Darren Percival and the Opera House

For those of you that are unaware, Darren Percival was the runner up in this years "The Voice" Australia. He may have come second, but our apartment was rooting for him the entire time! Anyway, it just so happens that he has become a very good customer of ours at work and he gave us some tickets to see him perform at the Opera House!! The SYDNEY Opera House. (Just so we're clear on that). I would have been excited to go to the show anyway, but that got me SUPER excited. I had met Darren once before and stuttered and stumbled like a star struck child the entire time, but I was really excited to see him sing live. He has an incredible voice and is such a performer.

I would highly recommend downloading some of his music or watching it him sing on YouTube.

In other news, this will actually be a travel blog again soon since LUKE AND I ARE IN BALI! (once I figure out why google wants me to start paying to add photos to my blog...) stay tuned!

Coldplay!

There are truly no words for how incredible this concert was. We bought these tickets more than 6 months ago and when Saturday finally came around we couldn't wait to get to the stadium. We had to arrive a little bit before the gates opened because we decided to choose the pick-up option for our tickets (save $2 where you can!). We got there early enough that it was a pretty painless few minutes waiting for our tickets. Then we just sat in the sun with everyone else waiting for the gates to open up!

Although we waited for a while, I managed to find ways of entertaining myself...

Once the gates were opened, bags were checked and tickets were scanned, we grabbed our complimentary (kind of like a gift with purchase?) bracelets which seemed pretty exciting. They were brightly colored and I love free things. Needless to say we managed to get our hands on more than one.

Yellow!

Once the lights went down we enjoyed Temper Trap and a few ciders before Coldplay came on. When they did it was unreal. It may have been brought to tears on several occasions (not really out of the ordinary on any day). They were truly incredible live perfomers and if you haven't been to one of their concerts, get to one.

A little trip down the rabbit hole

Last Friday night was the start of the Village Bizarre happening in The Rocks every Friday night until Christmas. I hadn't really heard anything about it and didn't know what to expect. I had looked it up Friday while I was at work and couldn't really find much information on it. Once we got there it seemed clear why. I think we accidentally found the coolest party that you've never heard of, and isn't that just the point of something this cool?

Tucked between all of the laneways were performances behind luscious red velvet curtains. People walked around caped and covered while others burlesqued in almost nothing at all! We were quickly distracted and missed out on the shows that night because we found this:

A pop up bar whose entrance required you to wear a bunny mask. It really was like we had fallen down the rabbit hole. I for one, did not see any reason why you would want to come back out.

We found ourselves lost in this land of wonder. It was bizarre (duh), but as we walked into the two room shop front we laughed. This is a cool bar. Something totally different that you're not going to find strolling down George St. Keep your Ivy and your Establishment, next Friday night you'll find me at the White Rabbit Bar.

Once we emerged from the Rabbit Hole we continued through for food, and shortly after, for some dancing.

Have you ever been to a silent disco? Everyone gets a set of headphones and then you dance to your station of choice. People walk by and see you dancing to music that they can't hear. I felt pretty silly at first, but we got into it and hung out of a while dancing our bbq off!

 

 

When we turned the corner from there we realized there was still so much to see! But it ends at 10, so we missed out! We'll just have to check it out again next week...

Beer Festival

Is there any better way to spend a Saturday than drinking beer in the sun?

Last weekend the Australian Hotel put on their annual Beer Festival. Luke and I decided to go on Saturday which, luckily for us, turned out to be the better weather day for the weekend. When we arrived we bought a $20 ticket which included a tasting cup and 10 tasting tickets. If you want to buy another set of tasting tickets later in the day its only $15.

It was kind over overwhelming at first. It took up a whole block behind the pub and both sides of the street were lined with pop up tents each housing a different brewery. Luke and I were both expecting it to be a lot bigger, but we quickly forgot our disappointment as we tasted away the day.

We slowly sipped through the stalls savoring the darks, pale ales, porters and lagers while we basked in the sun. The middle of the road was in the shade, so we grabbed drinks and pushed through the crowds to get back into the sun with each of our samples. There were a lot of breweries there that we have tried during our time in Sydney already, which was kind of a shame, but there were still quite a few that we hadn't heard of before.

Expectations aside, it was an overall great day and I would recommend it to anyone who likes beer (or cider!).

Crave Festival

During October, The Sydney Morning Herald (and Citibank if I'm going to name drop) help to put on the Sydney International Food Festival called Crave. There have been special nights, special menus at restaurants and most importantly, Noodle Markets. 

The Markets are set up in Hyde Park and the first thing you notice when you walk into the park is the smell. It is amazing. Sizzling beef, sauces, onions. Its pure bliss and slightly sensory overload. The night we went it was busy! I'm not sure if it was like this every night of the market, but it made decision making that bit more stressful. There were stalls all over pouring out their sights and smells and the lines were long for some and even longer for others. People walked past with things that looked and smelled delightful and my stomach was growling from the moment we got there. First we did a loop of all of the stalls, then lined up for a drink in the hopes that would make decision making a little bit easier, then we headed off our separate ways to try to figure out which stall was serving up the best noodles. 

The setup was great. As the sun was setting we suddenly noticed that we were surrounded by fluorescent chinese lanterns and the trees were illuminated in blues and pinks and yellows. It was almost romantic, if al fresco dining is your kind of thing. Our first choice was a Vietnamese place where we got beef and noodles with mint and a beautiful sauce. It did not disappoint.

It started to get too dark for my little Samsung, so I stopped taking pictures of the food and places, but we had some more amazing food. Our next stop was for some Massaman curry and fish cakes which were also fantastic. I'm not sure anyone was serving anything underwhelming there, but if they were we didn't know about it. We capped it off with some ice cream from Serendipity. Wowza, its good. They need to get themselves into the city so I can consume them every day this summer.

There are a few events that coincide with the festival that seem to work alongside the idea of good food and drink. Last weekend there was the Moveable Feast. They closed off part of the main street and filled it with all of the food trucks in Sydney and a bit of live music to eat with! Unfortunately we didn't make it because I've been a little bit more than slightly under the weather. But we will be heading to the Beer Festival next weekend to cap off the month. Stay tuned for the review!