Winter Lights Festival and Signs

On Friday 12th July, Jose and I drove to the city to meet up with two friends to go and watch the Winter Lights Festival at Brookfield Place. The festival running from 6 to 11pm had opened on the 3rd July and ended on the 13th July.

After parking we walked to Perth Station where we met our friend Vina. From there we walked to St George's Terrace a couple of blocks away, and along the way I snapped photos from Perth's illuminated buildings.

Some of the night lit buildings in the city centre

At Brookfield Place, the 3 of us stood in front of the main facade admiring the Circus "acts", when our other friend Mena called to say she had just finished work and was ready to join us. She works just down the road, so she met us a few minutes later, and then we went into the courtyard through a narrow lane to admire the rest of the Winter light show.

There were loads of people and both adults and kids were delighted with the light show projections whose theme was "The circus", by Electric Canvas.

Brookfield Place is Perth's 2nd highest building at 244mt (801ft) high, located in St George's Terrace, and apart from office space, the surrounding areas offer cultural experiences, art exhibitions, festivals, curated dining and shopping.

The interactive flowers "Florescentia" by Zara Pasfield was mesmerizing and we stood in front of the "flowers" to see them fold and unfold and change colours.  You can watch the video below.

Florescentia - interactive flowers

The "UV Spaghetti" delighted the kids who twisted or braided the fluorescent cords.

UV Spaghetti

The "Mountain of Light" by Angus Muir was beautiful, with perspex blocks in the shape of a mountain changing into various colours.




The various restaurants in Brookfield Place had extended festival trading hours, kid friendly menus and for the most cost conscious there were food trucks. One of them caught my eye with the name "The good, the bad, the hungry".

Food trucks at Brookfield Place 

Jose was keen to eat Japanese food, and our friend Mena indicated Jaws Sushi in Hay Street (a pedestrian area), just a block up the road. 

It was our first time in a sushi train restaurant, where plates with sushi and other Japanese food comes past the seating patrons on a rotating conveyor belt and you just pick what you want.

Plates were different colours which indicated different prices, and in the end the waitress just adds up the prices depending on the colour plates you've got in front of you. 

We thought the food was delicious, and if we wanted something in the menu that wasn't coming by on the sushi train we could just ask the chef in the middle and he would order  from the kitchen somewhere behind the wall.

Jaws Sushi - sushi train restaurant

City shops close at 9pm, and it was 8,45 when we left the restaurant just in time to walk a few metres down the pedestrian area to Geláre to eat one of their delicious waffles, well just 1/2 a waffle 😉.

And so ended our lovely evening with friends.

Waffles by Gelare

Participating in SIGNS. To check other signs from around the world click on this link.

My youtube video of the Florescentia interactive flowers.

Monday Mural - Housing Bubble

I found this mural in the inner suburb of Newtown, when I visited Sydney last month.

The sun was shining directly into it so it was difficult to capture it well.

Called "Housing Bubble", it was painted by Australian street artist Fintan Magee in 2015, on the facade of the Urban Hotel on Enmore Road.

If you like murals or have a mural you'd like to post, this meme is for you. 

Just follow the Linky steps below.   Be sure to link back to this blog and visit

your fellow mural bloggers.  

Looking forward to your mural finds this week. Thanks, Sami. 

           

                                                  The mural from across the street

Gardening days & Birds

Jose returned from Sydney last week, and while he's looking for a job in Perth, he's been busy around the garden, trimming trees, weeding, etc as next week is the Green's verge collection by our local council.

When I arrive from my half day at work we eat lunch and then I join him outdoors.

On Thursday we cleaned up around a small paved area at the back of the garden, where we usually keep the hammock in Summer under the lemon and bottle brush trees.
There were lots of plants in pots, some planted in the garden beds, others were just moved around, the area was cleaned up and now it all looks neater and spacious, ready for warmer days and the hammock 😎 .

The area with all the pots before the cleanup

The cleaned up area where we put the hammock under the lemon and bottle brush trees

Some of my prickly succulents/cacti are on this table and you can see the wagtail below

While we've been gardening a Willie wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys), or sometimes two wagtails will join us in the garden, waiting for a little critter to come out from under one of the pots when we lift them.
They have become quite used to us and expect us to find them some goodies too 😉.

They love the brown cockroaches (Drymaplaneta communis), which are common in the gardens as they feed on organic matter and break up leaf litter.

top right the wagtail is eating a cockroach

They love crickets too, and once when we lifted a bigger pot lots of them jumped out, I put them in a container in the freezer for a couple of minutes, and when the Wagtail came around he was delighted with our offerings. One of them even ate a cricket from Jose's hand, you can see the video below.

They are so cute, jumping around a lot, wagging their tails as if dancing.

Wagtail near my hand

The doves also come to feed on the seeds I put in the feeder and I noticed one of them is back on the nest.
With the tree covered in foliage and full of lemons it's getting difficult for her to reach the nest.

Jose had said to me that the day before a small dove had stood in front of the mirror in the corner of the garden which he was weeding nearby, and while I was out there I noticed the dove by the mirror again. 

Top left - Dove in nest, top right - on top of a pot plant on the table, bottom, on a branch in lemon tree and eating seeds

Dove looking at the mirror

The New Holland Honeyeater birds (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae)  also fleet around from tree to tree feeding on pollen. They are very fast so it can be difficult to capture them on camera.
I wonder if it's mating season, as lots of them fly around from tree to tree as if on a merry go round with a lot of shrieking.

After the cleanup and planting we went to the front garden to pick olives from our now huge olive tree. We picked almost 5kg of olives which will now be cured in changing water for about 1 month before being put into jars with a flavoured brine before they can be eaten.

Our large olive tree, container of olives we picked

Our big pile of "greens" awaiting collection by the Council

The side area by the driveway also needed a bit of weeding and I need to plant a few more succulents to fill the empty space

The sun was setting and it was getting dark when we finished picking the olives, and Jose had also cut a few of the taller branches of the olive tree to add to the pile.

Sun setting

And this is the view to the garden from the kitchen window.

View of garden and patio from my kitchen window

Quite happy with all the work done, it all looks neater now.
The next project is to re-cover the cushions from the patio sofas. I've already bought the fabric that was on sale, so I've just got to get to work on my sewing machine.

Have a lovely weekend 😉.
Linking to Saturday Critters, please check Eileen's blog for more birds and other critters.

                                         
                                               Wagtail eating crickets from Jose's hand (video I posted on Youtube)

                                            While Jose rustles some mulch, the wagtail looks for something to eat

Signs - Guide Dogs

Sign seen in bus-stop shelters during my visit to Sydney - the first one was taken at night, the second in day time.

For other signs from around the world please follow this link: http://signs2.blogspot.com

Monday Mural - Pray for us

Another mural from Lisbon's  "Hall of Fame", near the Amoreiras Shopping Centre (Av. Conselheiro Fernando de Sousa), which encompasses about 750 sq mt (8,072 sq ft) of walls and has been utilized for street art since the 1990's, with about 90 paintings in exhibition.

Painted by self taught Brazilian artist Vespa (Claudinei Oliveira) , it shows the sad faces of Amazonian Indian children with the words "Pray for us".

If you like murals or have a mural you'd like to post, this meme is for you. 

Just follow the Linky steps below.   Be sure to link back to this blog and visit

your fellow mural bloggers.  

Looking forward to your mural finds this week. Thanks, Sami. 

There was a problem with Linky last week, and most of you were unable to link your murals, hope it's been fixed now :)