Along with half of Canberra it seemed.  

But unlike Japanese festivals, which have similar sorts of numbers, this festival was hopeless under resourced.  Which meant queues for everything.  One bar, one okonomiyaki stand, one gyoza stand, one noodle stand and a generic Asian stand.  We've totally been spoilt by festivals in Japan where they have long rows of stands selling all sorts of amazing food - and no queues!

Crowds

Queues :(:(:(  Long ones too

Drumming

Flower arranging

Kendo

Our first lineup at the bar was actually relatively short.  Rotary were there serving, but needed some practise at this point.

The sweetie

So we went off to sit and watch some of the acts.

This is a student group from Nara University High School.  I missed most of their act though, because I was queueing so long for another drink.

This duo did western songs

The sweetie went off to get some dinner.  And while he was gone a group of people came and sat *right next to me*, taking up the space Stu was sitting.  #grunt

The udon noodles we had for dinner.  Apparently the queue was much longer for the chicken variety.  What's with that??  Glad we had this - the okonomiyaki that I saw people eating looked like a big pile of dough with no vegetables to speak of.

So then the sweetie went off to see if he could find his Japanese teacher.  And while he was gone this couple came up and setup their directors chairs *right in front of me* #epicgrunt

Had to lean uncomfortably in different directions to see anything, and stand up to take some photos.

When the sweetie got back I was grumpy as, so we went off for a walk.

I thought these kites by the lake looked pretty cool

And the candles sure were pretty

So slightly disillusioned, and still hungry (I wanted meat on a stick!), we stopped in at KFC for meat on a stick.

Thursday was Neil's birthday, and we got invited over to Chris B's.  Picked up some sausages and headed over.  Trampolined with Margaret which was fun.  Lots of food, lots of booze, a pretty good night :)

Friday, pub lunch at the Lighty.  I had quite a nice calamari salad.  Then shared a bottle of bubbly with Neil and Doc after work.

Saturday did some video dubbing to DVD.  Then out to vote and do some shopping.  Gave away some things on Freecycle.  Did some bits and pieces around the house and more dubbing.  Went over to Potty's for pizza and Jake's birthday party.  Lots of peoples there.

Sunday morning I spent an hour and a half in the back garden hacking a path to the back gate (I should have taken a "before and after" photo to show the difference!).  And gave away the Hills Hoist that we've been wanting to give away since we moved in four years ago.  Yayyyyyy!!  Cooked some okonamiyaki for lunch in an attempt to get through our veggie box.  Watched The Last Samurai with the sweetie.  Responded to a wanted on Freecycle from someone wanting computers for "homework" heh.  Hopefully he'll take the three working computers and any other bits and pieces that he might find useful.  So spent the evening sorting all the computer crap into piles to give away and piles to keep, and wiping hard drives.

The back yard is a disaster.  We have this very vigorous plantage at the side fence that is taking over.  Even if we chop it back, we'll have piles and piles of vegetation to get rid of.  Not entirely sure how to go about doing that.  Heck even with a green waste bin it'd be a challenge.  Might have to revisit the idea of a gardener...

I think it's a tad overpriced, but certainly very nice food.

For entrée, the sweetie had "Scallop and Pig" - scallops and pig's ear terrine ($16) (nicer than it sounds ;) )

And I had "Cauliflower" - cauliflower fritters ($12)

For mains, the sweetie had "Duck" ($25) - duck maryland with red curry sauce and cool crispy rice cakes.  That's the dish I had last time.

I had "Pork Ribs" ($25) which were super tender, although a lot of bone and not much meat in the dish

Again, they brought out some gelato while we thought about dessert

And we got some fried ice cream ($8.50)

Dinner conversation was .. hrmmmm.... somewhat embarrassing actually .. definitely politically incorrect... hrmmm :/

Work was pretty blah, but not quite as bad as yesterday.  At least a couple of things went right today..

Yep.

Two years ago today we had a relatively quiet day in Cornwall, doing washing, having lunch at a Rick Stein cafe, and going out to Land's End.

The other day we went and tried out Guzman Y Gomez.  I was amazed at how fast the service was.  There was a bit of a queue and a huge crowd there, but they churn through the orders at lightning speed.  Only had to wait a couple of minutes after ordering for my food.  They must be making a fortune there getting through so many customers!

I had a Pork Chipotle "mini" burrito ($6.50) which had slightly too many beans in it for my taste, but was otherwise pretty good.  And well constructed, maintaining structural integrity right to the very end!

Two years ago today we explored Bath, then visited Wells Cathedral before driving out to Cornwall.

There was a beef satay

Pork chop with spicy peppery salt

A lemon chicken

An iridescent sweet and sour fish

Shantung chicken

And several tofu dishes

And possibly one other dish I didn't get a photo of.

All super yummy - 2 yummy!! ;)

Doc says we totally need to do their suckling pig again sometime soon..

Saturday, after documenting daffodils and cherry blossoms, we headed out to Hardly Normal to check out the new version of our couch.  We decided we'd take it.  

The sweetie likes the new couch

Did our food shopping before heading home.

Our plans for having people over on Saturday night fell through, so we drank the beer and did the roast chicken anyway.  After seeing a Hollywood apocalypse video on Neatorama, I thought we should watch a disaster movie, so settled on Armageddon, given that it was also a Michael Clarke Duncan movie, who sadly died this week.

Today we had Damien over.  We (they) chatted for a while before they went downstairs for a war game. 

I finished this jigsaw in the meantime.  Someone had done some research and labelled it "La Compania de Jesus Church, Cusco, Peru" .. a google image search of that found some stuff that didn't look like it, but a reverse image search found this site, so looks like it's actually Iglesia de la Compañía, Quito, Equador

And so ends another weekend.

Oh right, Thursday night.

So after the little meltdown, I decided I needed to watch something fun, so we put on Shakespeare in Love.  Which has a great soundtrack, and had the desired effect.  Fiona eventually came home and had a geeky friend in tow, who was gained admittance with his approval of our doormat (there's no place like 127.0.0.1).  He'd never seen buckyballs, so of course had to be educated :)  The boys talked games, and us girls, well we painted our nails.  Glittery blue-green.  I still maintain they are more blue than green!

Friday. Bosses were out of the office, which meant doing fun stuff.  Like documentation :)  Went home a little early.  The sweetie and I watched The Fellowship of the Ring.  And then my throat started getting sore.  *sigh*

Saturday morning up at sparrow-fart to drop Fiona off at the bus station.  Back home to attempt to sleep, but my feet were too cold and wouldn't warm up.  And did I mention the sore throat? :(

Got up late, then back to Jolimont, this time to pick up Stu's friend Gene.  We went to Cafe Essen for lunch, before dropping him off to watch the Swans game.  

Eggs benedict at Cafe Essen

We cleaned up the house then picked him up again after.  Had dinner at Kingsland in Dickson.  I'm always impressed at how their soy "meats" are close to real meats.

Sang choi bao, and a corn boat

Shantun "chicken"

Tofu hotpot

Mongolian "lamb"

We took Gene up Mount Ainslie

This morning we went and picked up a friend of Gene's and went to the southside markets.  Lunch was at home before heading into town to wander around the lake, and out to Belco to Lake Ginninderra.  And not a single black swan in sight anywhere!

Someone swimming in Lake Burley Griffin

Fountain-bows.  Totally going to send one of these into the Riot-act!

Stu thought the cockatoos would be more interested in the food he was offering if he threw it at them.  They weren't.

Buckbeak has a little brother

Finally, Stu dropped Gene off late in the afternoon while I put on the dinner (a nice roast we picked up at the markets this morning with some yummy ball carrots) and washing.

So after having people in the house since last Wednesday it was kinda weird to go back to just being us two.  Trying to get back into routine now..

Coughing a bit from the cold I got, but seems it's just a cold, not a flu.  Also Thursday was just a false start, real start was today.  

Saturday was a very quiet day, didn't leave the house.

Watched Fantasia 2000 after a couple of beers, which brought back so many memories of watching it in Marrickville in 2000-2001 after cointreau and/or vodka and vanilla coke.  Except this time was the first time watching it on Blu-ray, which was just stunning.  Beautiful and clear and none of the pain of VHS!

Sunday was also pretty quiet.  

Went for a walk to the bakery for pies for lunch.

Watched Kundun in the afternoon.  I missed out on seeing this in 1998 at the cinema because friends had gotten special screening tickets, but the only ticket I could get for the night would have been sitting by myself, so didn't end up seeing it.  Vic's comment at the time when I asked him how it was, was "Mao zedung was a f!@#%it".  Stu and I were a little emotional after watching it.

Then we went off to do our food shopping.  5pm on a Sunday you'd think the place would be deserted right?  Well the carpark was certainly more empty than usual, but Coles was *packed* :(  Ended up being quite stressful.

Came home and cooked dinner.  The sweetie must have liked it, he wanted thirds.

So all I've achieved this weekend is a bit of photo sorting and some photo dvd burning.  And lots of Laserwar played.