birthday adventures

Hey, guess what... today's my birfday... oh wait, did I mention that already? *grin*

And it's been one humdinger of a day... a loooooooong day too...

For whatever reason, Ma was running late this morning (I think she overslept) so while I was up and organised fairly early, I didn't need to have been quite so organised quite so early...

You know something, grocery shopping on your birthday is just like grocery shopping the other 51 weeks a year that don't contain your birthday. Except I had a moment marvelling at the absolute and total wrongness that is the Freddo Ice Cream Party Cake... it's just wrong, what with the bright green, pink and yellow icecream layers... wrong I tells ya!

But other than that it was a pretty normal Supermarket Safari... and I avoided the urge to get myself any little "birthday treats" (mostly anyway... I just didn't get anything specifically because it was my birthday... oh, wait, there were those profiteroles... bugger).

Then it was back here for the Ritual Unpacking, which today had an added bonus in that after I was done unpacking the groceries I got to "unpack" my birthday presents...

Okay, technically two of the DVDs were bought later in the day (Golden Girls, Season 4 and High School Musical 2... what can I say, I'm SOOOO gay... also against all odds I quite liked the first HSM).

HSM2 is actually a "Christmas present" since I bought it with Christmas money I got at Second Christmas, but it was bought on my birthday, so it counts as a birthday present.

Obviously we went a little excessive with the Doctor Who episodes... what can I say, it's been a gradual collection since Christmas, and they've been half price if you know where to look, so now I have the first three seasons (woohoo). Also, David Tennant (*drool*) and Billie Piper (*sqeeeee* see also the bottom of the pile, Secret Diary of a Call Girl)...what's not to love!

The thing in the yellow box isn't some sort of odd lightbulb or sexual torture device, it's actually an Ikea vase/candle holder that has a glass spiral up the middle of it, and you can put water in it so that the candle floats at the top... very nifty. And oddly, it's something I first saw at the house of a random Internet bootycall...

But moving right along...

Since it was my birthday and all, we decided to go off to the Art Gallery to see their new exhibition of Japanese art from Australian collections, The Golden Journey.

Stealing from the blurb on the website...

The Golden Journey is a stunning display of almost 300 diverse objects revealing the astonishingly rich heritage of Japanese art held in Australia's major public and private collections. The exhibition, the first comprehensive survey of its kind in Australia, tells the story of Japanese art from prehistoric times until Japan opened its doors to the West at the commencement of the Meiji era (1868-1912).

In a word... WOW!

If you're in Adelaide and have any kind of love for or appreciation of the Japanese/Asian aesthetic, go and see this exhibition (and you have a while, it's on until 31 May)!

Because there are so many pieces, it's kind of hard to pin down my specific favourites, but amongst them were a beautiful female Shinto figure in wood, several of the decorated metal sections and guards from katana and wakizashi swords, the very famous "Mount Fuji Seen Below a Wave at Kanagawa" image by Katsushika Hokusai (which I've loved for ages) as well as several others pieces that I can't remember the name of.

Interestingly (but in no way surprisingly) I also reconfirmed that I really, really love "vintage Japanese porn"... okay it's really "erotic art", but there were three pieces in a very high and black case (and the only black case of it's type in the whole exhibit... to keep the little kiddies from seeing something they shouldn't)... including two long thin scrolls that were just gorgeous.

We arrived just before the guided tour and started off wandering around with the guide, but while she was semi interesting, I wasn't really feeling the "tour vibe", so we wandered off from the group (although since neither Ma and I nor the tour group were going at any speed we pretty much kept pace with the group and could eavesdrop on what she was saying) and did our own thing.

All in all I think we were in the exhibition for about an hour and a half... which is pretty good.

After we finished poking around in the little gift shop next to the exhibition, we headed off for some random wandering around the city. First off we stopped off at Boost Juice to get my free Birthday Boost (woohoo, free things on my birthday, gotta love that), then poked around bookstores and DVD stores as usual (and bought the aforementioned Golden Girls and HSM2 DVDs at JB HiFi... it's weird that I never used to like JB, but now I can't get enough of them).

While we were wandering up and down the Mall, we came across this man and woman carrying signs and looking extremely sour faced...

Who knew that in addition to all the other things that happen on my birthday, it's also International No Smiling Day...

Actually they were pretty obviously performers connected with the Fringe (at least I HOPE they were)... but they were hilarious, particularly the woman... and every time they stopped they drew a crowd. There was also one woman who stopped and said something to them, but I wasn't close enough to hear what it was... I do wonder whether or not she got the joke though...

Since we were already down at that end of the Mall, I took Ma down to Ikeguchi (one of the places I went looking for the Bento box before Christmas)... which turned out to be slightly dangerous... it's not a big store, but damn she made the proverbial meal of it.

And because we'd done all these Japanese related things Ma mentioned that she wanted to partially replicate the fabric wrapping that I did for her at Christmas for La Cousina's wedding present, so we set out to find some fabric and ribbon and iron on interfacing (which would have been my original plan if I'd had enough patience to do that myself). It took a fair bit of faffing about (much like the original plan of wrapping Ma's present), but in the end we got everything and Ma was pleased with the results... now all she has to do is put it all together.

It was getting close to 4pm by this stage, and while we did a quick tour through one of the food halls, there wasn't a lot of choice for foodage, so we called it a day and came back to my place, figuring we'd go and visit one of the many eateries near me.

In the end we settled on Kwik Stix (to complete that Japanese/Asian theme for the day), and took a chance on a couple of the items on the specials board... Prawn and vegetable tempura (which was a fairly safe choice actually) and Green Tea Noodle Stir Fry with Crispy Duck (yep, that was the big question mark). Turns out that I can officially check duck from the list of things that I've never eaten, and I never need to bother having it again. It wasn't bad, in fact it was a little bit like turkey, but it wasn't anything to write home about really. The green tea noodles however were kinda cool (as was the spicy sauce everything was dressed with).

So that was my birthday... one very long, very cool, very Japanese inspired day...

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