Returned to Sydney with Sue. I’ll head home in a few days but before then it was time to do more shopping and check out the majority of the Sydney Vivid festival.
We shopped around the Asian districts which get more impressive each time I visit. It feels like Chinatown, Koreatown and Japantown are a large chunk of Sydney now, and there’s lots of shops selling nifty stuff that I’ll need to take a second look in before I go. It’s a shame I’m not more adventurous with food, because the wealth of different restaurants is amazing (should I get a pork katsu tonight?)!
Vivid was amazing. There were light displays everywhere, including spotlights that lit up the clouds! The bridge and the opera house were obviously centerpieces, and they didn’t disappoint.
All around Circular Quay and The Rocks there were installations, ranging from small and cute (like fake walk signals displaying emojis) to massively impressive (like multistory buildings with animations projected onto them). The crowds were massive as well, but well controlled and always moving so it was easy to see and enjoy everything.
All the light shows were animated. The bridge cycled through many colors (and video was projected onto the supports) and the opera house saw a dazzling display of colours and faux 3D effects projected onto it. Virtually everywhere you looked there was something to see, and even the skyscrapers were lit up in a rainbow of colours.
You could go walk up to many of the installations (like this mega music visualizer cube) and most of them incorporated sound or music as well.
A couple made use of the harbour itself, like these ‘soap by bubbles’ or several ships going back and forth advertising the event.
We walked for several hours from the Opera House all the way to Darling Harbour and still probably didn’t see everything. I’ll probably go out again tonight to see the offerings down at Central Station.
By the way, although I’d never think it or even admit it, it’s possible all this activity (another near 30k steps yesterday) is catching up to me. As usual I’ll need a vacation to recover from this trip!