Saturday 20 March 2010

Fridays and Saturdays

Last Friday - Karl's Farewell Dinner and Drinks at Blackbird Cafe, Darling Harbour

Karl has left Australia to go back to the England (he's from Chelmsford, haha) as his visa finally ended. I was sad - I've worked with Karl for well over a year and it's strange without him. He was always someone I had a lot of time for.

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Aisling, Michael and May


We went to Blackbird straight from work to take full advantage of cocktail happy hour. It was very bright sitting in the big windows, but the view over Darling Harbour was lovely.

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Me and Emer

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Aisling and Dean (our boss) - He put on her sunglasses and brushed all his hair forward and looked like a pimp. Aisling was scared!


We all ordered and ate and then after dinner we presented Karl with the photobook we made for him!! We got photos of everyone at work, loads from the christmas party, various nights out, some we got from Josie (his gf) from their trips to Jervis Bay. Michael, Aisling and I made the book, and then everyone at work wrote messages in it. It took us 3 days to make but it looked so good! He was so chuffed with it as well!

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Karl looking at the book


After Blackbird, we moved up the road to another bar for more drinks.

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Aisling and Karl

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Me, Karl and May


I left about 10pm and went back to Newtown to meet Mark for yet another cocktail in Madame Fling Flong, to celebrate him getting another paper accepted for publication that week.

Last Saturday - lazing in Balmain and Surry Hills

Saturday morning saw us up early and off on the bus to Balmain to go back to Adriano Zumbo! Mark saw what I bought when I went with Dean and wanted to see for himself! Zumbo is Mark-heaven to be honest - he does love his sugar. We got a new stash of macaroons as well as our new favourite food, almond croissants.

Then back to Surry Hills for coffee drinking and writing at Kawa and Surry Hills library. Surry Hills library is amazing! So nice and airy and so many magazines you can read.

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This weekend has been thus far a quieter affair. Friday night - fish and chips from Erskineville Fish and Chips and an early night. Today, a visit to Shenkin for coffee and Buzzzbar for milkshake and a bite to eat. Note-taking for Japan. 3 days until we leave! I bought a new journal for the trip. Can't wait!

Sunday 14 March 2010

Darling Harbour, 14th March 2010

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Busy busy Friday and Saturday, quiet Sunday.

Late late brunch at Baffi & Mo in Redfern. Mark had fritters, I branched out from my usual poached eggs on sourdough with avocado and went for poached eggs on sourdough with potato hash. OMG it was delicious! Baffi & Mo also make the best poached eggs in Sydney, in my opinion. Believe me, I've tried a LOT. Perfect shape, perfect consistency. I almost don't want to tell people about Baffi & Mo because it's getting harder and harder to get a table in there these days, but I cannot help it.

Train to the city and I bought a pen, which took a great deal of time, but I wanted a good pen. Trip to David Jones to choose a new food processor (our old one is dying), and bought more pumpkin and lentil sausages. Walk down to Darling Harbour for photo opportunities, then home for aforementioned sausages with roast potatoes, courgette, eggplant and carrots. Now episode of House which seems to have a remarkable amount of backstory that I've missed...hmmm. Lovable.

Thursday 11 March 2010

I am popular

Last weekend, it seemed unlikely that it would be a good weekend. Mark was going away canoeing and camping, and I couldn't go because my ears prevent water-based activities. However, upon making an unnecessary fuss one day in work, I suddenly found myself inundated with people wishing to entertain me!

It actually began on Thursday, when Mark commiserated my being left behind by taking me to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I was so excited! It's had some bad reviews but I did still enjoy it a lot. I liked the darkness of it and I liked the bandersnatch. Afterwards we went for dinner at Atom Thai on King Street, sooo delicious. Best thai on King Street without a doubt.

On Friday we had a super early night and Mark left before 6am on Saturday. I got up when he left and at 7am met Dean (my boss) and Zane (his boyfriend) at Erko station and we caught the train to the city, then walked over the Darling Harbour bridge into Pyrmont for Pyrmont Markets.

Pyrmont Markets are a monthly organic produce market, where loads of farms and other food producers bring their wares to sell. There was so much stuff! Bread, honey, lamb, cheese, vegetables, all sorts of things. We had a good wander round and I bought an olive sourdough loaf from the Sonoma stall, Zane and I bought boxes of honeycomb and Dean bought me marshmellows from the Sweetness stall and then got some lamb.

After exhausting the markets, we walked back to Town Hall and caught a bus to Balmain to visit Adriano Zumbo's patisserie. Dean and Zane are obsessed with Zumbo, who is the new big name on the pastry/macaroon scene. He has a tiny little patisserie on Darling Street and we crowded in and stocked up on pain au chocolat, almond croissants (literally the best thing I have ever eaten, ever, and I don't even like croissants!), macaroons and cakes. All the little cakes have entertaining name and everything looks so finely crafted, yet it's not really that expensive. Mark and I are going back this weekend for more!

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My macaroons, whilst waiting for the bus back to the city. Can you see I crushed the bottom one already? I fail. The flavours are, top to bottom, grapefruit and jasmine, strawberry and balsamic, pineapple.

We pootled off home via David Jones' food hall, where I bought pumpkin and lentil sausages for my breakfast (it was 10am now) and then I went back home to cook them.

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I had them on my olive bread. DJ's vege sausages are SO GOOD. My favourite thing is that they are actually made in skins, like real sausages, rather than just being a clump of soy/whatever.

After breakfast I had a few hours before Aisling arrived in Erskineville, and I went to meet her at the station. We went to visit Shenkin for coffee and frappes and sat there a good hour or so before wandering up to Newtown and along King Street. Had a look in a few shops then into Max Brenner for a hot chocolate. Then we got wine in the bottle shop and went to Ice and Slice for pizza then to Madame Fling Flong for cocktails! Then all of a sudden it was gone 11pm and I was suddenly sleepy, so we rolled back down to the station for Aisling to get her train, and I went straight to bed.

On Sunday, I got up and got the train to the city for open doors day at Sydney Town Hall. They were having a special open weekend to celebrate the re-opening of renovated parts of the Town Hall, and were allowing access to parts that are normally closed to the public. It was really good fun to have a look round, I had no idea it was so impressive inside!

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Centennial Hall, and the Grand Organ. The Organ is quite famous, considered to be the finest 19th century concert organ in the world and is the world's largest entirely mechanical pipe organ. It is HUGE!

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Mosaic crest of the hall.

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There was a room with a picture of every mayor of Sydney.

At the end of the tour, I had a look around the new exhibition they have on, called 'Unvaulted', which is a display of the City of Sydney collection of artefacts and treasures, many of which have never been seen by the public. There were some pretty good things there, various exotic gifts donated to the City from all over the world, as well as stories and photos of various state visits, including several by the British royal family. It's a free exhibition and worth dropping in on.

Following this, I walked back up through Darling Harbour to the Maritime Museum, which currently has an exhibition on Mythical Creatures on, again with free entry. This was brilliant! I am fascinated by mythical creatures and there was a lot of information there on the origins of the myths, appearance of the animals, different attitudes etc. All the well-known ones (dragons, unicorns, mermaids etc) were there as well as some lesser known ones like the Kappa, a Japanese water-dwelling creature that drags children into rivers if disturbed, and the Kraken, a sea-monster most likely inspired by sailors early sightings of dead giant squids floating at sea.

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Barong costume - a creature that fights chaos in Bali.

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This guy is HUGE. Giant apes existed in asia before becoming extinct around 300,000 years ago. Remains found possibly led to idea of Big Foot.

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"Fiji Mermaid" - fraudulent model mermaid exhibited in side-shows in the late 19th century. It's made from a monkey stitched to a fish! I thought it was quite convincing? Haha.

Mark came back later that evening, all stinky. He wants to do all the same things next weekend, so I may have a repeat of some of the above!

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Mardi Gras 2010 + Spencer Tunick

Let me tell you of a vague memory. Sit comfortably.

It was a few years ago and I was...somewhere. I warned you it was vague, right? Well OK, let's narrow it down. I was in an art gallery. In, most likely, either Berlin, Paris, Vienna or London. Or there was a mild chance it was Liverpool. But that sounds less glamourous, right?
Anyway, I was in an art gallery, in ...a city... and I was marauding in my usual style. My eyes came to rest on a particular work, a photo of an installation in New York's Grand Central Station. An installation of naked people.
Gradually, over the next year or so, I became more aware of the artist, Spencer Tunick. An American artist who specialises in installations of nude people arranged in urban locations across the world.

Tunick on Wiki - see wiki for all the installations he has been involved in.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago, and in the run up to Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, it was announced that Spencer Tunick was coming to Sydney, to stage a large-scale nude installation called 'The Base' at Sydney Opera House. And he needed volunteers. So Mark and I signed up.

Fast forward to Monday the 1st of March 2010. Our alarms went off at 3am. By 4am, a taxi dropped us off to join over 5000 other people in pitch dark at Circular Quay where we handed in consent forms and received plastic bags in which to place our belongings, before being led into a specially fenced off area of the Botanic Gardens to await the sunrise and our instructions.

It was a chilly morning, under 15 degrees, and the prospect of being naked wasn't too appealing at that point. But still, as 6am rolled around the organisers instructed us to remove our clothes and make our way in groups towards the front steps of the Opera House. Everything had to be left, except obviously tattoos. We were told "unless you came out of your mother with it, leave it in your bag". People with glasses were allowed to take them but shown how to hold them in such a way that they would not be seen on the camera.

It was such a strange experience! Worth it entirely for the bizarre experience of being legitimately completely naked in such an iconic location. The whole thing actually felt strangely natural. A cheer went up as each group were led onto the steps. There was such a variety of people there - young people, old people, some you could even describe as elderly, fat people, thin people, pregnant women, all walks of life! My overriding impression was that without clothes, everyone looks strangely similar. It goes to show how much identity comes from our clothes and other bodily additions.

We were posing in the end for about an hour, being directed into all sorts of different positions, including lying down, embracing the people around you (Mark and I were both glad the other was there at that point as some people had to hug a stranger!), looking up, facing the front, facing the back, facing the bridge... The whole area was fenced off but very occasionally a stray jogger appeared in the gardens, only to be faced by several security guards running towards them waving their arms. We got a lot of honks from passing ferries!

By the end, I was glad to put my clothes back on as it was becoming seriously cold - I felt chilled right through and a bit ill. It was all over by before 8am and I made my way into work to find the Sydney papers already had the event covered on their online headlines!

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[from http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/spencer-tunick/2010/03/01/1267291832800.html]

You can actually see us both quite clearly in this picture! We were quite near the front on the left! Any guesses? Haha. Also, I was kind of disappointed at the time that the sky was so overcast, but I actually really like the contrast of all the greys of the Opera House and the sky, and then the pink of all the naked people.

There was a much clearer, closer up photo on the MX (free commuter paper, like the british Metro) later that day in which I was more clearly visible. I'll scan it if I can. I am quite excited that I've been on the front page of the MX, although slightly weirded that everyone in my work has seen me naked! Haha. I'm excited to see the finished photos, which will be at a different angle (the press area was off to the side), as well as the ones he took later of people inside the Opera House.

I felt rubbish for the rest of the day, so sleepy, but now I've recovered I'm so glad I went. It was such a crazy, unique experience and it's exciting to think I might see myself hanging on the wall of an art gallery one day in the future!

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We didn't do a lot else for Mardi Gras this year. We missed the parade on Saturday night as we had both been out drinking on Friday and didn't really feel like it, but I'm a bit annoyed looking back that we missed it.
I did see a really good short film documentary on tv the other night though, about a Sydney drag queen and personality who was a big human rights activist and who had been HIV positive for many years. I cannot remember the name of the guy or his alter ego which is disappointing, but they showed interviews with him both as his self and as queen and it was really interesting. He seemed such a wonderful, selfless, intelligent person who really understood the big picture: if you want rights for yourself, you need to want them for every single person, whoever and whatever they are.

Das Erdbeben in Chile

The week began with a major tsunami warning along Australia's east coast on Sunday, after Chile's earthquake. Ocean beaches were closed from Bondi and Manly in Sydney right up to Queensland, as raised water levels and dangerous currents were predicted. Fortunately, we escaped unscathed.

What I found astounding though was the way people still continued to visit the beaches, even going in the sea, while the warning was in place, exasperating lifeguards. Quite a contrast to the situation shown in a news report on Samoa, also on tsunami alert, which was devastated by a tsunami last year. People there were panicking, fearing a repeat performance, while in Sydney people were travelling to the ocean to 'watch the waves'. What do people need in order to learn? Do they need a 50ft wave to crush them to death? People are stupid. They make no sense.

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Saturday was a scorching hot, clear day with bright blue skies over Sydney. We pottered around the corner for a late breakfast at Bitton (amazing scrambled eggs), then to Sydney Park for a lie down under the shade of the trees, then back up to King Street for a juice in South End Cafe. I'd not been to South End before but had read some good reviews, and it seemed like a really nice cafe. Lovely decor and a really homely, cosy feel. They had a really good range of juice options (I had my usual apple and ginger but they offered a good selection including beetroot which I always think is a good sign that people are taking their juice seriously). I must return to try the food at some point.

Sunday we were up early and off to Balmoral Beach, which being further in the harbour seemed to have no tsunami issues to be raised. It wasn't that nice a day in the end, overcast and windy, but we lay a long time on the beach, reading.

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I lost an earring having a picnic in Sydney Park a couple of weeks ago, one that Lep sent me for Christmas, little hoops with birds on. We were sitting in a more secluded area of the park and by the time we left it was dark and there were no lights. We had only walked about 20 metres across the grass when I realised it had falled out so I assumed that if I went back in the light, I would probably find it as it was unlikely anyone would have been through and picked it up. But unfortunately it was nowhere to be found in the grass. I keep finding the other one all lonesome in the bottom of my bag - I never know what to do with lone earrings - and it makes me sad :(