Tour of state parliament in Sydney. A place of ritual and theatre and two visitors were about to go on stage outside for celebrations.
Does the calendar remain set on the date proceedings were shut down?  Reference books sit idle 'on the floor' of parliament. Aids to understanding hot air: The Australian Concise Oxford and The Macquarie Dictionaries.
State elections. I'd shamefully put aside right and wrong and prefer to see a youthful frocked-up, yes frocked-up, woman as state premier.

Photos taken some time ago in Sydney. Computer problems led to old photos coming to light. Anyway, IMAX looks different right now due to construction work.
Only this year have I been to see a show at Imax. Well, the prospects sounded simply glorious: outer space through the eyes of Hubble as well as ultimate surfing in Tahiti, all on the largest screen in the world in 3D. Well, the vision was technically awesome, the content: very average.
Spelling and Macquarie Dictionary. Thanks goodness a big dictionary provides all the inflections. How is it that an adult like me is too lazy to get to know the rules about plurals and so on - is it 'es' or  's' 'ly' 'ely'. Why not use spell check? Simply writing a label on a blog site photo is a minefield!  What about brackets and full stops, the correct dash, direct and indirect speech?  What's worse, I went to school in the days of reading, 'riting and 'rifmatic.

Dance Studio or events, it's all done with mirrors, beside Sydney Harbour.
Late afternoons ABC TV shows Dance Academy looking very good in this same locality and starring interesting role models for high schoolers etc and diversion for this conservative blogger.

Markets in Sydney

At the Picture Show the crowd, on the wharf, was watching every flicker on the screen and the screen was on a floating pontoon - where else? (Is the word floating redundant? Floating is used to be descriptive.)

The store, Miss Kansai, is into niche marketing with imports from Japan.

The Japanese language uses modified Chinese characters or Kanji and two syllabic scrips Hiragana and Katakana. Almost 2000 written characters are required from the school student.

A fantastic musical ship almost sails through the city streets and has a lively nautical crew who play on improvised gear which is derived from influences far and wide.

Audience, stray albatross and bats were simply 'blown away'.

South Africa won the test and their warrior captain (Man of the Series) took to the pitch in the last overs despite the sports injuries he had sustained.

A Band from the Tongan Community in Sydney visited families to bring greetings for the New Year. In their back garden, the elders listened to the music and the singing and refreshments were offered. Tonga is a Pacific Island kingdom.

These good-humoured tourists celebrated New Year in Sydney twelve hours ahead of their folk in the UK.

Another tourist ritual is centred on Bondi Beach. Come and join the thongs!

Eleven hours ago: aftermath of the New Year fireworks in Sydney.

A passage way makes a very small kitchen by Sydney standards.
Imagine a temperamental chef let loose in there. We know what four letter word Gordon Ramsay would use.

?woleb oihcconiP siht sI ! ol dnA

The land down-under for a change.
Martin Place, Sydney, the venue for the climate change march on Saturday.


Below: Indonesian batik.