I’m back in 09, yo. Nothing seems to have happened since I’ve been away.

I should mention that I found the coolest bag today. It’s been my year-long mission ever since my current bag started needing bits of duct tape to hold it together. I spent many hours looking for a bag when I was in England and Ireland. I’d spent about two hours bag search and I was heading back up George Street to get the train to the airport. Then I saw the Mooks store and remembered that Mooks do quite cool bags, I walked in, saw the bag of my dreams, it was $60, I bought and I’m so glad.

Ok, here are some photos from my recent adventures.

1. This is from the MC battle in Newcastle. It was open to anyone, so these two fellows entered and after the preliminary solo round they were paired up to face off each other. The guy in the South Park t-shirt (who wasn’t wearing any shoes) had walked off during his first go, but had come back for more. The fellow in the waistcoat did lots of leaping about the stage and high kicks. He was late to the second round because he was apparently out in the park getting high. These two guys battled each other and it was way more entertaining than many of the serious MCs. The audience was divided as to who the winner was. Three out of five judges were in favour of the waistcoat guy, so he won, but really, they were both winners. Yay!

2. This is me posing in the Pompadour Room in the State Theatre. It’s a very extravagantly decorated ladies powder room. There’s that wallpaper with the gold background and furry red shapes, gold and red all over the place. The best thing about it is that the room, like all the ladies powder rooms in the State, is only accessible from inside the theatre auditorium itself. So I guess the idea is that if you’re in the middle of a particularly thrilling film and you find your nose getting shiny, you can quickly pop off and powder it without missing much of the film.

3. This is an art work from the State Theatre. It’s found in the art gallery on the gods level. Back when the theatre was being built an art competition was held so part of the gallery is filled with all this really excellent Australian art work, but then on the wall just inside the door I saw this and I knew it was better than all the other art works put together.

4. This is me sitting at a picnic table in Manly looking out at the ocean beach. I was really just mucking around with the auto-timer on my camera (said the bored housewife to her internet boyfriend) and I really liked the composition in this one.

The train from Newcastle to Sydney was beautiful and scenic and it was so much better a) going during the day and b) not having the train ride turn into a bus trip.

Once I arrived in Sydney late yesterday afternoon, I didn’t feel like doing much other than seeing a movie. It was tight-arse Tuesday, so I saw “Matchstick Men” at the Greater Union multiplex on George Street for $10. It’s a really good film. It’s like the classic conmen scam story elevated to a higher level. At times the emotion relationship side of things gets so involving that it’s easy to forget that there’s a scam going on. I had the scam figured out, though.

Today I went on a tour of the State Theatre. It’s a magnificent, opulent 1930s picture palace, like the Civic Theatre in Auckland, but even more extravagant. The best thing about the State is that it was build primarily as a cinema. It has an art gallery, paintings, statues, mosaics and – OMG – the largest chandelier in the southern hemisphere! All this extravagance was designed so that the ordinary working man or woman could get away from it all when they went out to the movies.

According to the tour commentary, during the 1970s Greater Union, the theatre’s owners, were considering selling it. The builders union put a “green ban” on it, meaning that no builders would work on any construction work. Like, how cool is that. Sometimes Australia seems too unionised, but that sort of thing makes up for it.

Actually, thinking about the Civic Theatre, there are no tours available of the Civic. I think the Auckland City Council complains that it would cost too much, but really, how much would it cost to have an audio guide self-tour? Especially when you make the tourists pay for it.

Next I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. I love it so much. My favourite thing this time was part of an exhibit of works by young Australian artists. It was a film called “Welcome to the Jingle” made by a group of drag kings called Kingpins. Dressed as blond athletes, they four drag kings ran around the streets of Sydney, visiting various Starbucks and performing some formation dancing. Kind of like the lesbian lovechild of the “Praise You” video.

Then I got the ferry over to Manly and wandered around there for a bit. I walked around bay and took some photos. Then I got the ferry back. Yay. Oh, and the sun was setting as the ferry came back into Circular Quay. Steel grey and orange sky!

I gave in an saw “Freaky Friday”. It was everything I wanted and more. It has a way better ending than the original, and in this one Anna-as-Mom gets the makeover, not the other way.

I had dinner at one of those conveyor belt sushi places. All the plates cost $2.50, which was far better value for money than the sushi place I went to in Manchester where a plate of two pieces of sushi was 2.50 pounds.

This internet place is pretty cool. I’m in a private booth (oo-er) sitting on a couch while the computer is on a glass-topped wooden table. I keep hearing geeks over in the gaming area yelling out stuff about giant moths. Ah, such ambience. And the best bit is, it’s really reasonably priced – much better value than the crappier touristy interweb places up the hill.

Ok, tomorrow I return to Aotearoa. I’m not sure if I will be able to manage to attend Mobile Stud Unit’s 10th anniversary hooley on Friday. The thought of more travel and unfamiliar beds isn’t so appealing at the moment.