This weekend was Valentine's Day and my Valentine Pickle surprised me with a bright bouquet of Gerbera daisies and a lunch cruise on Sydney Harbour on a 94-year-old tall ship. We sailed on the Southern Swan, a Danish ship originally used as a grain-carrying trading vessel. The ship sailed in the First Fleet Re-enactment from England to Australia in 1988 (marking the bicentennial of the colonization of Australia) and has been in Campbell's Cove at The Rocks ever since. |
After cruising around for a couple of hours, we hit up a market just past the bridge. We actually stumbled upon some Hawaiian ice, which was a welcome refreshment on a hot, Sydney summer day! We piddled around a bit at the markets and walked down by Circular Quay before heading out to Pyrmont for the Lunar Markets. The Sydney Morning Herald hosted the lunar new year event again this year, so we stopped in for a yummy bao trifecta. We chose 1) Tawainese fried chicken with red sugar chili jam, carrot, spring onion and chili mayo; 2) peking duck, cucumber, spring onion and peking sauce; and 3) fried tofu, coriander and pickled mustard greens with a peanut miso sauce and crushed peanuts. They had little booths set up this year where you could pick a little bamboo steamer basket to see if you won a prize. Pickle won a coupon for a free scoop of Messina gelato (which we immediately cashed in at The Star) and I got the traditional red envelop with gold chocolate coins for luck and prosperity in the new year.
At the end of the day, I surprised Pickle with his Valentine, which included tickets to An Evening With Brian Greene (see my geeky Valentine below). It's not until mid-March, but I figured the night of theoretical physics awesomeness was worth the tradeoff in the lack of immediacy. It was such a timely event though, as we'd just been discussing the new research findings regarding gravitational waves the day before as Pickle watched his video explanation of the discovery. We're both pretty stoked to attend the talk!
It was a LOVE-ly Valentine's Day!