A day of Shopping and Walking #1 // MCA, Mizuya, N2

Went out with a couple of friends today to the city, for an early birthday get-together, because some of them I won't be able to see for my actual birthday event.

But anyway, we wandered around a long time thinking about what to do. Even walked all the way from Town Hall to Darling Harbour, only to find WildLife World entry super expensive, and thus then decide to walk from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay.

Which was a long walk.

After much hesitation, I proposed we go to the MCA because

1. We didn't know what else to do.

2. Spread the art love!!

3. I like contemporary art.

4. I hadn't been in a while

The exhibits on this time was Primavera 2014: Young Australian Artists (open till 30th November) and also Martu Art From the Far Western Desert.

To be honest, I didn't particularly like the exhibits this time. They weren't really what I usually liked. I tend to like more interactive and art-works that submerged the audience into an experience, which there was less of this time.

Also, one of the floors was closed (probably renovating for a new exhibit) so that only meant 2 floors. And one of those floors are a permanent exhibit, so that wasn't too exciting for me.

None-the-less, there was this one work that I really enjoyed, in the Primavera exhibition. It was called Dissolve by Caitlin Franzmann, and it involved putting on these helmets onto the head, containing sound-cancelling headphones.

My friend, KS, with the helmet on.

A particular soundtrack played within these headphones, and I thought it was really surreal and enjoyable.

I could probably have listened to it for a long time and sat there looking ridiculous, just like my friend does in the above photo, but we had places to go.

Also, stumbled across this in the MCA Resources Room and thought back to my HSC Chemistry of Art knowledge of pigments.

White ochre! Red ochre! Fe2O3! Haematite!

Then we decided to head all the way back to Town Hall and explore Queen Victoria Building. We went to HobbyCo and spent a great deal of time just exploring the massive place and looking at all the little bits and pieces there.

It's a shop for, essentially, hobbies, as the name implies.

Aeroplane models found in HobbyCo.

Not going to lie, QVB is beautiful and I only just recently started appreciating its beauty.

 After realising we had nothing to do, at 6PM we headed off to Mizuya for dinner.

Green Tea Drink. Super, super nice. It's this Green Tea milk drink with milo on top.

Food came, and much photos were taken by my friends.

I didn't really take many this time, largely because I'd been to Mizuya many times before and to be completely honest, the lighting there is terrible, and often upsets my white-balance.

But, as usual, I took photos of my friends taking photos.

Then, they told me to go to the bathroom for a long time (a good 10 minutes) and then prepared this surprise for me. Though it wasn't really a surprise because they were acting very suspicious and went to buy macarons.

You start to fit the pieces together when your friends

• Text each other secretly and signal to each other to check their phones
• Whisper to each other "Just ask her if she wants it"
• Buy $30 worth of macarons for "one person"
• Proceed to ask me what flavours would I buy

Zumbo macarons, which we then split between the four of us.

Then, after dinner, we legged it to N2, because I hadn't been in a while and was keen to try out the new flavours.

Despite my insistence to "save my stomach room" at dinner, so I could fit in ice-cream from N2 afterwards, I still failed to finish my ice-cream completely and had to enlist the aid of my friends.

I swear I always end up way too full to finish a complete N2 meal. (It's so delicious! So expensive! But so full at the same time!)

N2 wasn't as busy as it usually was, largely because it was a Monday evening, and still pretty early in the evening. So I manage to take this nice shot.

Afterwards, we went to Capital Square to play some arcade games and do some Purikura (sticker photos). Sadly, didn't win any plushies (I tried so hard for an alpaca plushie, but to no avail), but did have a great time.

Finally, it was pretty much time to do. We were all exhausted from walking around the entire day and it was about high-time we made our way home.

Before I left, I took one final photo of Central Station, which I think is a beautiful place.

Yay for street photography!

And would you look at that, it's now currently 12:00AM exactly and so the first thing I did at the ripe old age of 18 was blog. Now isn't that something.

Signing out, your new 18 year old (I don't feel any different).