Christmas Summer holidays are over

OK – so this post may make some of my fellow Northern hemisphere bloggers slightly jealous, but sorry I am in the “back to work” doldrums. My Christmas Summer holidays are over and it is back to the desk in the middle of a Sydney Summer. It seemed like it went so quick! Christmas day was very wet, we belted the poms in the cricket to win back the little urn and restore balance to the force (for non-Aussies I will not translate this), and I got to take my family to the beach – several times!

We are lucky in Sydney that we have a great selection of beaches to choose from. My favourite surf beach is Maroubra because it is not full of tourists, but with a 3 year old in tow our favourite beach would have to be Balmoral within Sydney Harbour. It is family friendly with minimal surf and easy to get to, the only downside being the limited parking (which may also be the blessing to stop it from getting overcrowded).

And our boy loves it too! Whether he is pretending to be a starfish in the sand.

Or jumping over the sinkholes that we have dug in the beach.

Balmoral is a very nice stretch of sand and is very welcoming. Even for fellow beach goers trying to signal planes flying overhead with sand bucket writing.

And camping out under the sun tent is the ideal location to get stuck into the snacks that would otherwise not be allowed at home.

I have one more long weekend at the beach booked at the end of January, so hopefully looking forward to some more beach fun. It is the little travel trips that sometimes provide the best enjoyment.

Christmas in Sydney – 2013

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 in Sydney – Fish Market Mayhem

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.

Christmas in Sydney – part 2

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!