Vivid-the festival of lights

(Still catching up on posts from before the week of sick)

On the Monday night of the long weekend we went into Sydney to see Vivid. See this is what I love about homeschooling, no stress about them having to be up early the next day they could just sleep in (they didn’t thought)

Vivid was a display of video and slide projections throughout the city. You followed a trail of blue glowing light houses to discover the story of governor Lachlan Macquarie’s life painted in technicolour on notable Sydney buildings.

The kids were thrilled out of their minds to be wondering around way past their bedtime thought the colour drenched streets.

There was a real sense of community as the crowds flowed from one installation to the next. Familiar faces catching up again after falling behind to gaze a little longer at something that caught their eye.

The blue lights were my favourite, they brought and eerie sense of wonder to the night.

The kids didn’t really grasp all the information about Governor Macquarie, they got that he was an old guy that got the buildings made and something to do with money and people being farmers (I quizzed them a bit to see if they were picking anything up) I’m not sure if we will look more closely into it now, we might but even if we don’t I’m sure seeds have been planted for future learning.

The conservatorium of music, Sydney’s to young a city to have castles so we built one to put all the music students in.

From there they could see that the Opera house had lights on and begged to walk there to see it. I had my reservations because it is quite a walk but they assured us they could do it.

Lilly didn’t quite make it, but she’s fairly light so I can’t complain.

It was spectacular to see the House all pretty in Pink

The kids were really interested when we spotted the source of the projection from across the harbour.

so we played around with the camera capturing our own light show. This one is of buildings dancing and the harbour bridge jumping.

We made ghosts my running in and out of slow shutter speed photos and this one is Lilly with no arms and legs (because she moved them to fast to be captured)

We then went to the Rocks and watched a harbour side spectacular production about a young Indian/Australian girl telling the tale of her Grandparents immigration to Australia. It ended in massive Bollywood style dance involving a tall ship and large paper dragons.

Finally we grabbed some food from the Fire Markets that had food tents from all over the world. As we have been studying Indigenous Australia we chose to eat Emu and Crocodile from the Australia tent. At the end of the markets girls dressed in traditional Indian costume danced to a hypnotic drum. When their performance finished they invited the onlookers to dance with them. To her Daddy and Mummy’s amazement Lani was asked and went happily into the midst of the swirling bodies.

She may not have swirled quite as much as everyone else but she loved it.