Christmas has arrived, and I am happy. I am enjoying Christmas Day with my wife, son, daughter, and in-laws. My son has been spoilt, and we are enjoying a cold Christmas for the first time in years. Here is to a chilled Boxing Day (maybe watching some football or cricket – or both), and in parting I wish to repeat the annunciation to the shepherds by the angels.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Merry Christmas all!
Christmas is over for another year and we had a stuffy Christmas Eve full of food and drink, rain all of Christmas Day (both presents for the Pok and the water kind), and Boxing Day was bright and sunny. But one of the most distinct traditions we have in an Australian Summer Christmas is a night raid of the Sydney Fish Markets. The markets are open for 36 hours straight and even at 11:30PM on the 23rd of December it was heaving.
The usual suspects headed out for the raid (i.e. my wife, brother and his wife), with cool bags in tow.
The Police were alerted to our presence and were out in full force to placate the natives for our arrival (we walk there, while others join the massive traffic jam to enter the car park marshaled by the cops).
The prawns were overflowing with multiple hands at work to dish them out. Our raid involve acquiring a few kilograms of this stuff.
Crustaceans of all shapes, kinds and colours were on their best display for the evening. Even with the fake camouflage they couldn’t hide.
Some fish were feeling special too…
Mrs Clause couldn’t help but partake in some oyster shucking.
And to think that this row of ocean fruit would all be gone in probably a couple of hours, replaced by the next batch.
It wasn’t just seafood on sale, the deli was flogging off its fromage.
And they also stocked all the colours of the rainbow of bottled goodness.
The sushi reindeer were working overtime.
And some of the salmon sold were longer than my arm.
Hope you all had a good Christmas!
When I first started my blog over a year ago, one of my favourite post topics was to document Christmas. I am now officially on my Christmas holidays from work and won’t be back till 2014. So I now have the luxury of enjoying my Christmas break with my family. But it has also given me the opportunity to shoot some of my favourite Christmas decorations in the City of Sydney. As someone who celebrates Christmas I know the real meaning of this occasion, but I can’t help but enjoy the effort that is made to decorate and celebrate at this time of year. A lot of the decorations are tacky and (quite honestly) cheap, but I have chosen the ones that I think are special and hurt the power bill or cause storage headaches for the other 11 months of the year. The images in this post link through to my larger photos on Flickr.
The Christmas tree in Martin Place is really a centre piece for the city, but this year it has been hard to shoot it with a couple of over grown trees on either side of it. But it is quite unique this year with an LED ribbon that shimmers in different light patterns.
The baubles are big and chunky and equally playful with the light.
Some of the shop arcades have pulled out some stops to decorate. These are some of the giant Christmas people in Chifley Tower.
The Westfield Mall in Pitt Street is showered in light and I love these hanging stars that cover four stories. They too dance with different light.
By far the best decorations in Sydney are in the wonderful Strand Arcade (sorry QVB). It is as if the building was built to showcase Christmas.
There are some cool shop displays too, trying to tempt us to buy their wares. I found this jewelry store shop window elegant and the shop owners made some serious effort to decorate with class.
Even though we are in the Southern Hemisphere, doesn’t mean we don’t indulge in Christmas sweets. I love gingerbread…
And this year the Sydney Town Hall had no scaffolding on it, so the illuminations could be displayed in all their glory. It is pretty cool.
Only three more sleeps… hopefully it is shaping up to be a hot one 🙂
Christmas Eve is upon us here in Sydney, and one of the unique Aussie traditions – a visit to the Sydney Fish Markets. Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere is in the middle of summer, and instead of Turkey many of us have prawns (and lobster, crab, Balmain bugs, oysters, salmon, along with anything else that swims or drinks salt water) for Christmas dinner. So the Sydney Fish Markets are open for 36 hours straight from 6am on the 23rd of December until 6pm on Christmas Eve. It is pandemonium and the busiest day of the year for the fishmongers. The queuing is so big going into the markets that the police manage the traffic into and out of the parking lots. We are fortunate in that we are less than a 5 minute walk to the markets, and observe all the mayhem with some amusement. Normally we go to pick up our seafood at 2am on Christmas Eve, but as we were still down in Melbourne at that time we had to delay our trip to 10:30am. It was very busy at that time, with some of the fishmongers having queues 3 deep from the stalls. Many fish lovers were walking around with esky sized boxes filled to the brim with seafood and ice. I had the Pok on my shoulders, and from his vantage point he was happily eyeing up the large selection of prawns on offer. One of the blokes even indulged him and gave him a king prawn to munch one – to which he shoved the whole thing in his mouth at once, grinning from ear to ear. Here are some of the photos I shot, with him sitting on my shoulders the whole time. It brings a whole new meaning to balance and stability for your shot.
Now I am going to finish enjoying the rum that I have in my hand, and look forward to more mayhem tomorrow morning as my son tears into the presents delivered by Father Christmas. Merry Christmas to all, and peace to all men. Joyeux Noël.
So my 2 year old son, AKA “The Pok”, is singing Jingle Bells every morning and night now. I suppose I had something to do with this, as I have been playing Diana Krall’s rendition of the carol every day for the last couple of weeks.
It is very funny listening to him try to wrap his mouth around the verses. I also use this song to have him open his mouth so I can brush his teeth – parenting.
As a follow up to my earlier post, Christmas in Sydney, I wanted to shoot some more Christmas photos but this time at night. I brought in the tripod to run around one evening after work. For me the Christmas spirit truly comes alive at night. There is absolutely no chance of snow in Sydney, but nevertheless we decorate as if we were in the Northern Hemisphere. The City of Sydney have done a cool job this year of decorating the town, with the only downer being the scaffolding covering the works on the Sydney Town Hall – which is being illuminated.
Joy to the World!
The Christmas spirit has well and truly arrived in Sydney. Everyday walking home I see a steady stream of people dressed for the silly season, and it looks fun. It was looking like a bright clear day in the morning, so I decided to bring the SLR out and see if I could capture a few shots. Some people don’t like the tackiness of Christmas decorations, but I love the colour and vibrant displays. I think this will be the first of a series of posts as I get the opportunity to take some more shots of the Christmas festivities in and around Sydney. Good will to all men – enjoy!
Leave me a comment if you would like to know where these shots were taken.
Something for Kiki and the Pok 