Friday 27th May 2022
Day off
It's a very foggy day today in Sydney. I slept in until 7 am and watch the news. All ferry services to the West of the Harbour Bridge are cancelled but to the East are still running eg Rose Bay Watsons Bay and to the North are still running eg Manly.
So much to catch up on today. If I decide not to go to the home show or for a skate or a swim today, well so be it.
Centrelink fortnightly income reporting submitted. Shifts from Kronos updated in my diary.
Another severe allergic reaction means I won't be going to anywhere .
Central Station 6 pm and the first light installation I see at The Grand Concourse is pretty disappointing. Photo below
I'm waiting for the light rail to take me to Darling Harbour. Traditionally I start with Darling Harbour as my first venue on the opening night of VIVID. I could have made it to the Opera House lighting of the sails at 6 pm on the opening night of VIVID in good time but decided to stick with my tradition. It's a long wait for the light rail and the crowds are building already.
It would have taken me less time to walk there. I arrived about 6.30 pm and missed most of the lazer light water show. I have uploaded a video onto YouTube only for the last 3 minutes of the show. What can I say after a 2 year absence of VIVID it dod not disappoint WOW. I watched it 3 times , twice from the same vantage point another from the opposite side. A walkway has been constructed to enable people to get across to Cockle Bay more easily and quickly. Of course I had to check it out. Now to find the rest of the light installation around Darling Harbour.
I found most of the art installations in Darling Harbour Darling Quater & Darling Square. The most difficult one to find was one at King Street Wharf. The most time I had to queue up to see an art installation was at VIVID HOUSE at Darling Quarter where I queued for 1 hour just to see 4 immersive art installations - worth the wait but not suitable for younger kids due to large 3D format projections loud noises and smoke in a dark room. Last art installation seen was at Darling Square. I was hungry but did not want to queue up for food. I walked back to the light rail on George Street bypassing all the Central Station and Goods Line VIVID art installations as it was late. The light rail terminated at Town Hall due to VIVID crowds further down towards Circular Quay with road closures. Home on the train to St Leonards from Town Hall with a very quick pitstop at KFC as IGA was closed for 3 pieces of original chicken and a small mash ' that's all they had besides pop corn chicken. Home on a bus thankfully ejich I did not have to wait long for. washed my hands my mask and quickly uploaded some videos after eating some of the KFC and the mash potato single serving. Fell asleep it was close to midnight.
News headlines include
Catholic teachers have gone on strike for a pay rise .
Chris Hemsworth is filming the new Mad Max movie as Hollywood comes to Broken Hill Australia
Power bills are about to sky rocket with increases of upto 18% by July but the state governments are coming to the rescue by providing the rising cost of living energy rebates to households depending on their income status with rebates varying from state to state.
Police strike force hawk continues with raids for organized crime continuing. 50 search warrants have been issued and proceeds of cars cash jewellery and other luxury goods from many drug sales have bern seized from properties. Domestic violence is still being monitored.
The strain on hospitals is nationwide with the blame on COVID. Staff shortages have caused women given birth outside hospital wards and released from hospital early and continued ambulance ramping. People with chronic disease are missing out on treatment and patients. Hospital crisis are particularly apparent in QLD and VIC.
QLD WA and SA aged care workers are going on strike again for their unrecognised service through the COVID pandemic and the union is striking for better pay better conditions more recognition and staff shortages etc . A submission to far work has bern forwarded. Both the health care and aged care industries are optimistic that their services will be improved with the new federal government elected and lead by AA and his promises.
Penny Wong's first visit to Fiji promises Australia will do more for the Pacific islands to support them.
Cricketer Andrew Symonds' public memorial will be held today.
Ex Hey Dad actor convicted pedophile Robert Hughes maybe released on parole today as he is due to face court. If hos release is sucessful he will return to the UK as a free man and no longer hounded as a child sex offender. During his time in jail for his offences where he was accused of under age child molestation of cast members during his time working on the series Hey Dad , he voluntarily relinquished his Australian citizenship meaning he would have to leave Australia and return to the UK. "Extradited"He will not be able to return to Australia.
Kevin Spacey has been charged with 3 accounts of sexual assult.
Johnny Depp's defamation trial continues. The trial is in it's last days and due to close tomorrow. ( thank goodness!)
The jubilee 70 corgi emoji has been added.
5 people have been exposed to legionaires disease in the CBD spread from dirty air conditioning cooling towers.
One of QLD major construction home builders companies PIVOTAL HOMES has gone into liquidation. ( another construction company)
Planned for today:
Possible cheap Skate @ Macquarie Ice Rink or swim @ Lane Cove Aquatic Centre abandoned today
Home Show @ ICC Darling Harbour abandoned today too much to do!
VIVID @ Darling Harbour Opening Night ( Hope there are fireworks!) - Darling Quarter & Darling Square - all done & if time Central Station & The Goods Line - no time, will try and do on Sunday night.
Saturday 28th May 2022
Unpaid Leave Requested
I slept in this morning. Turned on the tv to catch up on the news. Has a bit of breakfast of fruit salad I prepared yesterday and leftover KFC from last night.
I tried to log into the Live stream class I was suppose to attend in person at Sydney Dance Company Studios at 12 noon today but was too lazy therefore decided to try and do it vitually. It was a 1.5 hour class and I only did about 30 minutes of it due to problems with visual on my laptop. It was working fine pre class but when I went back to attend the class i could only hear the audio but the visual had disappeared and I could not get it back up again. So I resorted to attending the virtual live stream class on my phone which was far from ideal!
After 30 minutes I got ready to leave to travel to the Sydney Dance Company studios to attend the prebooked Contemporary class in person at 3 pm and 4 pm each 45 minutes long. I might as well as I am going straight to VIVID straight afterwards. This was the first time I have been to the new refurbished SDC studios at wharf 4/5 . There sure are more studios available. It was so much fun. My knees are not the way they used to be but I had no idea how much I actually missed attending dance classes so I purchased a 5 series of dance class pass at a discounted rate of $80. I still have almost a month left on my LG signature series and the series passes last for 6 months.
I am waiting for the lights to come on as it is past 5 pm but it is not dark enough yet for the lights to be switched on. My phone is down to 30% so I am trying to recharge it. It started to rain as I was walking back to Circular Quay from Walsh Bay. I just could not find one of the art installations at Walsh Bay even asking some of the VIVID volunteers present dressed in bright pink and white. It was meant to around the corner but I just could not find it so will leave it for another night. Anything I miss I will do at a later date ( maybe tomorrow night if I don't decide to abandon my 3rd night in a row to see the rest of VIVID).
I continue walking it is not crowded yet as it is still early and not 6 pm yet when the lights are turned on daily. Most visitors are having dinner somewhere anywhere they can find a seat at or reservation at. Restaurants cafes hotels pubs clubs bars food halls and takeouts are all full of people. I walked around for quite a while settling on a small takeaway spicy chicken burrito from Mad Mex at The Gateway in Circular Quay but there was no seating at all so I sat on the edge of the lightrail platform with my legs dangling onto the tracks ( where the train terminates but was not running during VIVID ) like everyone else to eat my burrito as quickly as possible to avoid the seagulls swooping away your food in plain sight whilst you are eating ( hopefully not dropping a poop on you as well). So for around $9 for a small burrito what did I think of it? It was spicy - a little too spicy. The spicy sauce was poured over the rice. There are major differences between GYG burritos and Mad Mex burritos. Both are similar in price however GYG is made to order ie it may take a little longer to get your order but it's freshly made whereas Mad Mex has a subway assembly line type service. I'm not a fan of this as several food handlers are in contact with your order as it goes from stat to finish although this maybe faster and there is more risk of contamination due to the amount of time the conponents are retained in the bain maries. All the components in a GYG burrito are guaranteed hot when you receive your burrito whereas a lot of the components of my burrito from Mad Mex especially the chicken was not hot and if it was cooled down when placed against the other cold components increasing the chance of bacterial growth as the chicken was in the danger temperature zones before you even take your first bite out of the burrito. I had chicken which was the most risky of proteins and my chicken was not hot but warm and the rest of my burito was cold and wrapped in a warm wrap. A bright red foil wrapper did not help. I had to eat it really quickly. The salsa was nice but the burrito itself was pretty ordinary compared with a GYG one. I don't have a loyalty card for Mad Mex but do with GYG. The amount of chicken was not as substantial as in a GYG burrito. Rating 6/10 So glad I only purchased a small burito.
After dinner I made my way back to Circular Quay and The Rocks to fond as many VIVID art installations as possible. There were a few I could not find but it does not matter as I will revisit them at a later date. I was trying to work out what The Brain was inside The Gateway building. It was not open when I was looking around for dinner It was not on the list on the VIVID website under the lights category .
An order of the art installations I visited is on my series of videos I have uploaded onto my YouTube channel. ( I am still uploading my videos as there are so many of them!)
It is around 8.30 pm and feeling tired I decide to head home. It is a walk to Wynyard Station fighting the huge sea of people heading towards Circular Quay and The Rocks in the opposite direction - good luck once they reach Circular Quay as it is worse the annual pre COVID NYE fireworks crowds. I was not catching the train from Circular Quay to Wynyard as I knew it would be packed. It was crowded at Wynyard Station on the Northern Line and a bit of a wait for the next train. Once on I managed to get a seat but not without an annoying family whose kids decided to hog multiple seats on the lower train carriage. I took the train to Chatswood rather then St Leonards Station as I needed to do some grocery shopping and it was not 10 pm yet so the supermarkets were still open. I grabbed what I could find - enough for lunch for work on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday and an initial $4 in change for laundry money ( Woolworths does not give change manually therefore $4 is the only way I could get change coins only ).
It was a 3 minute or so wait for a bus home.
I did not do anything except upload some videos onto my YouTube channel and bed. It was a cold night. So glad the rain stayed away after an initial brief sprinkle tonight as showers were forecasted earlier this morning for tonight.
News headlines today include
The Johnny Depp verses Amber Heard defamation trial wraps up today after 6 ( 23 days) weeks. The jury have now retired before giving their verdict however due to a public holiday in the US the judge has asked members of the jury not to watch, discuss or intereact with anyone or anything in relation to the trial until after the public holiday. Crowds are waving and supporting Johnny Depp with booing for Amber Heard and very few supporters.
Burnatd Tomic wants Nick Kyrios to challenge him but not on the tennis court but in the boxing rink. Challenge not accepted yet.
The hospital and ambulance services continues to be in crisis due to nursing shortages and medical professionals walking ou on the jobs.
Peter Dutton has slammed the new government for returning the Tamil family in detention from Perth to Biloela after a 4 year ideal. They are now on bridging visas.
Winter rain is heading to Sydney with a cold snap and snow in the Alps. Meanwhile Adelaide is headed for heavy rain and flooding.
VIVID lit up Sydney without a glitch after a 2 year absence last night on its opening night.
Police in Texas have been slammed for their delayed reaction of an hour to the shooting at Robbs elementary school where 2 teachers and 19 children were shot dead. The decision of police not to storm a classroom during the shooting and kids desperately phoning for assistance has been slammed. Meanwhile Donald Trump has addressed the NRA conference defending gun owners with hundreds of square metres of sermed weapons on display at the conference.
People have been asked to look in their cupboards for old corningware . But not for the blue cornflower on white ones. The ones with the coloured vegetables printed on them The kitcher the better and the more people are willing to pay for them on Ebay. I was told about how valuable old corningware was few years ago with the colour printed pieces far more valuable then the prettier blue cornflower printed ones however what a co incidence as I just had a very long conversation with one of my customers about this just on Thursday! I kept a few of the medium to small pieces of my mother's blue corn flower corningware set giving away the larger pieces and one smaller piece to a friend.
ABBA is back together again for the opening of their live "hologram virtual" shows.
Statistics still show that people are dying from COVID.
NSW ambulance went on strike overnight refusing to leave their base stations.
Planned for today:
Sydney Dance Company Open Day
VIVID continued @ The Rocks and/or Circular Quay Walsh Bay & Opera House
Sunday 29th May 2022
Day Off
I slept in until 7 am this morning watched the news and uploaded some more videos from my visit to VIVID last night as well as update my blog. It's a beautiful day today. 11 am and I still haven't made my way to the last day of the cake bake and sweet show. I don't expect much there today and it is a long trip out to Olympic Park. In Melbourne it is much easier to get to because this annual show is always at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre not out at their showgrounds although it has been in the past some years.
I took the first bus that came as long to St Leonard Station then a train all the way to Lidcombe Station before transferring onto another train to Olympic Station. I missed the awaiting train so had to wait another 15 minutes for the next train. I arrive at Olympic Station around 1.45 pm and walk to the Dome to the Cake Bake & Sweet Show. I knew I would be disappointed and I was. When I arrived I was given a free tube of purple sprinkles in a test tube from The Sprinkle Club. May come in useful in the future. I was taking some photos of the pretty stand they had but the girls behind the stand decided to photo bomb my photos by doing a peace sign so I said why don't they hold up some products if they want to be in my photos that I am going to post on my blog. So they did. Photo below . I ❤ how it turned out!
I then went to purchase some baklava after sampling the original one ( is that how it's suppose to be spelt?) I wanted the most chocolate one so purchased the ferrero roche one only to see the biscoff one afterwards. No stick to what I have.
Next onto the Super Theater where I thought Khan Ong was cooking live on stage according to the schedule at 2 pm but it ended up being Miguel ( Crazy Bull) the celebrity Spanish chef who spent more time flirting with the ladies giving away prizes he wasn't supposed to be giving away , bringing on his flamenco dancers , comments on screen , mention of The Livingroom and old footage of when he was promoting his time on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here then actually cooking - it was a typical Miguel show and very much a repeat of a previous show I attended - can't remember if it was a previous Cake Bake & Sweet Show or Good Food & Wine Show. He eventually made a flan or creme caramel. I left to look around the show which was half empty and took me 15 minutes maximum. No crowds here today. I did come back but left again to watch Miguel then left again - he sure draws a crowd only because he is so loud.
I looked around at the Art of Cake but most of the cakes and bake sale items had already been sold so only a few cakes were left on display to photograph and video.
No chocolate - yep that's right heaps of chunky biscuits but lacking in everything else.
Very disappointed. Celebrity bakers Emilia winner from Masterchef and Anna Polyvou were present demonstrating cake decorating on the other stage.
Meanwhile there was no sign of the Love Cooking Live! and only the far from Michelin star chefs competing in the finals of the World Food Championships Australia were left cooking burgers? Totally boring. Nothing I haven't seen before here. So this is what my $18 ticket got me at this year's show in Sydney. Maybe I should try again and attend the Melbourne Show at the Convention Centre later this year.
3.15 pm and I am spending most of my time blogging. There is not much to see at the show or eat. I think I will leave around 3.30 pm.
My eyes are still so allergic. My phone is down to 26% . I better head home. Takes so long to get out here.
Photos below but I will upload videos of the Miguel show and my walk through of the Art of Cake display onto my YouTube channel.
Chocolate Queen Kristen Tiballs wasn't even present with her stand!
I think I should have hone to The Home Show at Darling Harbour instead. I could still make it but I would only have an hour or so there to look around. There is another one in October so maybe not to rush to get to this one.
Damn it I missed the one night only drone show over Sydney Harbour as I was too tired to do a third night of VIVID. I instead got on a train which terminated at North Sydney so I got off at Town Hall snd went grocery shopping at Woolworths before heading on a train to St Leonard Station and a bus home. I made lunch for work tomorrow and went to sleep early. It was a cold night.
News headlines today include:
The party room is to vote tomorrow for the next National Party leader. Big political names have put their names forward for the position. Meanwhile Petter Dutton unopposed will be the Liberal Party Leader ( so maybe SM will have a carreer become a church pastor after all as previously bought up as to his where to next )
The Samoa is the second country to sign an agreement with China although not made publically official was found in a leaked document whilst Australia joins an alliance with the US Japan and India to form the quad with other countries to strengthen the US presence in the Indo pacific region which Fiji has just signed an agreement with.
Retired tennis champion Ash Barty has volunteered to do the ice dunk challenge to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy.
The Balmoral Burn is on the way this morning. This annual fund raiser is not only a fun run for people but for pets as well ( one day I will do this fun run but it's a miniature version of the City To Surf's Heart Break Hill and I hate hills)
The cruise ship industry returns this week with first cruise ships such as The Pacific Explorer leaving Sydney next Tuesday. There is testing for COVID daily on cruise ships as part of health and safety protocols ( will this put some travellers off from t as king a cruise? no way I will be going on a cruise ship any time soon!)
A weather warning for the first week of Winter with a cold snap in Adelaide today from a polar blast from WA working its way across to SA and other states . Snowstorms hail rain storms severe winds with temperatures dropping and icy conditions are here or coming prompting danger warnings.
SA free vaccine following QLD where free vaccines are already available and NSW set to follow suit as soon as supplies are available.
The Kid Leroy has been sued by his former manager for breach of contract after he terminated his contract just before he signed a new music contract with Sony. His mother is also being sued for interference.
Planned for today:
Cake Bake & Sweet Show @ The Showgrounds Olympic Park
ViVID continued Barangaroo , Walsh Bay & remaining venues Central Station & The Goods Line except Taronga Zoo ( usually kept for closing night) , The Ivy 7 & 8th June only, Carriageworks from 2nd June ( day off plan to go opening night) - abandoned fir another night too tired!
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