Powerhouse Museum and Vivid Light Festival

Another month has flown by here in Sydney -- but good news! Our internet has finally been set up in our place which means that I can now upload photos to my blog without any worry about how much the file transfer was costing me in expensive prepaid emergency wireless. Now I have all the internet bandwidth I could possibly want, which means more photos and posts for the blog! Another positive news update: our belongings have arrived in Sydney by ship and a crate full of our stuff is just going through customs. Hopefully, this means that any day now we will get the call to set up a delivery date and we can finally sleep in our own bed again! Things are looking up here in Sydney.

Looking up, but also looking back. We've been doing some pretty fun stuff while I haven't been posting blogs, so I'm hoping I can catch everyone up on the last excursions from back in May and eventually get totally caught up to speed with the present day. Back in mid-May, we visited the Powerhouse Museum. It's a science and technology museum, but they also show special exhibits that revolve around culture and multimedia as well. We were particularly interested in seeing the special exhibit called Game Masters, an exhibit dedicated to the history of video games from their earliest days to AAA titles to indie games, spanning all platforms and all styles. If you know anything about Rob and I, you know that this show tickled our fancies! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside the exhibit, but rest assured, we had a really great time and spent hours playing classic arcade games and trying out a few titles we'd never seen or heard of. One of my favourites was Vib-Ribbon, a game by Masaya Mats that incorporates music, lines, shapes and some really basic controls to make a really hard but enjoyable timing-based side scroller. Rob also played a game called From Dust which seemed really interesting, and since trying it there we have bought it to play at home.

The Powerhouse museum has much more than just the game exhibit, however. The museum has existed with various names for over 125 years. It is a converted electric tram power station originally constructed in 1902. There are a number of really cool perminant exhibits including the oldest operational rotative steam engine in the world. Dating from 1785, it is one of only a handful remaining that was built by Boulton and Watt and was acquired from Whitbread's London Brewery in 1888. I, sadly, neglected to take a photo of this fantastic piece of engineering but it still runs regularly for museum guests and is in beautiful condition.
    
The Strasburg Clock model is a pretty cool exhibit. Sydney clockmaker Richard Smith was only 25 years old when he decided to build a model of the Strasburg Clock as a centenary 'gift' to the state of New South Wales. He began work on Australia Day in 1887 and three years later the clock was on display at the Powerhouse Museum. Smith based his clock on the famous astronomical clock in Straburg Cathedral, France. Strangely, he never visited Strasbourg and claimed to have based his design off of a postcard and a book. For more than a century, the Strasburg Clock model has delighted visitors to the Museum. Even thought the vision it embodies strictly belongs to a past era of science and technology, the clock remains an object of fascination today.

There was a special exhibit for the costume design for one of my favourite movies growing up (which I found out is currently also now a theatre musical), Strictly Ballroom.  This movie is sort of a mocumentary of competitive ballroom dancing in the 90's. I have always loved the over-the-top dramatics in both the acting as well as the costumes in this movie, and it was a welcome surprise to stumble into this exhibit. I, of course, promptly went home and watched the movie with Rob that night just to relive the memories!

"Pam Shore's broken both her legs, and I want to dance with you."

Some of the costumes used in the movie Strictly Ballroom

There was room upon room of all kinds of interesting little trinkets and gadgets and props and antiques which definitely kept us busy all afternoon. We built up a huge appetite checking out all the cool nerd stuff, so we opted to stop at Hannah's Pies across the street and get the most delicious meat pies we've ever eaten.

Rob found some awesome retro robot friends!

Danger Will Robinson!!

I got to sit on a Penny Farthing. I have no idea how people managed these beasts...

The original architectural model for the Sydney Opera House

Pies..... glorious pies. Topped with mashed potatoes, mushy peas and gravy.

Off the back end of our boat leaving Sydney Harbour

About a week later, we made plans to go on a whale-watching cruise using the very generous gift certificate that Rob's coworkers gave us when we left for Australia. It was through a company called Captain Cook Cruises. They do Harbour cruises, and a wide verity of different dinner/lunch cruises, sunset cruises, etc. We opted for the Whale watching cruise.

The morning was crisp and cool, and we were excitedly anticipating seeing some humpback whales off the coast of NSW. The migration passing Sydney takes place between April and December each year. The season is split into two distinct sections depending on the direction of travel of the majority of whales at that time. The migrating population is named the Australian East coast Humpbacks. These pods of whales are distinct from other humpback migration populations that travel along the West Australian and South African coasts, and the same whales make the journey every year along the exact same routes. When we finally got out to the open water, it took a while for us to spot a pair of young males 'surfing' the currently just below water. Due to a large amount of rain only the day before, and higher than average winds and choppy water, the whales didn't spend much time on the surface, but opted to surf the currents just underneath that pushed them easily along their route. Because they didn't have to work very hard, they also didn't breach as often to replenish their oxygen and rest for a few moments before continuing on. This good fortune for the whales meant we didn't get a huge show, though I tried desperately to take pictures every time one would breach the surface to take a breath. It's much harder to do than it sounds! We did manage to see a few really cool tail slaps, though I have no photos to prove it. Sorry.

Left: Rob and our very important coffees. Top Right: The Opera House from inside our boat. Bottom Right: The closest I came to taking a picture of a whale breaching. If you look really hard you can see the bubbles from the breach.

When we turned around to head back into the Harbour, quite a few people on the boat were not enjoying the very choppy conditions in the water. While I was loving the wild ride, Rob was certainly grateful when he was able to put his sea legs back on solid ground!

Hanging around in Hyde Park

Archibal Fountain and a giant bubble blowing street busker bringing unbridled joy to a group of kids and kids-at-heart

We meandered around the Sydney harbour for a while, and had a bowl of noodle soup for lunch at our new favourite, Happy Chef Seafood Noodles. It's in the food court of a mall called Market City, close to Sydney's China Town, and it's got the best noodle soup I've ever had! After lunch, we wandered over to Hyde Park (not the same as the British version) and laid in the grass to read and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine before heading back to the Harbour to enjoy a few drinks and watch the world-famous Vivid Sydney light show. We sat on the promenade with a view of the opera house in the setting sun, and had a few drinks while chatting with some American tourists who sat beside us. Something about the Sydney sunset begs for photos to be taken...

The centrepiece of Vivid Sydney is the multimedia interactive light sculptures and building projections that transform various buildings and landmarks in and around the Sydney CBD and Sydney Harbour into an outdoor night time canvas of art. There are special art installations and each lit up building has a different theme. If anyone has ever seen the MosAika music and light show on the Parliament building in Ottawa, it's similar to that but dialed up to 11! We went on the last weekend of the 3 week festival (which also happened to be a long weekend), and it was packed full of people. The CBD was transformed into a surging mass of humanity and baby strollers, but we still enjoyed the sights and sounds! We slowly made our way through the crowds along Circular Quay, gawking at light shows and taking pictures.

Left: One of the Cruise boats that take people for harbour rides to see the lights from the Quay. Right: Customs House covered in a cool light installation with mouths that sang in harmony.

On our way home, walking through Darling Harbour, we stopped for a pretty epic fireworks display over the pedestrian bridge (we realised that the fireworks were extra special because they were commemorating the Queen's Birthday)

Left: Rob hanging out in a hill full of giant light up bunnies Right: Enjoying a beer in Darling Harbour before heading home

Left: Bustling crowd taking in the Vivid Sydney Festival Right: Getting in the spirit of Tourism...

May at a Glance

Myself, our friend Joyanne (right) and her coworker Jen at Dragonboating

We have officially been in Australia for over a month now, and MY OH MY the time has flown by! Between visits to the Sydney Fish Market, seeing a Games Exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum, coastal walks joining breath-taking beaches (including the World-Famous Bondi beach), Pyrmont community festivals and even Dragonboat Racing, we've managed to settle in quite well in our new city. But don't worry; we've barely scratched the surface on new and exciting things to discover in Sydney, let alone the rest of Australia (and no, we still haven't seen a Kangaroo yet!)

Being ever-so handy and building our desks for the office!

 Rob has been vastly enjoying his work here at the Deloitte offices and is enjoying getting a handle on a new business environment and new team members. For those of you who know Rob, he thrives in situations where he gets the chance to prove himself, so he's happy as a clam! I'm really getting into the groove of working from home now that we've set up our home office (Rob and I had an.... invigorating time building desks - especially Rob's model, which has a drawer system that almost got the best of us)

Trying to be up-and-away at 5:30am without coffee.... that's tough!

But that's just our regular day-to-day and I'm sure it's not nearly as interesting as the sightseeing we've been up to, so I'll focus on that stuff instead! Earlier in the month we signed up for a guided tour of the Sydney fish market, the world's third largest fish market! We were up at the crack of dawn to get to the fish market in time to see the tail-end of the fish auction. These guys are up early and operate until mid afternoon. These are long days of hard work and it's staggering to think about the huge number of fish and seafood that goes through the market every single day.

The Fish Market floor (from the internet) filled with crates of fish

Our tour guide, Alex, was absolutely fantastic and both extremely knowledgeable and entertaining. We weren't allowed to take photos on the market floor (so I got a couple from the internet), but we were certainly taken through and shown a wide variety of fish and facts about aquaculture, the Australian market industry, handling and food safety standard, logistics, and tips on the best types of fish for value. The Sydney Fish Market was established in 1945 by the state government and was privatized in 1994. Here you can find up to one hundred sustainable seafood species traded every day and approximately 500 species traded annually. This number raises every year as fisherman become more diverse in what they bring in. Alex explained that even though Australians typically live so close to a treasure trove of delicious fish, they have historically (and ironically) had a very narrow taste in the types of fish species they'll eat. This has started to change as sustainable fishing (and the threat of over-fishing of 'staple' species) has popularized a wider variety of fish in resturants, markets, and dining room dinner tables. The economics behind the industry is really interesting; chefs find quality fish of species that aren't very popular, by it at a very low price (because they're not popular, not because they're poor quality) and are able to sell it for a huge profit. As these fish become more popular with the public, prices for these species go up, and new "cheap" species are discovered. Alex mentioned that in the past 5 years he's been working at the SFM, he's seen an insane amount of growth in the number of species and at least once a week he'll see something there he's never seen before. They begin setting up for each auction at 3p.m. the day before. At 2:30 a.m. a quality assurance team comes in and checks the temperatures of the fish, grade the quality, and insure that safety regulations are being met. At 4:30 a.m. the floor is open to buyers (or 'pickers') to go down and see what they want to buy. All crates are stacked by type of fish and provider. At 5:30 a.m. the auction starts and runs until everything is sold, usually around 8:30 – 9 a.m. When the auction is finished, everything is cleaned up and it starts all over again.

Left: A tank of live Crabs for sale. Right: One of the workers at the SFM cleaning and filleting fish

Not only is there a lot of diversity, but there's a lot of volume! Because of this, the SFM introduced a computerised Dutch auction in October 1989, dramatically evolving the way fish was to be sold.  Modelled on the ‘reverse’ auction system, which has been used for over 130 years to sell tulips in Amsterdam, SFM’s auctioneers set the price approximately $3 higher than the assumed market price. "Pickers" sit in bleacher-like seats with computerized consoles in front of 3 large Clocks that show this market price. The clock then winds down at a rate of $1 per revolution and the price drops until a buyer stops the clock by pressing a button in their console.  The successful buyer then selects a number of crates from the ‘lot’. In February 2004, state-of-the-art digital video projectors were installed to enhance the auction clocks. These large screens face toward around 150 to 200 pickers each day.

(image from the internet) Screens for the auction clocks.

 Through this reverse auction system, SFM can now offer buyers the fastest and most efficient method of trading seafood, while ensuring the best possible price in open competition. Approximately 1,000 crates or 20,000 kg of seafood are sold every hour during SFM auctions.  That’s an average of 2,700 crates, or 50 tonnes of fresh seafood, traded every day.

While I like eating fish, I'm not super familiar with cleaning and cooking fresh fish. Alex showed us some fish that are great value and easy to cook. Something else really cool about the market is that it has a cooking school where people can go to learn from celebrity and well-known chefs about how to prepare and cook seafood. This initiative is to help in the process of diversifying the Australian public in the seafood consumption. It's definitely something I'd like to try out! We found out that the Moreton Bay Bug is a much cheaper and tastier substitution for Lobster,  Leatherjacket fish are pretty much the easiest fish to prepare, and salmon is incredibly expensive in comparison! We also saw (to name just a few) squid, octopus, wolf fish, the very popular sea bream, and of course, giant mud crabs. I even got to hold one!We bought 2 dozen oysters to take home and made some cocktail sauce to go with them (because apparently Australia doesn't have our Cocktail sauce... it's this mayonnaise-based stuff that didn't look appetizing). The oysters were fantastic; but I haven't built up the nerve to try buying and cooking a whole fish yet. It's on the list of things to do!

Moreton Bay Bug

Alex showing me how to properly hold a Mud Crab without losing a finger

I did it! All my digits are still intact! Those puppies are heavy, though! This one is a male, which you can tell by the pattern on the crabs carapace. Males have a triangle, and females have a more rounded shape.

So many delicious oysters!

Fishing boats in Wattle Bay, just outside the fish market.

While it looks pretty, the smell in the Harbour is definitely that of a fish market!

We also took the time to head out to the Sydney eastern coast to do a walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach.
This is the most famous, most walked track in Sydney, no question, and for good reason! Sure, it’s easy to get to, and passes between two of Australia’s best-known beaches, Bondi and Bronte.

But it’s the sunny, coastal views that bring walkers by the busload! There are few things more satisfying than watching the South Pacific Ocean roll and crash against the line of coves and beaches extending south from Bondi to La Perouse on to the entrance to Botany Bay. There are many incredible vantage points and photo opps along the way. There are so many extremely fit people in Sydney, and you can definitely enjoy some time of people watching as you walk along the paved path between the beaches. We had a beautiful day to do that walk, as well! When we arrived a Bondi, we walked along the busy main stripe and found a delicious German pub and had yummy burgers and a great flight of beer that warmed our tummies after all our hard work walking along the coast! A great end to a lovely day trip.

Rob rebelling against the sign. GASP!

A cemetery with a view

A great panorama Rob took; I highly suggest a full view of this one! The small view size doesn't do it justice.

Enjoying the beautiful blue South Pacific!

4th Anniversary in Sydney

I know I've been slow on updating the blog, but we've been pretty busy moving into our new place (which I will show pictures of eventually!) and we've been slowed down by the fact that our internet provider has *still* not managed to show up to hook up our internet.

But I digress, you aren't here to hear my woeful rant, you're here to read and see how much fun we've been having getting settled in to Sydney.

I'm picking up where I left off; our 4 year wedding anniversary! Rob and I lined up a fantastic day of sightseeing that definitely kept us moving. We started off the morning at the Sydney Tower (Sydney's equivalent of the CN Tower). It's 1,014 ft above Sydney's CBD, is the tallest tower in Sydney and the 3rd tallest in Australia. We did this really cool thing called the Sky Walk, which had us putting on sexy blue onesies, strapping on a safety harness, and latching on to a track that brought us out on to the observation deck of the tower. The views from up there were unbelievable!  We got a view of the city from a 360 tour of the observation deck. We could see our new neighborhood as well as all kinds of other areas surrounding the Sydney CBD. It was fantastic; and our tour guide was great, too!

Rob and I with the city skyline behind us!

Darling harbour (which we live right beside now) at night time. This image was part of the package we got from our Sky Walk tour. I'm sure you'll see more of them as the Blog goes on

Our tour guide, Rachel. She was absolutely lovely! You can see Matthew, our English tour mate (the only other person on the walk with us) over her right shoulder, and Rob and I over her left.

Rob loving the underwater tunnels with Mantas, sharks and other cool fish!

After the Sky Walk, we had lunch back at the apartment and then headed over to the Sydney aquarium. Rob had never been to an aquarium before, and I was so happy that he enjoyed it as much as he did. It was a really fun opportunity to learn about the local aquatic life, as well as relax in the soothing blues of aquatic lighting and the graceful movements of fish, jellyfish, manta rays and yes, even sharks. It was a absolutely wonderful!

Lobsters, Rock Fish and an octopus. Just some of the cool things we saw!

I loved watching Rob love what we was watching. It was such a joy to share this experience with him

A little group of Angel Fish

Sting rays.... I could have watched them all day long.

Rob hanging out in his F1 car with Australian Mark Webber.

After the Aquarium, we went to Madam Tussaud's, more as a novelty than anything else, and because we had paid for a pass that got us into the Sky Walk, Aquarium, Tussaud's, etc. We toured through quickly, but not before taking some fun pictures!

The end of the day saw us enjoying some drinks and then, of course, Sushi which commemorated our first date and every anniversary after that point. We had a lovely day being tourists in Sydney;

Don't ask...

So very life like... but who knew these guys were so SHORT in real life?!

Drinks with my favourite man in the whole world, and then sushi to end off a wonderful day!

I hope the photos do our wonderful day justice! 

Soaking in the Art

The Art Gallery of NSW

Rob hanging out in the 'main street'

On Wednesday, May 7th Rob and I decided to make a trip to the Art Gallery of NSW (New South Wales) because we haven't been to and art gallery together for quite some time. Also, it's free to the public, which is pretty fantastic. This Art Gallery is a nice little mix of Modern, Classical and all art in between. There was some Australian Aboriginal art, there was a special exhibition of publically collaborated art... it was just a nice mix.

And because it was free, we didn't feel pressured to see everything there, knowing that we could easily come back another time and pick up where we left off. There was certainly some beautiful work there (and some work that I'm not so into), and here are some of our favourites.

The main hallway was a pretty cool introduction to the gallery. There were all these flapping tinsle-like streamers hanging from the ceiling. This was an installation from Sydney-based artist Nike Savvas. The installation, called Rally, is this vast, fluttering field of colour suspended above the Gallery’s entrance court. It is made up of more than 60,000 strips of coloured plastic and stretches more than 50 metres through the building. It's one of the largest individual works ever staged at the Art Gallery of NS, and it definitely felt like a giant welcome rug as well walked in!

Another artist that I really was drawn to was Afghani artist Khadim Ali. His work revolved around the concept of displacement, distrust and war-torn culture. He currently lives in Sydney, but his family has been tossed around between Afghanistan to India then to Pakistan. Because he is Afghan Hazara, he and his family live in fear of the Taliban and this fear has followed Khadim Ali and his family all his life.

His work is called The haunted lotus and depicts the demons that continue to haunt him. It includes fine gouache and ink paintings; a series of large-scale, richly coloured rugs; and videos that represent the artist’s working methodology. This exhibition contains Ali’s first handmade rugs – as carpets are so much a part of life in Afghanistan – and represents a turning point in his practice.  

I definitely found both his paintings and his rugs to be absolutely beautiful, sad, poignant, and extremely well executed. I loved the muted colours that contrasted with pops of gold foil and bright contrast colours. I could have spent hours looking at the handful of piece in this exhibit. 
 

Left:  A drawing of one of the mythical demons Ali uses to represent his concept Right:  A hand-made rug based off of this original piece.

A typographical design featuring a poem that I remember from highschool; my friend, Iulia, used to love this poem and I haven't heard it since then!

Aboriginal art sculptures. The Kangaroo reminds me of Rila!

Sol LeWitt (America, 1928–2007) was one of the most influential artists of his generation

More Sol LeWitt

A fun little pixelated sculpture

Rob's favourite; a flock of fruit bat sculptures on a clothes line.

Best quote of the day (by yours truly) "It's proportional to real life without being realistic"

 Stay tuned; so much more to come!