I hate getting up early on a Sunday but my SDC 10 packet series tickets expire on Christmas day therefore I am rushing to use up the rest of them before they expire as they cannot be extended. Last dance classes before SDC closes for Christmas and New Year holidays is on 18th December 2016 hence adding more pressure for me to use them up before this date. I am also limited to when I am able to make it to classes as I work so far away from SDC studios therefore making it to any classes after work is impossible. The weekends are the only time I have time to attend classes and only if I have days off.
I decided to do a Ballet Basics class at 10 am today which finishes at 11.30 am as I can have a shower afterwards and have the rest of the afternoon free.
I haven't done ballet for probably over a decade now - I find ballet too structured preferring Jazz and Lyrical.
Ballet Basics is a very popular and full class. Whether or not it is because of the instructor I am unsure. I had the feeling it was a bit of a "purve" class too. Boys watching girls, boys watching boys, girls watching girls, girls watching boys, the instructor watching everyone and everyone watching the instructor - yep I suspect they do the Ballet Basics class just because of the instructor! There are definitely quite a few students in the class who are much more advanced ballet students and who should be doing the Ballet Intermediate class and not Ballet Basics class!
It was a very balanced class - a combination of basic barr, floor ( or in ballet terms adagio) , spins and jumps. I was so sweaty by the end of class - actually I was sweaty from the beginning of the class because I was running to get there in time.
After having a shower, time to get some Haighs chocolate Christmas puddings to eat from the QVB store and lunch at Darling Harbour. I limited myself to 2 little individual chocolate Christmas puddings and some dark chocolate tastings. I was given a tasting of the new orange liqueur chocolate truffle log - not a fan I'll stuck to my chocolate Christmas puddings.
Celebrate Darling Harbour 2016 Event & Self Guided Tour of the New ICC Sydney Exhibition & Convention Centre @ 1 30 pm
I can't wait until 1.30 pm to do the self guided tour of the newly built ICC Sydney (International Convention Centre) - it has been a long time coming since the old one was demolished - a long 3 years to be precise - it seems so much longer. Tours are between 1.30 pm and 4 pm today only to give the piblic a sneak peek of the ICC before it is officially open to the public and takes about half an hour to walk through.
After the tour I think I will cool off in the many water features at Darling Harbour before heading off to Paddys Markets possibly to buy some fruit and veg. - time permitting.
I spent about 1.5 hours on the self guided tour of the ICC. I arrived at 1.30 pm when the doors to the ICC opened to the public and there was already a large crowd waiting to go inside. Those lucky people who have tickets to see Keith Urban this Wednesday night - the ICC's very first opening event to be held in one of the main entertainment and concert halls within the first building of the ICC - with state of the art equipment and with a full house seating capacity of upto 9000 people!
There are 3 sections/buildings within the ICC all connected with stairs, lifts, escalators, ramps, walkways and hallways.
Building 1 houses the entertainment and concert halls.
Building 2 houses the exhibition halls - halls are connected with removable folding partitioning floor to ceiling wall panels - the type that have been around since tbe 1970's and very functional - can't wait until the Good Food and Wine Show to return to Darling Harbour in 2017! No more trekking out to Olympic Park!!!!
Finally Building 3 houses the convention Centre ideal for functions and meeting rooms for training sessions for example.
As we travelled further and further up towards the roof of these buildings the highlight was "The Grand Ball Room" on one of the building's top floors.
Outside one of the exhibition halls there was also a rather large outdoor rooftop area which looked like a car park but painted like a tennis court - several of us wondered what it was and whether it was actually a car park on the roof. A rather nice and good sized outdoor entertainment area if it is not a car park.
There were paintings and pieces of artwork by Ken Done and John Polsen hanging inside the ICC.
The only thing I was unimpressed by inside the ICC was the carpet selected - yellow carpet yuk!!!! Then there was the white carpet but I did not find this offensive although keeping it clean with heavy foot traffic would be a problem. The carpet did remind me a little of the good old shag pile.
Wooden stair cases set amongst the large amounts of glass panelling and escalators gave a nice contrasting touch to the buildings which connected architecturally seamlessly with each other. The views of Darling Harbour below and the city skyline above were amazing - just like the International Tower 2 at Barangaroo except not as high up!!!!
(Selected photos attached - I think I took around 300 of them - If I have time I will also upload a short youtube video - uploaded). Apologies in regards to photos of the ICC - quite a few photos are out of sequence as blogger seems to have a very big formatting problem with photos and links do not work very well. Limitation on uploading of videos means I have to resort to using youtube.
After relaxing near the water feature it was time to head off to Paddys Markets to buy some fruit and veg. The mangos were very disappointing - tiny and expensive. So I bought some cherries and rather large bananas.
Time to head home via light rail then train then bus - trackwork Northern lines over weekend hence bus replacements - too hard can't be bothered - thank goodness for the M40!
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