Happy Easter & Tabletop Gaming Day

We started our Easter Sunday with some hot cross buns for breakfast. Hot cross buns are a big tradition here for Easter, so we decided to follow suite.

Happy breakfast!

Along with hot cross buns, Australia Easter traditions include the Easter Bilby. The Easter Bilby is like an alternative to the Easter Bunny. Bilbies are an endangered species, so by making them part of the Easter celebrations, more people become aware of these little guys and their predicament.

The other big event on our Sunday was Toby's celebration of international tabletop gaming day. He's been excited about this for weeks, so we made snacks and rearranged the living room to accommodate the gaming of the day.

At one point, there was a soccer game on AND a board game in progress. I don't know if I've ever seen Toby happier.

We finished our long weekend with a dinner at Pancakes on the Rocks with Emma. These were some serious pancakes!

 

Yay, pancakes!

Since we were at The Rocks, I snapped a few pics of some of the historic buildings.

 

 

It was a great night and a wonderful weekend overall!

 

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Night at Luna Park

On Friday, we had dinner with Susan and John over in Kirribilli. After our outing a couple weeks ago, Susan wanted to take some pictures of Luna Park at night. And never being one to turn down an opportunity to go for a walk at night, I suggested we meet up for a bite and then go walk around together.

I didn't take too many pictures, but here are a few.

 

 

The park really toes the line between festive and creepy at night, so it was fun to walk around and take in all the scenes.

 

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Anish Kapoor

To kick off the holiday weekend, Susan and I went down to the Anish Kapoor exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art after work. (In Australia, we get Friday and Monday off for Easter - hooray!) I had been by the museum plenty of times, since its at Circular Quay, but never inside it. So I was excited!

The building itself is at the point of Circular Quay, and it's really beautiful.

The giant silver plate outside was one of the pieces. On the one side, it reflected the sky. The other side reflected me!

I didn't really know anything Anish Kapoor beyond what I'd seen around the city in promotions. And I'm not much for modern art. But the exhibit turned out to be really cool!

The first room we went into was this big anvil in a mound of wax. It actually moved really slowly so you could see how the circle had gotten deeper and deeper.

There's Susan!

Most of the rest of the exhibit was made up of pieces that were optical illusions or made weird reflections. I don't know that I really got any deeper meaning from them than that, but they were cool to look at.

We finished our museum visit with a trip up to the rooftop sculpture area and bar. I felt super classy and cultured up there. =)

Then Susan and I headed to our respective homes to kick off our long weekend!

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A visit to the library

I decided it was high-time to get a library card here, so on a sunny lunch break I walked down to the Circular Quay (pronounced "key") library.

It was a nice walk; lots of lovely fountains and green spaces along the way.

The city center is marked with this monument.

The library itself is really lovely too. It's in the Customs House building.

The floor of the atrium is glass over a mockup of the city.

And the rest of the building is really beautiful, too.

 It was a nice, peaceful and educational lunch break! I feel like I might have even gotten a little smarter. =)

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A weekend happened & holy crate, Batman!

We didn't do very much this weekend. Mainly because our apartment looked like this:

That's right! We got our stuff!!

So the majority of our weekend was spent putting things away. I'll post some pictures once everything is looking lovely.

We still had some time for fun stuff though.

Friday fun night

For about a month now, I have told Toby to reserve Friday for a date night - the destination & activities were a secret. I'm pretty sure his weeks-long dread over what I might have planned pretty much cancelled out any enjoyment he got out of the night, but I couldn't help myself! Right after we arrived in Sydney, I learned about this vegetarian Indian buffet restaurant that also had a mini movie theatre upstairs. When you get dinner there, you can go upstairs after you eat and watch a movie for $10. The "theatre" isn't normal stadium seating, either; it's nice cushy couches and cushions.
Before we went out to dinner, though, we had a couple drinks at work and watched the trivia night going on.

Then we jumped up to Kings Cross and found Govinda's. It was tucked away between two buildings but was pretty busy. We started in on the buffet...

I am not much for Indian food, but I don't know if I've ever seen T happier.

We ate until we were both stuffed, and then we headed up to watch the movie. I tried to take a picture of the seating, but it was too dark. The movie itself was really good - we both really like it, which is a rarity.

Between the movie, the food, and the unique venue, this surprise date was a success!

Dog-time

On Saturday, Michaela picked me up on her way to take Gracie the dog to the beach.

The peaceful beach before the dogs converge

Gracie found some friends (she's the golden retriever)

Gracie needed some companionship for the deeper parts.

 It was a beautiful day, fun to hang out with Michaela, and I was super happy to get some dog-time in!

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An afternoon at Luna Park

My friend Susan from work came out on Sunday morning and we walked around Luna Park, Lavendar Bay, and Wendy's Secret Garden to take pictures. It was a windy, sunny day, and prefect for taking pictures.

This is Susan:

Here's how she looks most of the time:

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. I put all of my pictures up here.

We started out walking through Luna Park. It had just opened for the morning, so it wasn't too busy yet.

Ready to take on the park!

Then we walked along Lavendar Bay. 

On the wharf in Lavendar Bay

A local artist, Peter Kingston, has created whimsical statues that are displayed along the walk from Luna Park to Lavendar Bay. They are called "Hidden Treasures," because they are just nestled alongside the plants by the boardwalk. We had fun looking for them and snapping some pics of these cute little guys!

Then we headed up into Wendy's Secret Garden, which was created by a local resident named Wendy after her husband died. It really is secret, because it's very lush and you immediately forget that you're just a few hundred yards from the chaos of Luna Park. 

Exploring Wendy's Secret Garden

We finished our day with a quick walk up the north foreshore. The wind was starting to really pick up by then, so we snapped a few shots and then called it a day!

Finishing the day with more views of the bridge

Here are some pictures that Susan took and shared with me:

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