Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A Drive In Experience And The Father's Day That Followed

To be different this year, our father's day celebration started a night earlier. We decided on an impulse to take in twin movies at the Veldskoen Drive Inn, situated in Randburg, Johannesburg. It had been a while since we last watched at the drive inn and certainly that occasion did not fall in the dead of winter. However, since it was Kung Fu Panda 2 that was playing, we braved the cold. Or pretended that the night was not gonna be that cold anyway.

The first movie (Kung Fu Panda 2) was set to start at 19h30 and the second movie (Thor) would start around 21h30. The price per vehicle is R70 (just over $10). We arrived three-quarter of an hour early to get a good movie spot. As is customary at most drive inns, you drive in with your vehicle and watch the actions on a very huge screen. You get the sounds of the movie from your own car radio. The radio station/channel that hosts the movie sounds is given to you at the gate.
At the back of the car, playing around before the movies started

We came prepared with lots of potato chips and popcorn at hand. We even had pillows and thick blankets for warmth. The only things we bought at the inn were sodas. They were an arm and a leg! R12 ($1.50) for a 500ml bottle. Of course, that is to be expected.

Homemade popcorns at the open air cinema!

The movies were enjoyable. However, as it was expected in winter, our windshield kept getting misty during the movies. So from time to time, we would start the car to heat it up.

And wouldn't you know it, when it was time to go home, the car decided to stall and not start up. Battery died because we used the car heater too much.

Lucky, we were parked on an incline. So my eldest and I got out to give the car a slight push. It gave the car the kick-start it needed. And we were off!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The "celebrant" digging in....our platter is smack bang in the middle
of the table

The next day saw us celebrating Father's Day the way we normally do - go out and have lunch. Our family restaurant of choice - The Ocean Basket! As is derived from the restaurant's name, it is one that specialises on seafoods. We ordered our usual orders of grilled calamari tube starter for youngest, prawns and calamari tubes for eldest, and a seafood platter for 2 for hubby and me. The platter consisted of all kinds of seafoods (prawns, calamari tubes, calamari heads, hakes, mussels). And to mark the special occasion, we even added a sushi order of 8 salmon california rolls. Yummy!

My dish of calamari tubes looks delicious!

We were full after that lunch. And nothing much happened afterwards. We went home and slept the rest of the afternoon. And that was the end of Father's Day. Shame on us. LOL.

So how did you guys celebrate your father's day in your part of the world?

2 comments:

rikka said...

cute celebration! daming food!

Jona said...

movies, lotsa food and tons of sleep...a way to celebrate :D hehe!