Vivid Part II

I took so. many. pictures at Vivid on Friday night that there is no way I could put them in one post. There were so many parts of it that I loved. And I probably left out some of the most interesting pictures: the beloved Opera House and Harbor Bridge lit up! So here are just a few more pics that I like from the evening.

Here's me in front of a light exhibit made of traffic cones. And some creepy guy behind me. 

Some stilt-men out in front of Luna Park milling with all the Vivid-viewers. You can see the lighted bridge in the background. 

This picture shows a sail-type sculpture that the light pulsed in. And below that picture is a piano. The lights on the keys changed as you played. Too bad none of the random people around knew any good songs to play!

This was a cool light tunnel you could walk through. The lights changed to all different colors and then sometimes pulsed like a disco. It was really fun to be in.

 

More sail sculptures... And some lighted-up cubes where you could sit and watch the Opera House light show from across the bay. The kiddos really liked it!

And the CBD from downtown... What a lovely evening!

Posted with Blogsy

Biggest Morning Tea

Australians drink a lot of tea. I guess it's their British influences, but people are always making cuppas throughout the day. Formal teas aren't as common, but quite a few restaurants around Sydney do high teas. I haven't experienced one of these yet, but from my understanding, it's a full-on tea party with scones, canapés, and all the other fun treats you'd expect. A high tea is on the list for Holly's visit. =)

But there is one day a year in May called "Australia's Biggest Morning Tea" - this is a fundraiser day for the Cancer Council. At our office, we had a baking competition. Then everyone could donate $5 to be able to sample all the baked goods and vote on their favorite. It sounded like a lot of fun, so of course I entered.
I wanted to make something that was a good taste of home, so I emailed my Grandma and requested the recipe for apple muffins that I remember coming out of her oven warm, delicious, and cinnamony. Of course, she emailed it right over and I had my dish!
I made them in a mini muffin pan so there would be plenty to go around. They turned out really cute! And I got several compliments on them, so I can be proud of the taste of Tennessee I brought to Australia.

There was a lot of good food at the tea! Since I work with so many people from all over the world, it was like taking a food tour of dozens of countries. There was pavlova, lemon meringue pie, flan, macaroons, and some Australian biscuits (plus tons of other stuff!). I can get behind this kind of tea!

Posted with Blogsy

Happy Memorial Day!

Of course Memorial Day isn't a holiday here. But I work with some nice Americans who invited me over for a cookout to celebrate the holiday. It was a good mix of people from all over: Boston, San Francisco, Portland, and St. Louis.

We met down at a park by the bay in Balmain. The grownups (and I count myself in that group, I guess) ate snacks and drank beer while the kids ran around and played. It was a really lovely day - sunny and in the 70's. Almost just like the weather at home!

It was a nice evening: burgers were grilled, beers were drunk, and most importantly, apple pie was eaten. It doesn't get much more American than that!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Vivid Part I

Friday kicked off Vivid Sydney, which is a light festival that goes on for 2 weeks each year in the city. I have been excited about it ever since we moved here and started hearing about it! The city lights up the Opera House and all kinds of buildings around the city. There are also cool light-based art exhibits all around, and a lot of them are interactive so they're extra awesome.

So Friday was my day for seeing Vivid for the first time. I made plans with two workmates to grab some dinner and then walk around to see the lights at Circular Quay. The weather was a little iffy, but we headed out.

Our first stop was at the Customs House. Lights were projected up onto the building front, but that wasn't all! There was also a stage set up with sensors on the floor for people to dance on. The impact on the floor changed the way the lights were projected. It's hard to explain, so here's a video:

The light schemes changed based on the song that each dancer chose. Here's a sampling.

I am lucky enough to know this fabulous dancer who took her turn on the dance floor!

There were tons of cool light installations around Circular Quay. Like these cool light-ferns hanging down under the train overpass.

There was also this cool light peg thing - you could push in the pegs to change the lights and make patterns on the board.

So many other cool installations:

This one changed colors based on touch, so you could run your hands all over it and watch the colors change.

These were light see-saws and as you went up and down, the colors on the light board behind changed. The kiddos really liked this one!

I'll close out this Part I with pics from what might be my favorite sites from the night: there was a cruise ship docked in Circular Quay and occasionally there would be projections on it. Those were all travel-themed, appropriately.

Posted with Blogsy

While the Tobesters away...

So Toby headed back for a quick trip to the States this week. I had to send some things back for people - but I left some space for Toby's stuff.

Toby's visit seems to have started off well.

And Hudson looks really dapper in his new Aussie handkerchief.

Meanwhile, I've been doing crazy things like eating only quinoa for dinner, watching Night at the Roxbury, and all manner of other things that T finds distasteful. So it's been A-OK!

Posted with Blogsy

Reflection on the week

It ended up being quite a busy week for me, work-wise. So hardly anything blog-worthy happened or was photographed. But here are a few interesting tidbits from my week:

• After seeing the story about the kangaroo scrotum souvenirs, I did a little research into the kangaroo culling practices here. It turns out, only city-folk and gawky foreigners like us are enchanted with kangaroos. To most Australians, they are a pest, and in fact, are considered by many farmers to be Enemy #1. (Yes, I too was surprised that spot wasn't taken by giant crocodiles.) So the government pays people to routinely cull the wild kangaroo population, which is where things like kangaroo scrotum souvenirs and kangaroo meat in the supermarkets come from. Incidentally, kangaroo meat is incredibly nutritious: very high protein and around 2% fat. Anyway, kangaroo culling is controversial, as you might imagine, but it's a practice I didn't even know existed until now. This short article about it was very good, if you find this topic as interesting as I do.
• I was asked by an Australian friend to explain the concept of chicken-fried steak. I struggled to come up with a description that would make it sound anything other than completely over-the-top and a stereotypical American take on food.
• It's consistently staying cool during the days here now. That means mid-fifties in the mornings and low-seventies as the high. For Sydney-siders, this means coats and scarves. For cafes, this means dragging out the heaters and putting blankets out. I know some Tennessee Swedes who would laugh heartily at this.

• On the subject of cool weather, one of my co-workers came to work wearing shorts one day. I overheard this exchange between him and another co-worker:

"Dude! Shorts?!?"

"Yeah...I can't find my jeans."

And that sums up so much about working with brilliant developers.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Seeing critters through new eyes

Last Saturday, T and I caught the ferry up to Manly for a night-time tour through Sydney Harbor National Park. This tour was extra exciting because it was at night and we used night vision goggles to see the all the animals that we don't usually get to see during the day! This post has a couple pictures that I took, but most of them are ones that our tour guide Jess took with his infrared camera.

Here we are with our gear, getting ready to start.

It's Bond, James Bond

The white box on my chest was part of the earpieces we wore. That let our guide speak really quietly when we were close to animals but we could still hear his instructions about where to look and what kind of animal we were seeing. I totally felt like a spy.

Our walk through the bush was really fun. Being out in the bush in the dark, away from the city, made me feel connected to Australia in a new way. I love Sydney and all the things happening in the city, but this was a different way to experience the country and the draw that some of the early explorers must have felt.

Anyway, we got to see some cool animals on our walk! We saw two types of possums: ringtail and bush tail. The ringtail possums look more like the possums from Tennesee, but they aren't ugly! In fact, they are really cute!

This is a pic of one of the possums we saw that night.

Here's one from another night's tour, just to convince you of their cuteness.

We were also introduced to a new animal that night: the bandicoot. These guys look kind of like mice or chipmunks except with a bigger, rounder behind. So they are really cute, too! They're also marsupials, so it was pretty amazing to think of them carrying around babies in their tiny pouches.

Here's what Google says they look like in normal light:

Another cutie!

Our guide works as a ranger at the national park during the day, and he told us that he'd been doing bandicoot trapping that week. They are trying to keep tabs on the population in the area, so each morning that week, he'd been out to check traps, tag any animals they'd captured, and then release them. He said sometimes the babies will jump out of the pouch and he has to tuck them back in. What a crazy job!

We also saw some flying foxes (fruit bats). Yay! Toby's favorite! And my favorite sighting of the night ended up not being an animal at all, but bio-luminescent fungi. It was incredible! You could look off into the bush and see a green glow. It wasn't bright - just...glowy. We also got to walk right by some and see it up close. No pics from the tour itself, but it looked kind of like this:

How amazing is that?!

Our tour group was pretty small, so we didn't make too much noise going through the bush and scare off animals. Here we are, ready to go:

We walked around the bush in the headlands for about an hour and a half. We stopped frequently to check out animals or to look at plants as Jess described their importance to Aboriginal life. About halfway through our tour, we stopped for some tucker, which was wattleseed scones with jam made from bush fruit, and tea made from garadgi and lemon myrtle. It was all very Australian. =)
Jess snapped a few pics of us along the way.

In the end, we decided this tour was money well spent, if just for the fact that we have been reassured that not every animal in Australia is out to kill us. Plus, who doesn't like crawling through bush with night vision gear now and then?

Posted with Blogsy

A weekend in reverse

Since Toby is heading back for a short visit in a couple weeks, I decided Sunday was a good day to head down to Paddy's Market and pick up a few things to send to people back home. Paddy's is like a souvenir flea market and generally chaotic. You can count on seeing something weird or interesting every time you visit!

So I snapped a few pics while I was shopping.

You can buy all the Uggs and knock-off Uggs you could ever want...

The rest of our weekend was great too. We met up with Emma on Friday for her birthday dinner at Jamie Oliver's restaurant in Sydney. Yum!

I rarely think waiting an hour and a half for a table is worth it. But drinks and fun company (plus delicious food after the wait) made it completely OK!

The birthday girl!

Saturday morning found us watching the new Star Trek movie and then going out for a friend's birthday drinks that night.

T dressed in theme for the movie. What a cutie!

We also did a night-time wildlife walk with night vision goggles!!! Pics from that to come!

Posted with Blogsy