Sydney Festival 1st Night 2010

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Lorenza and I took advantage of the fact that the events at the Sydney Festival First Night are all free. Plus, our friends who have an apartment in the inner city were away for a week. How good is that - a weekend of free events and the key to their apartment! It did not take much to convince us that this was a great way to spend the weekend. We packed our car and took the drive to Sydney.

After making ourselves at home in the apartment we took a walk along King Street in Newtown. The variety of shops, cafes and restaurants is great compared to our nearest village, so a weekend in the city is such a change for us. We resisted all the clothing stores advertising their post Christmas sales, took a look in an interesting shop full of eastern and Asian furniture and odds and ends, they had a great range of Buddhist statues.

After our morning of browsing the shops we had lunch at Angie Hong's Thanh Binh Vietnamese restaurant. The food was fantastic, as was the service from Michael. We shared some soft shell crab as an entree, for mains Lorenza had a great Saigon style pho, while I tried the calamari and pineapple (which I had actually intended to try cooking myself a week ago - Angie's was so much better than I could have cooked). We enjoyed the food with a lovely Riesling and took our time enjoying the flavours. If you are interested in trying some very good Vietnamese food give this place a go .... Thanh Binh The pho tastes fantastic and acts a bit like a sauna too!

My full stomach and the wine made me a bit lazy and we took a short nap so we were in good form for the rest of the evening. We took the bus to the city and walked through Hyde Park. There were a range of activities in the park, including some Indian musicians, free hula hoop and plate spinning sessions and a hip hop act which seemed to have a lot of people interested.

We ventured to the Domain found ourselves some more food (by now it was 7.30pm so we did need refueling). We then found a comfy patch of grass to stretch out on waiting for the main concert to start. The bill included the Black Arm Band and the headline act was soul legend, the Reverend Al Green. The first band was good when they played up beat numbers but I think they tended to loose the crowd a bit by dropping the tempo off a bit too much. But, when they played some songs the crowd knew reasonably well it livened things up.

The Domain is home to a huge colony of fruit bats. Each time there is an event like this on they get very disturbed and take to the air. It gives the crowd something to focus on while the bands are changing over. A lot of people cover themselves with towels, etc in the hope that the bats do not drop anything on them. The only thing I got hit by courtesy of the bats was an unripe fig that one had detached form the tree above me. It made me jump a bit when it clocked me on the head.

The Reverend Al Green was sensational! Sure, he played a short set but his sound was great. He ran through a lot of his very famous numbers, including Take Me to the River, etc. There were not too many people who did not get into the music this guy had on offer.

A few rather drunken folks near us provided some additional entertainment. They could have spoiled the fun a bit for others as they were getting a bit clumsy and falling over in all directions. I was glad they did not fall in our direction.

After the concert the crowd drifted away in various directions across the city. We took a walk back through Hyde Park and then took the bus back to Newtown. We were going to grab a cold beer before heading to bed but the only pub that was open had a rather ordinary rock band playing so we decided to give it a miss.

Sunday after breakfast (and bumping into a former work colleague) we took the opportunity to visit Paddy's markets and China Town. There were a few bargains to be had at the markets, including the three pairs of comfy cotton shorts that I found for myself (three pairs cost less than one pair on offer at Newtown and they were the same brand). In China Town, Lorenza got herself a new supply of chopsticks and we had lunch there before going back to the apartment. Pork buns .... yum!

We had a fun weekend in the big smoke - thanks to Josh and Hannah for the keys to the apartment!

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Photos

not so close up
as close as we got to Al Green

Comments

[theRedRiver]

Pho noodle soup
I like the photo of Lorenza with a bowl of Pho in front of her. It was nice to know that she is a Dutch. Yes, she looks like "the Dutch lady" of the famous milk. Best wishes to both of you!

[Rob_n_Lorenza]

You are right she does look like the lady from the "Dutch Lady" milk!