more like Hot Day Out!

Well I’m back in Brisbane after driving 12 hours down the East Australian coastline to a big city known as

SYDNEY!

why would I endure such a painful drive… for a lil music festival called Big Day Out! and a lil band known as MUSE!

The Gold Coast event tickets basically sold out within 15 minutes of going up for sale so was lucky enough to snag some of the tickets for Sydney’s second show.

But the whole experience was pretty awesome.  Drove down with Mark, Kenneth and Jimmy and we had some pretty good male bonding moments.

Some of the highlights.  Well let me take on you a photographic adventure!

a lil town called Urunga!

Man those random little towns you stop off along the way are some of the best moments of a roadtrip.  My last roadtrip to Melbourne, we stopped off in a lil town called Taree for lunch which Nick, Trung, Josh Lee and myself RAVE about (stop by Raw Sugar Cafe there).  This time it was a little town called Urunga.  The food wasn’t that great but this small lil town had an AMAZING bay.  Crystal Clear water litterally!  that was perfect temperature and a nice breeze…

our first victim on the road

this was our first victim of bug splatter.  a HUGE GIGANTIC march fly.  its guts splattered all the way up our windscreen haha

PASTA!

We arrive in Sydney around 8PM on friday night, so our first order of business was to find some FOOOD!  We stayed at Mark’s Aunties place in North Parramatta and the location is tops, 10 minute walk is Church street which is basically equivalent to Melbournes Lygon Street or sorta like West End in Brisbane.  We had entertainment vouchers so we scoped out the restuarants and decided on this particular Italian Restuarant called Stephans.

Why this photo out of all the food? Because I wasn’t expecting the Pasta to a) be this big of a serving and b) taste SOO AWESOME!  The pizza also rocked my world!

Swallowed WHOLE!

this was the entrance to BDO a giant blow up boy who eats people.  after i saw this i knew BDO was gonna be something different and what made it even funnier was when you walk in you are burping and munching sounds… when you walk out the back you hear pooing and fasting sounds… lol!

the sea of people

in the "D" waiting for Muse

LASERS!!!!!

all lights on me!

so the whole purpose for going to BDO was basically to see Muse.  We arrived at BDO around 11am and Muse were scheduled to play at 9pm.  So we saw Bluejuice, Kisschassy, Lily Allen, Powderfinger, Hilltop Hoods just to name some.  Big Day Out turned out to be about 40 degrees midday.  It was NUTS hot… my water bottle felt like half boiled water…  and then in the arvo it went major overcast and rained and the temp dropped to 20degrees.

The moshpit was called the “D” and they only allowed a limited number of people in so we secured ourselves a spot about 3 hours before Muse came one and had to endure through Mars Volta which i thought wasn’t to bad, but when you play nonstop for 1 hour straight… it got a wee bit annoying.

But then MUSE was finally set to come on and man it was worth it! it was definetly Worth it!  I gained a new found respect for the band’s musical ability especially the lead singer who plays all the electric lead lines and sings all the songs as well.

The weirdest moment though was seeing people jump and lift their hands in songs during the show.  I felt a huge sense of awkwardness because to me jumping and lifting my hands is reserved for my God.  I did jump and lift my hands for fun, but I said to God, “if people can worship a band so zealously, then i can worship you even more!”

MR JT aka Jonathan Tan

the Wangsta! aka Jonathan Wang!

Was super excited to see JT since i didnt get to see him off in Brisbane.  Glad to see him faithfully attending Hillsong.  We also got to hang out with the Wangsta in his hometown haha.  Had viet that was really good.

lost my breath for a moment

litterally… i did.  We visited Hillsong’s Hills Campus, the campus where all the Hillsong Celebrities are (lol) and it was REALLY hard to find a seat because all the seats we’re reserved by books, scarfs, bibles and this was about 30 minutes before the start of service.  So we got ushered into the wing front row and while minding my own business some beautiful chick catches my eye… and my heart skipped a beat… Brooke Fraser was standing in front of me… Mark told me to go talk to her but I couldnt even talk properly to Mark after seeing her… LOL… then Joel Houston was on the stage talking and then saw on the PA desk worship cheat sheet that Jad Gilles was tonights Worship Leader.  and to top it off… John Bevere was the guest preacher!

It was like a dream come true!  The service was REALLY energetic and i felt the presence of God for sure!  Blessed by the one visit… although no one approached us to say hello, i think coz we came in as a group.  The only downside… a group of guys that sat behind us who were being idiots throughout P&W…and they were regular church goers… sigh…

forgotten beauty

I have been experimenting with B&W photography for a lil while now and have been amazed at the contrast in patterns and the detail that can emerge from our surroundings.  This lamp post grossed me out, but as soon as I flicked my camera to B&W mode this spiderwebbed covered lamppost became somewhat of a forgotten beauty.

Anyway that is a summary of my trip down to Sydney… there is a video on my FB account as well… you have to see Mark and Kenneths Blossoming romance haha..