Canyoning!

ok i've screwed up the order a bit coz i actually went canyoning before the unigames... oops...
anyway wat is canyoning? According to wikipedia, Canyoning (also known as canyoneering) is travelling in canyons using a variety of techniques that may include walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, and/or swimming. basically if u like getting wet and cold and jumping into rivers and abseiling down cliffs, canyoning is for u. For more details u can check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyoning

So i went on this quest for more thrills with my thrill buddy Charlene and her ex boyfriend and i just can't remember his name now. dammit. i bet ill just be walking down the street or taking a dump or doing both at the same time and then suddenly it'll come back to me and ill remember his name.

anyhow it was raining sheeps and cows when we got to the pickup point and the possibility of the activity being cancelled loomed over our heads as the water levels in the river etc might be too high for us to canyon safely.

While we waited for our instructor to check the water level, we gathered in the equipment shed and suited up. here, i met the guardian of the shed, Randal.

ok his name isnt randal but he looks like one rite? rite? rite? oh c'mon! anyway he's freaking big! almost bear like. and he's pretty friendly too...

Anyway the instructor came back and we were clear to carry on so on went the wetsuits and helmets before we jumped into the van and headed to the river. It was still drizzling on and off but the weather was still pretty good and once we got started the rain was the last thing on our mind.

And wat a start it was!! this was the first of many jumps into several pools along the river. the water was gan cold but it was still gan fun.

A while later, we were confronted with the highest jump of the day.. from about 8 metres up. Any fears were soon tossed out of the window as the first guy did a forward somersault into the icy waters. thereafter it was more about doing it in style than doing the jump itself. I wanted to do a forward dive at first but some guy did it before me so in the end i decided to just jump sideways and get a good photo... and this is it!

its like crouching tiger hidden dragon meet garang scuba diver... graceful rite? i know...
anyway our guide had to have the last say, performing a backflip moonsaw off the ledge.. the show off...

next on the agenda was a backwards slide down. basically u sit down on the edge of a mini waterfall and let the water push u down... backwards... good stuff
Of course canyoning isnt just about being in the water...
there's abseiling too! well i must admit i din too well wit the abseilling bit... so i shall refrain from insulting all guardsmen for 27 days... (why 27 days? ask ur mom)
this is one of the cliff faces we abseilled down... pretty damn gorgeous if u ask me
speaking of gorgeous... this is me holding to a line just before another water slide.. see the white water? means the water is really fast and choppy.. once i release the rope its pretty much 2 secs til i reach the bottom... pretty cool
the good thing about rushing water is it provides a pretty good massage if ure willing to withstand the cold and stand under it... aqua-therapy as i call it... not to be mistaken with ah kua therapy which can be found at changi village... but that's another story..
ok here we are looking nice and gay(happy) near the end of the day... its good that they took the picture then coz after that, we had to hike up for about 40 mins to reach the carpark where the van was..

and here we all are after a shack but fun day...

ok sorry for the boring post... just going thru motion coz im super behind time.. =P

but if u really do feel like complaining, feel free to log onto the website and fill out the form at www.doilooklikeigiveafuck.com/imawhinybitch

Unigames!!

So i couldnt possibly go 6 months without soccer right? so i joined the soccer team at my uni. every year the universities in nz gather in one of the cities for wat they call the unigames. basically its like a mini olympics with a lot of sports from debating to rowing to ultimate frisbee. this yr's event was held in wellington. so i went to try out for the team coz the competitive bone in me needed to do something.

Well i wasnt playing well at all during the trials. in fact at times i was abysmal in my opinion but i got in somehow. but i wasnt really sure if i should go coz A) u have to pay like $300 for lodging and transport etc B) playing with pple u dun really know can be a drag plus we NEVER trained C) NZ soccer standards are fairly low D) going for the trip would mean I have to travel South island after exams E) your mom.

but in the end i decided to go and just enjoy the experience as best i can. So we all met up early on the first sunday of the holis in preparation for wat was supposed to be a routine 10hr bus ride down to wellington. We managed to get a bus for ourselves (the guys & girls soccer teams) and after an eternity (i later learnt it was an hour) we left auckland heading south to the capital of NZ (yes i mean wellington u dumb piece of shit).

I managed to get the whole seat to myself (yes nobody likes me. ok?) which was good coz i could stretch out and sleep and not worry about drooling on other pple or them drooling on me. I managed to catch some sleep before the bus made a routine rest stop.
it was here that i would learn the first rule of road trips. ALWAYS give people timings to adhere to! all of us didnt know how long we were going to stop for so while some people rushed to the toilet and back, others strolled along, bought breakfast, took a nice long shit that sorta thing. when ure in a group, you're only as fast as your slowest member (this you can ask Noel and Chervin. about the knnbccb auntie who happily delayed us in Sepang). anyway after we left i was entertaining myself by reading the travel guidebook that my darling frens gave me for my bday before i left. awww u guys are the best man.... sniff sniff... except chervin who is a cheebye. he didnt share the present, but pretended to anyway. scum of the chows! but i digress...
i also had in my arsenal of fun, an mp3 player that the local bank gave for opening an account with them.
Soon we reached Matamata aka Hobbiton.

This was the town that they created the hobbiton for lord of the rings in. Most of the stuff is gone but there are still guided tours etc to places where they shot some scenes etc. anyway after we stopped some pple went to get lunch, some wen to take a long shit, others like the ultimate frisbee team formed a circle and threw the frisbee around. wen we got back to the bus, we noticed a hissing sound coming from one of the tires. we assumed that it was loud enuf for the driver to hear and thus we did not pursue the matter further.

shortly after we left matamata, our bus stopped and after some querying, we found out that we were waiting for a bus behind us that was havng problems. after some eons had passed, our bus drove back to where the other bus was. apparently and i qoute, "its accelerator was spoilt". anyway we were pissed off coz the other buses had left and we did not like all the constant delays that were taking place. fortunately, our bus finally left and we were appeased for the moment.

2 more soccer girls frm another bus had joined us and i was forced to share my seat. and no i wasnt thrilled abt it. i mean if i had to choose between having more space and sitting nex to a girl who doesnt look like ase wang, lindsay lohan, natalie portman, monica belluci, christy chung or najiah (heh... all bases covered), i'd choose space anytime man! (noel.. this one's for u man)

anyway i found solace in my mp3 player and soon we were in taupo for a stop. i rushed thru an excellent kfc meal before rushing back to the bus and learning that the uncle had finally realised that the tyre was leaking air and had to change it. idiot! so he drove off somewhere to change it and we were given an hour more to 'roam in taupo'. so a few of us found a tavern and grabbed a few beers. i had abstained from drinking on the bus til now coz i din want to have to go to the toilet after 20mins, especially since i wouldnt know when the bus is gonna stop again.

anyway the bus came back finally and armed with boxes of beer, we left taupo headig south.

by now we were all bonding better by sharing magazines (fhm) and playing cards (fhm poker cards) both activities of which im sad to say that i did not participate in. (really... i know... i feel stupid too...) but probably the most important contributing factor to our new chummyness was that we were drinking. =) the bad thing is we kept pestering the bus driver to stop the bus so that we could pee. the girls were getting annoyed at us coz we were adding to the delay. or maybe its coz we din offer to share our beer with em. ;)

i managed to steal another 40 winks before our bus reached the windy city of wellington, 13 freaking hours later! 3 hours more than the scheduled time. hahaha. wat a bitch of a ride. anyway we stayed in base backpackers hotel which is not bad. we were lucky enuf to stay on this special floor as well which they call the 'sanctuary'. basically, its a floor for girls only and they have nice toilets and shit like that. so it was great! another bonus was that we shared the floor with the girl's hockey team which had the nicest looking girls of the unigames. heh heh heh... there was one in particular that was bloody hot.. too bad i dun have a photo of her so dun bother asking...

anyway we drank a bit more at the bar whilst watching some epl then retired to our rooms for a deserved rest.

the next day, after registering ourselves for hte games, most of us decided to tour wellington.

wellington is a nice city. nicer than auckland anyway. its more lively and there are more things to look at like art etc. auckland is kinda dead in comparison. the wind in wellington, however, is mother strong and i guess you really need the best hairdressers here to keep ure hair in place.
anyway after lunch we went to Te Papa which is the national museum of NZ. it's pretty cool with many exchibits and its one of those 'new wave' type museums. basically more interactive and less boring. kinda kiddy too in a way i guess. like u can press buttons and move things and all that. but i'll talk more about it in my nex post about my post unigames tour.

that night we had the opening ceremony at some bar and it was jus packed with uni students from all the participating unis. it was a bitch getting drinks coz the bar was so small and everyone was jus crowding around it. in any case we werent doing much. jus standing around and checking out the gir...i mean participants from the other unis. ;) i was entertaining myself by watching south africa cream nz in cricket and laughing at the locals.

so with nothing much happening, most of us decided to head back for an early night in prep for our first game the next day.

We had 2 games today and on paper we were favourites for the group with arch rivals and defending champs AUT in the other group.

We played Massey palmerston north and Massey something else (Massey has universities everywhere) and we beat them easily, 3-0 and 5-0. i was playing CB for the team and put in 2 good performances so i was pleased with that. in the 2nd game, i did a goal saving tackle too! it was le brilliant. somehow the ball broke thru to a striker and he sprinted towards goal with only the keeper left. i dunno wat got into me but i sprinted back and flew at the fucker from behind and got the ball cleanly too! he sat on the ground stunned as the ball was cleared and my teammates all congratulated me on an awesome tackle. though i got a lot of sand up my ass, it was worth it!

garang rite? i know.
yes im wearing 10. i din choose it lah. they gave it to me. muahahahaha! so we ended the day in high spirits and in the driving seat to top our group.
we celebrated by heading out to a restaurant for dinner and some of the girls joined us as well. some of the girls are pretty good too expecially the americans. though they're a bit bigger, they can really kick ass man. our team was really international too, boasting 2 norwegians, 2 germans, 1 dutch, 1 iraqi, 1 thai, 1 mexican, and 7 kiwis.

the next day we had to play presumably the weakest team in our group before the semis in the afternoon. the day started badly though. our best striker got drunk the previous night and we couldnt reach him by phone or anything. so we had to play without him and spirit wasnt too high. its not just that he's our best striker, but the fact that a teammate doesnt turn up without notice is kinda disruptive and disrespectful. anyway we started out cold and in their only chance of the game, their striker managed to beat the other CB and score. we were left to chase the game which wasnt a big prob other than the fact that we din have able personnel upfront to finish the chances. the referee was being a cheebye as well and was ruining the game. he actually booked my teammate for wearing a chain and claimed that he had instructed us clearly before the game to remove any jewelery. yeah right. if he did say it, it must have been a whisper to the little mole on his tiny dick or something coz no one heard it. when one of my teammates got clattered into, i shouted at the ref to do something and he rewarded me with a yellow card. he then asked me to turn around so that he could see my number. i obediently complied, turning around and bending over in a 'come fuck me' pose much to the delight of my teammates and the spectators. fortunately i din get anything else for that but as time went on we got more and more desperate as we jus couldnt convert our chances. finally we lost 1-0. the good news is we still topped the group, but out egos were bruised and our confidence was diminished.

as expected AUT topped the other group so we headed into the semis hoping to make it a dream final against them. we played victoria in the semis and they had a few good players. as usual we started out cold and once again conceded a goal early in the game. once again we were chasing the game and although our striker was back, he was still suffering presumably from the hangover of the previous nite. as the other team sat back and defended, we threw everything at em but always came out short. my fellow CB had abandoned defending and was trying to play upfront, leaving me to defend by myself. not tat i minded of coz. we were losing after all. it din help that the wind was fucking strong. and i mean FUCKING strong. i know it affects both sides but it ruins the game lah, makes it that much more scrappy.

so as it turned out, we dominated the game but still lost, fucking up our grand hopes of winning the gold. story of my life really... on the field anyway...

anyway we went back all disappointed but determined to get the bronze medal to salvage a shitty tournament and facing off against the team we beat on the first day 5-0, we were pretty confident. We were more confident and controlled the game all the way, running out 4-0 winners.

after the tourney there was this 'team of the tournament' thingy which basically is a team made up of players who have performed well throughout the tourney. my teammates were all confident that i'd get in coz i did have a good tournament. but seeing as how the refs pick the team, and how 'popular' i was with them, i wasnt too sure. in the end, i din get in which was kinda disappointing and the team only had 2 defenders from AUT, which let in 8 goals in 5 matches by the way, so it was kinda screwed up. anyway several of my teammates came up to me and told me that they felt i should be in so that's good enuf for me. i always enjoy a good rubbing of the ego... heh

we got back to the hotel, showered, then it was time for dinner and partying. before we left, Humi (the iraqi) and i shared a bottle of jack daniels. 375ml each. man i love JD. hahaha. after that, we were set for the night. We went back to the same shitty bar for the closing ceremony and this time it was more entertaining. i guess went u've drunk more, everything seems more fun.

The guy in the jacket is 'old man' robert from germany and the guy in stripes is joep from holland. there's too much to say about them so i wun even try.
we were there with the girl's team too who promptly gave our asst team manager (this dumb ass honky dude who's an idiot) a sexy dance with him in the middle. we actually wanted to drag him to a strip club but i guess this was the cheaper option. heh. after a while we went to some club in wellington but i din stay long coz i was tired. so i dragged my ass back to the hotel with joep and had a gd sleep.

anyway even though we were bitterly disappointed at not making it to the finals, i think we all had a smashing good time and while we lost the gold medal, we gained so many friendships. awww so sweet right... i know...

anyway many thanks to my UoA teammates. though u'll never read this, i love u guys man. and i'm NOT an alcoholic.

shopping

well after the crazy weekend i had the last time i went to the rugby game etc, i was kinda flooded by tests and assignments and shit so i was all set to destress with some good ole retail therapy.
our hostel organised this shopping trip thingy. Basically, its free transport to 3 places to shop.

the first place was this street market place. basically its a carpark and on weekends its like a pasar malam. you can buy fruits and veggies or other pasar malam stuff like food and shirts etc. but the things on sale werent that cheap or that nice. so i din buy anything! wanted to buy some 'pacific island' shirts though. they were not bad. but too expensive. one shirt had 'pimp my waka' on it. waka is car in maori... so... hope u get the reference now... if not go watch more MTV.

in the end, the only thing that i came close to buying was a bird whistle thingy. basically its this piece of plastic which u put in ur mouth and depending on how u blow it, it makes bird noises!! pretty cool... but i was thinking, wen the hell would i get to use it? and if i did, would birds come and peck me or shit on me? i still havent been shat on by a bird and thats a record i intend to keep...
Anyway it wasnt all a lost cause. turns out the PM of NZ, Helen Clarke was due there for a talk about some welfare packages or something. So i went to kaypo. it was pretty worth the time too! there were maori performances before she came. some troupe from a school preformed and it was great. i really like maori songs. very erm.. soothing... melodious... something like that lah.. anyway too bad i dunno how to upload videos or i would show u guys a few of their routines.

after a while, Helen Clarke arrived. She's pretty tall and all and she gave her opening address in maori and english as well as a few asian greetings. i dunno if she has to give things like 'national day rallies' in maori just as our PM does in malay, chinese and english. but i know u guys dun care....

WELL U SHOULD! AND FROM NOW ON YOU BETTER NOT GET ON MY WRONG SIDE! COZ I HAVE POWERFUL ALLIES.....

SEE! HA! me and the PM are how tight! i mean how many pple have taken a photo with a foreign dignitary(hope i spelt that right) eh? and how many have taken it in the classic "extend the arm and take it ureself" method? man im so proud i could almost frame it up.

the funny thing is, i've never met our PM in the flesh, let alone take a photo with him. and to a certain extent, i dun really want to. speaks volumes eh... tsk tsk...

anyway thereafter we boarded the bus and went to botany downs. its a place with huge ass shopping malls and a lot of brands to choose from.

one of the many restaurants there.

anyway we all split up (guys and girls) and went about our shopping. we boys popped into rebel sports and spent a good amount of time there. things werent really cheap but there were still some good deals here and there. i found this green nike polo and decided to buy it since it was reasonably cheap at $35. (normal price $65) i wanted to buy a puma hoodie too but seeing as how spore is fucking hot and i have a lot of jackets/sweaters already, i decided not to.

next we went to a kathmandu store. the stuff was good. on sale too. but wen ure reducing prices from $500 + to $300+, its still bloody expensive... so... i din really find anything to buy.

by now i was hungry so i wanted to get some lunch. i walked thru some allies, searching for food wen i found myself in front of a 'foot locker' shop. hmmmm... SALE... ok the food can wait.

there were a lot of good bargains in the shop. i settled myself comfortably near a promotion shelf and began picking thru the clothes on offer. there were nike shirts going at 2 for $30!! HOLY GUACAMOLE! i also come across this gorgeous white shirt and it was like $30 after discount!!!

omigod! i feel like one of those bimbos who squeal in delight after buying new clothes/accessories and take nice little photos of them and put them in their blogs!! you go girlfrens!
one of the other shirts that i bought.

thereafter, we rushed to the bus and even though i hadnt eaten, i was satisfied. ;)

the last stop was onehunga. basically there was this huge ass warehouse mall which had all the major brands at warehouse prices. having spent $100+ dollars at te last stop, i was in no hurry to splurge and i sat down for a nice healthy macdonald's lunch. living the american dream man.

anyway, i soon got to shopping again and while the things were cheaper than normal, they still weren't cheap cheap. i wanted to buy some cheap socks but they din really have em. i did see a deal at nike though. they were selling 2 hats/caps for $10. now i only wanted one, so i set about psyching pple to buy one so that i could share the deal with them. one by one the pagans resisted my charms til i managed to convince josephine to buy a cap. she chose the same colour and design as i did but wat the heck eh. life's not perfect. so i was happy. thinking i had gotten my nice little cap for $5, when josephine comes up to me and says "hey. think i wun buy the cap. i like another adidas one. sorry"

at this point, i find it inappropriate to mention the vulgarities that spewed out of my mouth as i cursed the ***** who had just pang seh-ed me. in so doing, she joined an elite club of pang seh-ers led by the ever pang-seh-able Noel John Geno Oehlers, aka Pang Seh Kia (PSK). Noel puts the PSK in pesky.

anyway, jus as i was giving up, i saw 3 maori girls checking out the hats, so i went over and asked them if they intended to get any. fortunately, one did and i was back in business!

so this is the ugly little thing i had to go to so much trouble for. but $5. not bad lah hor.

so on the way back... it hit me.. (as im sure it must have hit some of u)

OH NO! I'M A CLOSET NIKE JUNKIE!!!

everything that i bought was from Nike! oh the shame.... how can i ever live with it...

ive never been a fan of nike. honestly! i refuse to buy nike boots (coz it is in my expert opinion that u will indefintely sprain ure ankles but dun qoute me on that. Nike, if ure reading, i love u guys. maybe we can work out a sponsor deal?) so yeah... i was pretty shocked about my revelation. oh the horror....

but well, i was/am happy with the deals that i got. so i guess the morale of the story is

"If you feel like buying it and its a good deal, JUST DO IT!" heh heh heh

minus 5 & housewarming party

so after the rugby game, Charlene suggested that we check out this place called minus 5. basically its a bar that only serves vodka. and for good reason too. coz the temperature of the bar is -5 degrees celcius. well basically vodka doesnt freeze at such low temperatures and its one of only a few types of drinks that are like that. so yeah.. its the 'coolest' experience in auckland.
We had to wear special coats and gloves to go in. this is my 'damn its cold' face.
so basically the bar area is this small little room with a lot of ice sculptures in it. they have bears like this one and dolphins and eagles and all sorts of shit. but the coolest part (pun not intended) is that the bar itself and the cups are made of ice!!
this is the bar with some absolut raspberry. the bar has some non-slip sponge thingies on them to prevent the cups and bottles from slipping.
the room has lights all over the place (but u cant see them) and they change colours periodically so its kinda trippy.
bartender for 7 seconds
2 dolphins jumping. but if u look at it at an angle, it looks like they're humping. horny bastards! heh.. anyway we're only allowed to stay in there for 25 mins. its not for our safety though, its coz the room isnt that big, so by limiting our time inside, they can chase us out for the next batch of visitors to go in. more volume of pple = more $$$... capitalist bastards!!
this is the bar with my flash on. can u see the word ABSOLUT on the front? whoever carves these things must be making quite good $$...
anyway this is the vodka display in the toilet. which isnt minus 5 degrees. for obvious reasons. after that i thanked Charlene and her landlord and joined espen at a housewarming party near our apartment.
Espen is this gay dude. ok he's not really gay but he looks gay here eh. For more on Espen read my paintball entry like eons ago. anyway these 2 norwegians (espen's frens) were moving into a new apartment so there was a party. there were quite a few norwegians there and i learnt how to speak a bit. like how to say 'bottoms up' which sounds something like 'score for fun' in english. then there's 'dra til helevete' which was my trump card. it means 'go to hell'. and hello is 'cosh goorda'. something like that. which the norwegian chick above taught me. apparently there are hundreds to thousands of norwegian dialects so they all talk a bit differently. so different pple from different regions talk differently. but anyway, it is in my opinion that norwegian sounds a bit like italian. but hey that's just me.

i also met some asians there. the girl in the middle is sayaka, a jap girl who lives in HK and studies here. hahaha. complicated eh. the guy in white is kristian, this norwegian dude who's really cheeky. btw he's not really grabbing her boob. talented poser that kristian. lastly the girl in blue is shireen. a malaysian. it was fun talking to her in the local slang. i tried talking to her in malay. totall bombed. but luckily my malay insults arent that bad. =P

well after this party we went to some pub for 'the after party'. they always have after parties here. and based on my experience, they always suck. so moral of the story is. quite while u're ahead. anwyay that concludes my hectic and happenening crazy day of fun II.

Super XIV Rugby! Blues vs Brumbies

So last last last saturday.. (man im so behind!) Charlene and i went to catch the Super XIV match between the Blues and the Brumbies. Well seeing as how the Blues are based in Auckland, we were 'forced' into supporting them. So we went to a local bar to meet the organisers. There we grabbed a beer and soaked in the pre match atmostphere (not much considering that most of the pple there were international students like us). But a lot of them (and us eventually) got their faces painted so it was all good fun. We then took a bus to Eden Park, home of Auckland Rugby!
the stadium was reasonably big. probably the size of highbury, so not that big lah... heh heh... anyway we (I) chose seats near the front and close to the corner flag. I was hoping that a few tries would be scored in this corner... but as the match unfolded later on.. i was to rue my arse luck. (nothing happened in our corner... NOTHING!!!)
Anyway we got some hot chips (fries) and a hotdog and watched as the teams warmed up. The Brumbies were warming up nearer to where we were. Spotted a few familiar faces like Matt Giteau, Stirling Mortlock (the captain), George Gregan (ex Aussie capt. i say ex coz i think he's retired. if im wrong dun jump on my case coz ure mom probably knows less than i do. so go jump on her! in fact... dun jus stop there.......... ok sorry.. got carried away..) and Stephen Larkham! (the legend!) managed to catch gregan with his pants down too. Charlene was quite happy to get this photo. not coz she likes him. on the contrary, she hates him coz he's arrogant. and the fact that he came late for warm-up seems to justify her claims. but hey the man is a fucking dog on the field so i'm willing to cut him a bit of slack. =PAnyway the Blues were warming up too.. on the other side of the field. see them? wearing blue? FOCUS PEOPLE!!! ;)
Anyway the Blues have Troy Flavell, Ali Williams, Keven Mealamu (the capt), Joe Rokokoko(kokokoko) and Doug howlett (who was injured!! dammit!!)
anyway before the match started, they got one spectator from every stand to go and compete for prizes for their respective stands. basically, they used this spinner thingy which is similar to the kind that shoots softballs/baseballs and tennis balls but this one shot rugby balls, high up into the air and the spectator who caught the most would win mini balls and scarves and shit for their stand. so it started and after 2 rounds, all of them had a perfect score ie they all had the caught the ball twice each. which was pretty impressive since the balls are really shot v v high up. there was even a girl competing and she was catching like a pro. impressive... anyway after 4 rounds, our representative narrowly lost out and we missed out on the goodies. nabei. y cant they jus make us queue like good singaporeans do. i bet i'd get one or 2 freebies then.
anyway the match got under way and then this streaker sailed across the field in this boat!! ok ok he's just the blues' mascot. and his boat comes with fireworks and everything man. its crazy. anyway the match got under way and it was a very scrappy 1st half.
both sides were making a lot of mistakes. the blues in particular were losing lineouts like nobody's business. it made for interesting spectating since their fans were cursing and swearing at them. i guess every country has their 'rascals' eh. I was expecting the Brumbies to hammer the Blues to be honest since they have been having a crap season. before the game the Blues were like 4th last or something while the Brumbies were like 4th or something. but in the last 15 mins of the first half, the Blues managed to pull themselves together to build a 18-0 lead. speaking of lead....
the cheerleaders rock man (see how i totally jumped to another topic by being corny? im a genius). they walk from stand to stand to perform. and they have a real cool march-to-the-place-then-swivel-&-sit-down thingy (personal demonstrations will cost u, so best u try to visualise it ureself). a few of them were a little pudgy though and some guy behind me kept shouting stuff like "how did they let a cow like u in?" and "oh my god would you look at that one!". tsk tsk.
another interesting thing is that they have this guy on a small little itsy bitsy scooter (the guy in yellow above) and bascially he brings the thingy for the rugby ball for conversions. shit i cant remember the name of it. but u know wat i mean rite? the rubber thingy? looks like an ashtray? the players rest the ball on it so that the ball can stand? c'mon.. you're not that dumb r u? anyway its really cute coz he zips out onto the field on cue and zips back again.
ok back to the action. the second half proves to be less scrappy than the first but still not much scoring going on. brumbies have several chances to score but are ultimately stopped by a resolute blues defence and some tough refereeing. the brumbies do ,however, manage to claw their way back with a try and a penalty to 21-10. but just as the chance that they might get back into the game appears, the blues manage to score another try, putting the game out of reach with 10 mins left.

and the crowd goes wild!
crowd1: "wild wild wild wild wild?"
crowd2:"wild wild"
crowd1:"Wild! wild wild wild."
you get the picture

well there werent any more points after that so it finished 26-10 to the Blues. I must be their lucky charm. maybe they can salvage their season now.After the match, we met up with Charlene's landlord who knew several Blues players. So he offered to get us a photo opportunity with one of the players. Charlene chose Rokokoko i think. If i had my way, i'd choose larkham, or gregan. but hey, i'm not complaining.
He was huge i tell u! oh the guy on my left is John, Charlene's landlord. We shook Rokokoko's hand (which is huge btw) and took a photo with him (duh). so it was a good end to a good day. im hoping to catch an international match too (maybe All Blacks v Ireland). so maybe this wouldnt be the last time i meet Rokokokokokokkoko.