16th January 2010
The weekend’s here which means we get some time to spend with Anna, Nathan and Sofia. This morning we headed into Brisbane on the bus to explore the Modern Art Gallery on Southbank. An excellent gallery in a wonderfully designed, airy, modern building incorporating plenty of windows looking out over the Brisbane river and the gardens along Southbank. This is the largest gallery of modern and contemporary art in Australia and currently showing the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
There were some truly astounding exhibits from artists all over the Asia Pacific region, mirrored walls, amalgamated guitars, ghostly trees using all sorts of media. One of the great things about it though was it not only had stuff for children to do such as sticking stickers on buddhist statues, but also had a children’s explanation as to what the art was trying to symbolise on each of the peices. This is what I resorted to reading most of the time as it was a simple explanation for some quite complex ideas! A really fabulous place to wander around.
All that art had started to make little Sofia (and some of the rest of us) a little tired, so we headed back to the apartment to prepare for tonight’s barbeque.
Last time I was in Australia, I lived for some of the time with Anna and Nathan in a road called Waterworks Road. I also met quite a few of their friends and spent time at parties and barbeques, in fact they made me feel right at home for which I am eternally grateful (although I probably didn’t appreciate it at the time!). Two of the people I used to hang out with were Justin and Kate who were coming along tonight and who I hadn’t seen in 10 years.
What a great evening! Although, obviously things have changed in all our lives, it wasn’t long before the years had melted away and we were chatting (and getting quite boisterous) like old times. A good deal of alcohol was consumed as we caught up on what Kate and Justin had been up to since our times in Waterworks Road. A thoroughly enjoyable evening and I do hope we get the chance to catch up again before we head onto Asia.