Santa Cruz

Today was my final day with Leilani and Fiorella so we headed down to Santa Cruz to wander around. Our first stop was the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History where they had a big toy train set with multiple tracks set up in the lobby for kids to play with. Fiorella enjoyed controlling the trains, particularly the Disney themed one.

Next we went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which I haven’t been to in many years. It was such a beautiful winter day that we sat down on a bench by the beach to eat some lunch in the sunshine. Then we walked around the boardwalk to take in the sights and sounds of the games, roller coasters and food stalls. Fiorella really enjoyed watching people go by on the roller coaster cars. We stopped and had some sweet and savory crepes before calling it a day.

Roaring Camp Railroads Redwood Forest Steam Train

The Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton take you back in time with its recreated 1880s logging camp and steam engine trains. This morning Lei, Fiorella and I rode the Redwood Forest Steam Train up to Bear Mountain and back. The nearly 90 minutes trip in the open air passenger cars takes you on the narrow-gauge tracks that wind through the redwood groves to the summit. A conductor narrates the journey, telling everyone about the history of the railroad and the forest.

It was amazing to be so close to the redwoods as we wound up and down Bear Mountain. The steam from the train created some great shots as the sunlight shone through the forest. We were also very lucky to have chosen the 11am train as the wind picked up and when we returned to Roaring Camp they announced the subsequent trains were cancelled.

Afterwards we stopped at the Italian restaurant Casa Nostra in Ben Lomond for lunch. While the name and logo were slightly unfortunate, the food was delicious. I had a chicken parmigiana with roasted vegetables.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

Last night I drove down with my cousin Leilani and her daughter Fiorella to their new home in Boulder Creek, which is located in between San Jose and Santa Cruz. It’s a cute little town surrounded by redwoods, so it was appropriate that today we ventured to the local tourist attraction, Big Basin Redwoods State Park (which thankfully was open and not impacted by the federal government shutdown).

The park was established in 1902 as the first ever state park in California. It features different trails going through ancient old-growth redwoods and other vegetation spread across over 18,000 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We wandered around the Redwood Loop Trail, which is a flat half mile trail that loops around some of the significant trees in the park, including the Mother and Father of the Forest. The trail has different sign posts along the way where you can read the trail brochure to learn about the forest environment and adaptation of the redwoods to survive. It's a great trail if you have small children or mobility issues.

Here are just a few of the many photos I took while we walked around the park:

 

 

Blue Mountains

Today Mary and I took a train out to Western Sydney to meet up with Tash, who picked us up at the station, for our road trip to the Blue Mountains. Our first stop for the day was the lookout at Wentworth Falls with its expansive and spectacular views of the Blue Mountains.

Next we stopped in the town of Leura to visit Bygone Beautys Treasured Teapot Museum and Tearooms, which has the largest private collection of teawares in the world. There were over 5,500 teapots alone in the museum grouped by era, country and design. I particularly liked the art deco and royal themed teapots. We had a cup of tea in the tearoom and then headed back onto the road.

One of the interesting finds in the town of Katoomba was the Street Art Walk at Beverly Place. It featured local, national and international street artists, including a nice wall mural by Adnate that included the Blue Mountains.

The Echo Point lookout outside Katoomba is one of the most iconic viewing points for the Blue Mountains due to the popularity of the rock formation known as the Three Sisters. We began at the main lookout and then walked down the path to get a closer look (but didn't go down the Giant Stairway to the Honeymoon Bridge).

For our late lunch we ate at the Boiler House Restaurant, which was part of the Hydro Majestic Blue Mountains hotel complex. Tash wanted to check out the Hydro Majestic after having driven past it before, and it did not disappoint. We ended up doing a tour of the place with the concierge to learn more about its fascinating history. Founded by Mark Foy in the early 1900s, what was originally a health retreat became a luxury hotel to bring in business. The architecture was stunning, particularly the Belgravia building which was rebuilt in art deco style after burning down in 1922. The Hydro Majestic has amazing views of the Blue Mountains and glamorous interiors throughout since money was no object when it was built.

After our tour was finished it was dark so we headed back onto the road for the hour and half drive back to Sydney. It was nice to be able to get out of the city and explore the beautiful Blue Mountains region.

Vivid Sydney 2018

This year is the 10th anniversary of Vivid Sydney and my second year attending. For the past two nights we have been walking around and checking out the light projections and installations in the Sydney CBD and along the waterfront.

Our first stop on Thursday night was the area around Customs House. The installation Chrysalis contained colorful cocoons made of fibre optic cables hanging from trees that had butterflies inside that would flutter based on sounds nearby. Synergy represented a complex superorganism of a tree surrounded by ferns that changed colors.

On Customs House itself were light projections of the May Gibbs' children's books characters Snugglepot and Cuddlepie as they journeyed through the Australian bush.

Along the waterfront towards the Sydney Opera House were a few installations, including the light sculpture Visible Dynamics and the illuminated cube Fragmented.

In the Royal Botanical Gardens there were a number of fantastic installations. At the start was The Nautilus Forest with its changing colors, the illuminated Hyperweb, inflatable versions of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, and wave inspired light bars of He'e nalu.

Light Houses were created with different designs and shapes and changed colors. One of the most moving pieces was Oasis, which paid homage to the memory of children growing up in out of home care and combined audio with illuminated lights in a pond.

Further in the Royal Botanical Gardens were the cute perched birds of Parrot Party and the interactive Aqueous where the colors would change as people stood on different sections of the pathway.

Tonight we headed to Barangaroo for dinner at the Chinese restaurant Lotus and then saw my favorite work of Vivid Sydney, which was the illuminated large scale puppet Marri Dyin (meaning 'Great Woman' in the Eora language) in the piece The Liminal Hour.

There were some good installations around The Rocks, with the different colored light tubes of Peacock, the multi-colored birds of 1000 Cranes, the flying neon kites of Luminous Flight, and the large sculpture Illuminosaurus.

Of course the main draw each year are the light projections on the Sydney Opera House. This year's installation Metamathemagical transformed the sails into a series of kinetic digital sculptures.

In the surrounds of the waterfront there were some playful pieces, including a giant inflated Earth, the rotating pufferfish sculpture Fugu, The Garden of Sweeties which was powered by renewable energy, and the cute Harmony Valley - Rainbow of Peace and Trees of Friendship.

Once again there were large scale light projections on the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with Virtual Vibration, but they weren't as exciting or dynamic as last year's ones.

Overall I enjoyed the light projections and installations, but was surprised at how empty the streets were of people on both nights. Vivid Sydney is on until Saturday, 16 June 2018.

Biennale Of Sydney- Cockatoo Island

The 21st Biennale of Sydney is currently occurring across multiple sites in Sydney. The theme SUPERPOSTION: Equilibrium & Engagement gives attendees a way to view these pieces and how they reflect current issues in the world. Mary and I took a ferry out to Cockatoo Island today, which is one of the locations for the Biennale. Cockatoo Island is a UNESCO World Heritage listed site that was a former convict prison in the 1800s and then a naval shipyard until its closure in 1991.

Artworks were spread across different precincts on the island. Our first stop was the Industrial Precinct, which contained a few of my favorite works. Austrian artist Martin Walde's piece Timeline explores the passing of time, with a sheet of paper being shot out from a printer up in the rafters every six minutes containing a calendar date that started with the opening of the exhibition and ending in 2071. Each paper floats onto the floor, and some of them have drawings or writing from the artist in addition to the printed date.

The focus of the pieces by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei at Cockatoo Island is refugees. Law of the Journey is a 60-metre long raft filled with people that is made out of black rubber. There is also wallpaper made of photos taken while he was filming the documentary Human Flow, as well as four different video works that were made in the past couple years to focus on the refugee crisis.

Scottish artist Anya Gallaccio's piece Beautiful Minds uses a programmed 3D printer loaded with clay to recreate the sedimentary rock formations of Devil's Tower, also known as Bear Lodge Butte in Wyoming.

Thai artist Mit Jai Inn has a few large scale installations with Planes (Hover, Erupt, Erode) which involves the use of paint in different forms.

In the Ship Design Precinct were two interesting video installations. Lebanese-Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi's audio-visual piece Bring The Silence depicts video on five different screens of people offering their respects to the Sufi saint Muhammad Nizamuddin Auliya at a sacred burial site. The floor of the room was covered in rugs and the scent of rosewater filled the air.

American artist Suzanne Lacy's multi-part audio-visual installation The Circle and the Square is the culmination of the two-year project Shapes of Water - Sounds of Hope in the town of Pendle, Lancashire. Residents came together in a closed down textile mill to sing choral music and do Sufi chanting. The sound of the choir singing rounds filled the room, and there were also individual interviews with local residents that you could listen to.

The Biennale of Sydney is on for a couple more weeks, closing on Monday, 11 June 2018.

Seattle

I have spent the past three days on a short weekend trip to Seattle. This was my first time to the city and I managed to pack in a few key tourist attractions and activities while I was here. I arrived early afternoon on Friday and took the Link light rail from the airport to the downtown Seattle Westlake stop. The trip lasted 40 minutes and only cost $3.00 one way, which was a great bargain.

I stayed at the newly renovated Hotel Theodore (1531 7th Avenue), which was centrally located to public transport, shops and attractions. It's a really cute hotel with nice, clean rooms and offers its guests daily complementary happy hour drinks. Check out their website to see if there are any deals before booking.

On Friday after checking in I walked down Pine Street past all the stores and holiday decorations to the waterfront to check out the Pike Place Market. It's a massive space and maze of different food and product stalls as well as little shops (kind of a bigger version of Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market). I stopped in to the French bakery Le Panier for a croissant and some macarons, and after wandering around for a bit I grabbed dinner from Pike Place Chowder, who are famous for their different seafood chowders (I had the New England clam chowder, which was tasty). That evening I headed out to the Neptune theater to see comedian Hari Kondabolu, which was the impetus for this trip.

On Saturday I took the short journey on the monorail to the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle and other tourist attractions. My first stop though was a walk down Broad Street to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which contains large scale sculptures and native plants within its nine acres along the waterfront. There were diverse and interesting pieces throughout, and it is a calming place to wander around (and appears to be a local exercise spot).

Next I walked back to the Seattle Center and went to the amazing Chihuly Garden and Glass (read a detailed post about my visit here). Then I headed to the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) to check out a few of their exhibitions. There were lots of different little music exhibits, including ones on Jimmy Hendrix, David Bowie, and a history of guitars.

One thing I was really excited to see was The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited. As someone who grew up on Sesame Street and The Muppets it was great to learn more about Jim Henson's career and get to see some of the puppets up close and personal (I nearly gasped when I saw Kermit). The exhibition also has storyboards, costumes and film clips from Henson's various projects over the years. It is definitely work checking out and has been extended until 25 February 2018.

After my day at the Seattle Center I took the monorail back and then walked a couple blocks up to the Pacific Place Center to finally see the movie Thor: Ragnarok. I do not follow the Marvel comics at all but am a huge fan of New Zealand director Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows is one of my favorite movies) so wanted to check out the film. Not really knowing much about the history of Thor made the first part a bit slow, but once Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was captured on the planet Sakaar and forced to be a gladiator under the Grandmaster (brilliantly played by Jeff Goldblum) things picked up. Thor gets reunited in the ring with his buddy Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and also makes a new friend in Korg (Taika Waititi hilariously voicing the character as a Maori bouncer from Auckland). Eventually they all escape and head back to the planet Asgard to try and rescue the citizens from Thor's sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) who has taken over as ruler. I enjoyed the Australian and New Zealand references Taika put into the movie such as mentions of the film The Castle, the Holden Commodore car, and painting spaceships in the colors of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. For a big budget action picture Taika did manage to get a lot of his humor and style into the film, and it's great that it has been so successful.

This morning I wandered around a bit at Pacific Place Center before heading back to the airport for my afternoon flight to San Francisco. Overall my trip to Seattle was a good taster and gave me an opportunity to orient myself with the city. I was very lucky with the weather in that although it was cold I didn't experience any rain. Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to return again someday to explore more of Seattle.

Chihuly Garden And Glass

Chihuly Garden and Glass is a long-term exhibition of artist Dale Chihuly's work located in the Seattle Center. It contains a comprehensive collection of his works throughout his career spread across eight galleries, a glasshouse and lush outside garden.

As you enter the exhibition the first room is the Glass Forest which contains a series of neon glass tubes.

Next are the works in the Northwest Room, which take their inspiration from the First Nations people of the Northwest, particularly the form of baskets.

The Sealife Room is full of intricate glass work inspired by different sea animals and plants, including a giant sealife glass sculpture in the middle of the room.

The Persian Ceiling is a room where you can sit and look up at all the works assembled together within the ceiling, which are almost like a 3D stained glass window.

Mille Fiori is a giant floor length garden of glass sculptures, with the little intricate details revealed as you walk around the piece.

Ikebana & Float Boat contain many different types of glass sculptures both within and alongside the boats.

The series of Chandeliers are quite detailed glass sculptures in different colors that located both within an indoor gallery and along a walkway in the museum.

The Macchia Forest is the final gallery room, which is full of beautiful hand blown glass bowls.

The main highlight of the museum is the Glasshouse and the large 100 foot long glass sculpture hanging along the length of its ceiling. It is simply breathtaking to look at as you also get views of the outdoor gardens, sky and even the Space Needle.

The extensive outdoor Garden contains glass sculptures interwoven with plants and trees. It's a very unique way to display the art within a natural context.

The museum also has a theater that shows a series of short films about Chihuly's different exhibitions around the world throughout his career and how they came together. In addition, every hour there is a glass blowing demonstration out in the courtyard where you can watch and learn how a piece is made. For the one I watched they were making a vase and unfortunately it broke off and shattered towards the end of the process (but that's the life of glass blowing - it doesn't always work out).

If you are ever in Seattle you have to check out Chihuly Garden and Glass as it is a must do activity for tourists and locals.