{"id":811,"date":"2010-08-14T23:38:07","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T15:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayl.id.au\/?page_id=811"},"modified":"2017-08-17T00:22:36","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T16:22:36","slug":"gold-coast-pg-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/?page_id=811","title":{"rendered":"Gold Coast Pg 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thu 7th Feb
\nI awoke at 6:30 and David was still sending up zzzz\u2019s \u2013 MOST unusual on all counts so I crept quietly to fill up the kettle and turn it on for him, and to get myself a juice and I sat quietly reading for about half an hour until David wriggled. I excitedly made him a cuppa \u2013 excited because I so rarely get to make him his first drink \u2013 and took it through to him. \u201cWhat are you doing awake?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know, I just am\u201d \u201cDisturbing decent people in bed with cups of coffee, I don\u2019t know!\u201d Hehehehe. We had breakfast of toast for David and Swami-fruit for me, followed by showers, and then set out for a walk until the exciting time to meet Swami at the fruit caf\u00e9 over the road for a smoothie.<\/p>\n

We walked along, still laughing hugely at the cars doing nose stands to stop at all the cross-walks and feeling guilty for holding them up as they stopped the moment you even THOUGHT about crossing!!! We first went to look at the beach which was incredibly wide between the foreshore and the ocean, and also incredibly flat, and realised we weren\u2019t sure of the ocean’s name over this side of the country so we giggled at that. It didn\u2019t register that we\u2019d come down the Pacific Motorway the night before so our guess at it being the Pacific was correct but I guess we don\u2019t win points for brains because of the circumstances surrounding our vague knowledge. Isn\u2019t the ocean between Sydney and NZ called something else? Geography is not my hot topic as you can see lol. Then we wandered up and down the foreshore shops, caf\u00e9s and restaurants to see what there was to see but our minds were on meeting Swami so we soon went and hung around the Garden Caf\u00e9 in case she was early so that we didn\u2019t waste a minute.<\/p>\n

After a little while, along she came, waving hugely at David who she recognised instantly from across the street, and it was hugs all round. What a delight she was. A beautiful face and such a petite little build, but more than that a gorgeous person. We talked and talked, and laughed, and had the most delicious smoothies with such an incredible amount of fruit hanging from the straws that you\u2019d think the straws would bend from the strain. Oh, I should have said before that the weather was fine and clear and perfect too.<\/p>\n

All too soon Swami\u2019s parking time was up and she had to go, so we walked her to her car and stood there talking more because we could see that the parking inspector was not in sight, though s\/he had chalked the tyres. Swami had brought a set of poi with her to lend to me as I\u2019d always wanted to try them, so every day after that in the hotel I was having a little practice. It was so good to meet Swami after such a close e-friendship for the past almost year. We made plans to meet again on Saturday but parted reluctantly with more hugs.<\/p>\n

Our plan now was to go to Infinity at the Chevron Renaissance Centre at Surfers Paradise. I\u2019d seen an ad for this place as we\u2019d driven through in 2004 and was so disappointed that we had not had time to see it on that trip. But the time had now come to fulfil that dream and we set off with the map book on my lap after Swami had given us advice to drive up the Gold Coast Highway to get there. I was fascinated that they had both highways and a motorway \u2013 most places use one term or the other. We accidentally passed the entry to the underground car park but were able to turn right at the next lights into a car park and come back through, and found a parking spot right near the ramp to the shops with great ease.<\/p>\n

We decided to have lunch before going to Infinity so found ourselves a caf\u00e9 with a nice blackboard special for 2 courses and got comfortable. This was called The Chat Room as it had computer access at the back and there were quite a few early 20s guys with laptops sitting around. I got the impression that as long as you bought something the access was free. For entr\u00e9e we got a Caesar salad and some garlic focaccia with salsa which was nicer than it sounds, and shared both and I can\u2019t for the life of me remember what we had for mains. Then off to Infinity which was just a shop sized place in the middle of the open air mall.<\/p>\n

I was so excited and could hear the techno-style music from the outside. We had to hand over all our bags etc which they put in a locker, and they gave us white cotton gloves and shoe covers to wear and then sent us on our way down a black fabric covered hallway into\u2026 darkness. There was a little safety video and a few stairs to climb and we were on our way into a small unlit, black corridor. I did not let go of David\u2019s hand for the whole time we were in there!!! And I\u2019m meaning the whole place, not just this part. He had to feel around to find the way out of this \u2018room\u2019 and when he did so, we found ourselves in another corridor that had limited lighting and mirrors on every wall, floor and ceiling. But there was a problem \u2013 I\u2019ll see if I can draw a picture looking from one end of the corridor, which was in fact only about 3 metres long\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Infinity's

Infinity's First Room - Help!!!<\/p><\/div>\n

And our arms stretched longer and my hand gripped David\u2019s tighter, but my feet wouldn\u2019t move.\u00a0 I didn’t want them to, and I couldn’t have made them if my life depended on it.\u00a0 It felt as if my life depended on not<\/span> moving them!<\/p>\n

Every step we took was just a terrifying as the one before.\u00a0 We KNEW our feet were on solid ground, we KNEW we were walking on mirrors and the floor was solid below us, but convincing your head to let your feet move was another matter entirely.\u00a0 Even David (generously lol) admitted he found it difficult to take a step.\u00a0 We did get to the other end of the corridor and then he was bouncing around like a 2 year old, boing, boing, boing, \u201cMore?\u201d and wanting to run up and down just to prove it could be done.\u00a0 I still had difficulty putting each foot out, no matter that we\u2019d just come from there.\u00a0 And it was also time to move on now that we\u2019d found the door out of this room.\u00a0 The next was yet another dark, small space, this time with bits of who knows what hanging from the ceiling.\u00a0 It was fluffy feeling \u2013 perhaps strips of soft sacking or something.\u00a0 [Nice alliterations May!!!]\u00a0 I held my free arm up in front of my face.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t bothered, as such, but I choose not to have unknown and sudden happenings around my mouth and nose \u2013 and glasses!<\/p>\n

The next room was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.\u00a0 I never, EVER wanted to leave it.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t have cared if I\u2019d starved to death, I did not want to leave.\u00a0 There had been a note outside this one saying to pretend that we were electrons in a huge computer.\u00a0 Again this room was all mirrors, and also maze-like in that it had several corridors, but the effect was from just a very few rows of small coloured lights set behind the mirrors so that they showed through tiny holes in the mirror backing.\u00a0 With the effect of all these mirrors it gave the impression of being in something endless in every direction, just filled with these beautiful rows of flashing lights.\u00a0 One minute the view was blue and red, the next, yellow and green\u2026 rows expanding into forever.\u00a0 We could see reflections of ourselves too, but the lights were the main focus and it just took my breath away with the incredible beauty, and the next thing I knew I was crying.\u00a0 It was just more beautiful than I could ever describe.\u00a0 David tugged on my hand a couple of times but I just kept saying \u201cNot yet!\u201d\u00a0 In the end another 3 people<\/p>\n

\"Infinity's

Infinity's Indescribably Beautiful Electron Room<\/p><\/div>\n

came in so we felt we\u2019d better move along to let them enjoy it in peace as we had done for quite some time by then.\u00a0 It took us a while to find the door out \u2013 shame hehehehe.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t go in to details of the other rooms; there was fun and funky, eerie, weird, and one \u2018photo opportunity\u2019.\u00a0 The picture is actually manipulated to look as if it was in my beautiful room, which it wasn\u2019t, but it gives you a bit of an idea what the room was like.\u00a0 It does not come close to doing it justice though.\u00a0 It was odd that in here we could see down, down, down, but there wasn\u2019t the fear of falling that we\u2019d had in the previous room.<\/p>\n

So we eventually came through all the other rooms with so many different themes and experiences and made our way out, got our belongings back, and purchased the above photo at great expense.\u00a0 But I think it was worth it to be reminded of how an electron feels and to jog my memory into experiencing that amazing room over and over again.\u00a0 I so want to build one here, I have a dining room I\u2019m willing to give up!!!<\/p>\n

From here we walked around the shopping centre to see what there was to see.\u00a0 One of the \u2018features\u2019 was a guy offering scratchies so we took one each, asking what the prize was and were told a holiday on the Gold Coast.\u00a0 David replied \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re already doing, why would we want another one?\u201d\u00a0 He scratched his card and only got one sunshine \u2013 no good.\u00a0 I scratched mine and got all 3!!!\u00a0 Showed the guy and he was incredulous and I saw him looking backwards and forwards between us; totally baffled because we weren\u2019t bouncing around with glee (we were waiting to see what the small print was!), and his remaining pile of scratchies.\u00a0 I could hear his brain whirring with the question \u2018what use are these remaining scratchies if the main prize has gone?\u2019\u00a0 Anyway, the small print was that we had to attend a 1\u00bd hour time share presentation and we have to pay our own air fare, but that\u2019s not bad eh?\u00a0 We were happy, just not in the way he\u2019d expected.<\/p>\n

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Thu 7th Feb I awoke at 6:30 and David was still sending up zzzz\u2019s \u2013 MOST unusual on all counts so I crept quietly to fill up the kettle and turn it on for him, and to get myself a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":567,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-811","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3832,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/811\/revisions\/3832"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}