It's the weekend again, and we decided to take a Friday Funday, use Saturday as a work day, and hit the town again for an event this Sunday evening. This time we headed to the National Art School Gallery in Darlinghurst. I snapped a few pics on our way downtown of some of the unique old buildings, including Central Station, an old police station, and the gallery...
We were there to check out a Sydney Festival exhibition by artist Bill Culbert. The exhibit contained some photographs and a few smaller scale pieces - nothing for which I would take the train to town again (picture a line of 5-7 milk bottles mounted to the wall with a florescent office light running through them or three florescent light fixtures mounted to the wall.......no, no - that's it...just three florescent tube lights hanging in parallel on the wall...but at a diagonal, if that counts). This time, even Pickle raised an eyebrow. However, the entire second floor was dedicated to a piece called Pacific Flotsam. Arguably the highlight of the exhibit (certainly the grandest piece by far), it did make for some interesting photos...
After wandering around the National Art School grounds, we hopped a bus for Hyde Park to scope out the Sydney Festival Village. It was the first I'd been there, and it was beautiful. It's Sydney's oldest park, and has this amazing central avenue lined with imposing Hill's Figs. The photos really don't do it justice. The park is divided, by Park Street, into a northern and southern section. We headed to the northern end for the festival grounds and a view of the iconic Archibald fountain. (I just included the last photo because I love that the pigeon is laying there at the woman's feet like a patient and obedient pet...I imagined them spending the day together.) |
After strolling through the northern end, we made our way to the Sydney Festival Village. It was a bright and curious grounds, and I loved the graphics and color scheme! It was a mix of funky modern design and quirky carny vibe.
We wandered around the tents and booths a bit, then headed for Higher Ground, an installation by Maser that combines art and architecture. The bold colors and patterns mirrored those found throughout the festival village, and I'm not sure which came first - the festival design or the installation. It was an interesting and interactive challenge to perspective that was Escher-esque in nature.
After playing around here a bit, we crossed the street to St. Mary's Cathedral. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside, so I just took a few shots before entering. While I admittedly don't know a lot about various physical aspects of the Catholic church and their utility and symbolic meaning, I could appreciate the art and architecture of the building, it's intricate altars and stained glass windows. It was quite a spectacle.
I found a sushi train with good reviews in the CBD, and we headed over toward Chinatown for Pickle's first experience with the phenomenon. I have to say, it was pretty darn good for a sushi train! All sushi was $3, which made it easy to track our bill (as I can get a little caught up in the excitement, plucking high roller sushi plates and racking up a bill outside of my income bracket). Between the sushi train format and the economic pricing, I was a little skeptical, but the reviews were solid, and I have to say mine would be the same. We didn't even need to order off the menu, as the train offered decent variety and freshness. Pickle loved it too - he's an easy-going sushi consumer and enjoyed the novelty of the conveyor belt cuisine.
We managed to hop off the train before our usual destination of Stuffed-Beyond-Comfortville. We found ourselves in unfamiliar territory though, so we we headed out to the streets of Chinatown to find our bearings with dessert. I've basically decided that every time we eat out now, I'm going to try to recreate my heavenly black sesame gelato experience from Paddy's markets (I'll admit, we even got some black sesame ice cream to go after our Kanzo meal, though it was far less intense in flavor - so much so that even Pickle enjoyed it). We used our Yelp app to locate 3 gelato shops near us, and selected N2 Extreme Gelato from the reviews. It was a fun and novel experience where mad flavor scientists concocted a creative variety of gelato using liquid nitrogen. No black sesame that day, but there were some interesting sundaes on the menu that came with syringes full of ganache or salted caramel. We landed on ginger beer sorbet to beat the heat. It was refreshing and tasted just like Bundaberg ginger beer (which I LOVE!).
We finished off Chinatown with a stroll through the vendor stands and a few selfies with the Chinese lions before catching the train for home.