I started the year with a 6am start to get a train for 7am parkrun. The route was 15 minute train to Boggo Road then a 1.5 kilometre run across the river to St Lucia parkrun. This was my first attempt at loading a course into my Garmin watch to help navigating from the train station to parkrun. The route itself worked alright except the map had so many other lines and markings on it with similar colours. I ran a bit extra for a 4 kilometre warmup and was sweating before the start.
I took off from the start in about 5th place, dealing with some slight hills on a gravel course, with a bit of mud from previous rain. By the 1.5 kilometre turnaround I was into second place and then took the lead, but had someone still right behind me. I lost the lead at both of the next turnarounds but got back ahead soon afterwards each time. I was sure the other person was going to pull away for the finish but I managed to do that instead. I used the watch route in reverse to get back to the train station and had to wait less than 10 minutes.
After walking back to the hotel I got changed and went down for the free breakfast. The range was quite similar to other Holiday Inn Express hotels, the highlight was some good berry yoghurt.
Getting packed for the day I took a bus to Woolloongabba bus station for 10am, with an impressive bus network on some of it's own dedicated roads. Probably because they have less of a train network they have put more effort into having efficient bus trips.
I arrived at 1 Up Arcade just after the opening but there was already quite a few people inside. The entry price was $30 for unlimited play all day, but was closing earlier at 4pm due to the public holiday. There was a good range of games, including beat them up, fighting, guns, and racing. A small negative was how many Street Fighter games they had, which nobody seemed to be interested in.
My first stop was to try out a strange Quake arcade machine. It turned out to be just the single player game but with a track ball for aiming. The button to fire kept getting stuck also, so I only played the first level as it was not easy to move and shoot at the same time. Next I moved on to The Simpsons which I've played before, but some of the levels didn't seem familiar so maybe it was a different version. There was a kid that kept walking around waiting for me to finish playing which was a bit annoying.
I would have gone to the 6 player X-Men next but it was broken, instead I went with Double Dragon 2 and NBA Jam tournament edition, although most of the codes for secret players weren't working on this version. I also had a quick try of Galaga, and Sega Rally, and played through all of Captain America And The Avengers. My final game was Mega Man The Power Battle, which was like a weird boss fight only version of Mega Man, but the characters only had basic weapons.
The combination of sitting and standing and using the controllers had made my arm and neck quite sore after a few hours, by the time I was ready to leave. Some of the cabinets had seats nearby, or you could grab them from elsewhere, but others were a bit high for seating. I spent a bit under four hours there and played most of the games I was interested in, but easily could have stayed for longer.
I took a similar bus back into the city which comes out underneath the mall and shopping centre, which was convenient. I got a quick energy drink from Chemist Warehouse since I hadn't had anything since breakfast, and had a walk around the mall. I stopped in at the EB Games and Zing store which had some interesting merchandise, but probably was all too big for my backpack.
I stopped in at a couple of Woolworths and an IGA on the way back to the hotel, but didn't find much different, usually they have some different flavoured milk at least. Watched some TV shows and Twitch while having a combination of lunch and dinner, and made some basic plans for tomorrow.
20,200 steps with 11.70 kilometres running
No comments:
Post a Comment