home safely and I actually brought all four home. The thing is, my dad threw it away when we were packing). This place has delicious food but the name is horrible!
Next we went to Harbour Town which is basically an outdoor mall with free tea, coffee, and water in the visitor center. This place also had this free animal "petting zoo" where they had a(n) crocodile/aligator, a turtle, a snake, lizards, a sugar glider, birds, a possum, and a wombat!

Even though this place is awesome, but had some strange signs...

What kind of town is this?!
Now, I want to talk about what Australia's famous for...vegemite. For you people who don't have a clue what this is, it is concentrated yeast extract. Doesn't that just sound lovely? Anyways, it taste salty, kind of like soy sauce but it smells...ew. I would never eat this by itself.
Okay, about the horrid restaurant name, it turns out my dad didn't throw away the cards. Instead, he told me where it was and I found it!! The name: Crystal Jade (Still a bad name...) The address:
154 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
So, that's about it. Enjoy this fail advertisement in Harbour Town.

July 6th, 2011 Fails and Food

Since I had quite a few fails today so I decided to write part of my blog about this. So my first fail was:
1) I was complaining about this loose button on my coat and we ventured into this liquor store so my parents could buy something. While we were there, I was playing with the loose button, trying to pass time. As I was playing with it, all the stitches just burst, leaving me with a stray button. I was like, "Why?????? Why must the young die so young????"
2)Okay, since the first fail wasn't that funny, I hope you enjoy the next one. On this one, I had just put the button in my pocket and was fingering it. As I was doing so, the restaurant card that I took so I could write down the info. on it, flew out. Fail?
3) Okay enough with the "fails". Let's get on with the blog.
Now for a while, I've been wanting to eat at this place called Hungry Jack's which is basically an Australian version of Burger King. I mean, look at the logo's!

For dinner, my family and I ate at this Malaysian place called Sambal Kampung. This place offers great customer service and super fast food. Not only is the food served fast, it's delicious and pretty well priced. The only part I didn't like about this place was this crunchy-ish part of the supposedly boneless, skinless chicken. Overall rating: 9 (Wow, that's rare!) And the address:
234 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000

One last thing I want to mention before I end this post is this chocolate shop called Haigh's Chocolates. Even though the chocolate is absolutely amazing, (to me) it seems overpriced. One thing I find weird about this place is that you can only find their chocolates in their shop and never in places like Target, but oh well. The website is:

http://haighschocolates.com.au/

Enjoy:D

July 3rd, 2011 Pie Face, The Melbourne Museum, and Alpino

So, for lunch my family and I came to this Australian food chain called Pie Face. Pie Face is a trendy, fashionable, light take on the famous Australian meat pie. Though the pies aren't the best, they get the job done in a light, non-messy, way
After lunch, we travelled to the Melbourne Museum. This museum is about as interactive as a potato. Actually, a potato is a lot more interactive. This place is mainly centered towards adults and only have a few things younger audiences will care for. My favorite part of the whole museum was the forest inside the museum. Even though this was my favorite part, it still had some flaws. One of the worst flaws was the fact that they had an exhibit for certain animals, yet no animals could be found. In fact, there were absolutely no signs of life in those glass cages.
Soon enough, we became hungry and started to search for a good Italian food. After carefully looking through every menu and turning down some great offers (ie, you get free wine and it's 20 percent off if you come here), we ended up in a small restaurant called Alpino Restaurant. Here, the food was to die for but relatively pricey ($35 dollars for a lobster? Who would buy that?). Here, I decided on getting the Salmon(e) and Spinach Fettucini which was about $22. This dish was SO good but there wasn't enough. Anyways, if anyone is deciding on coming to Melbourne, Australia anytime soon, here's the restaurant info.

262 Lygon Street
Carlton Vic
3053

george0758@hotmail.com
www.alpinorestaurant.com.au