Saturday, December 12, 2009

Rugby 7's (by Craig)

Jemilla brought home some more free tickets to the East Asian Games. This time it was two tickets to the Rugby 7's. The main differences to the normal game are:
  • only seven players on the field for each team rather than fifteen
  • seven minute halves rather than the conventional forty minutes
  • conversions can only be a one-step drop-kick rather than a set shot from a mound
This was the first of two days for the Rugby 7's competition. There were fifteen matches on Day One, shared by both men's and women's teams.

It was another father and son day out, and to add some variety to the trip across to the Island, Keegan and I took a ferry from Hung Hom.



Keegan was pleased as punch to be at the Hong Kong Stadium to watch some more sports.



The steep angle on the stands makes the back row still feel relatively close to the action. It's just the size of a soccer oval, but the stadium still holds 40,000+ people. I was surprised to learn that the stadium is scheduled to be demolished to make room for more apartments. It was in better condition than a lot of stadiums in Australia, in my opinion.



From memory in Australia the big stadiums only offer no-name fast food shops that charge ridiculous prices. The surprising difference here was that KFC had an outlet. However, their menu had only six items to choose from and the price was 2-3 times that at regular outlets.



Another thing that stood out on the KFC menu was rather than conventional soft drink refills, customers have the opportunity to buy a jug or two of Carlsberg beer to add to their meals.



It was a wise move to pack our cricket-like tennis ball, as after less than a game (which including injury time lasts a whole 14 minutes) Keegan couldn't stay seated any longer. I was able to find a spot where he could practice being a wicket keeper whilst I bowled a few overs and was still able to watch the game on one of the scoreboards out of the corner of my eye.




On the trip back to the train station I was so impressed by the clean stainless steel shop fronts that I thought I'd take a photo while walking past.



The other reason Keegan was on my shoulders for most of the trip back to the MTR station was so I wouldn't loose him in the crowd.

The number of people in HK still amazes me...

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