Into the Fringe

This morning I had breakfast at home before heading down to Greenacres in time for my passport interview. I had almost run out of pages in my current passport so I needed a new one. The girl at the post office was pretty crap and the first thing she did was cut up my current passport. She obviously didn't bother to read my application because I had requested a frequent traveller passport and she tried to charge me for a normal one. Once she had done the application online, she was about to send me on my way. I asked her where the passport would be sent to and she said the address I had on my application. Of course this was my Malaysian address. I tried to explain to her that I needed to pick up my passport here because otherwise how would I get into Malaysia to pick up my new passport now she had cancelled my old one. This sent her into mass confusion. Luckily she had enough initiative to ring the help line and they explained to her that I could simply pick it up from the passport office in the city when it was ready. I thanked her insincerely for all her help before walking out. What is the point of having to go to an "interview" if the person doesn't even read or check your application!

Anyway, back at home, Dad and I decided to go into town and check out some of the free visual arts exhibitions around the city. We drove into King William Road to the Hyde hotel. We had some lunch and then checked out the Uniquely SA photo exhibit that was displayed around the pub. There were some beautiful photos and all of them definitely portrayed SA.

From there we walked down to Victoria Square where we stopped to take photos of the two giant blow-up astronauts wearing tutus which were the Fringe mascots. We continued down to North Terrace and walked to the Torrens Parade Grounds where we visited the Helpman Academy Graduate exhibition. Basically a selection of the graduates from art schools around SA had their final graduation pieces on display.

Some of the work was amazing. I particularly liked a number of charcoal potrait drawings which were incredibly detailed and looked more like black and white photos than charcoal drawings. It was the finest charcoal work I had ever seen. I also like some of the sculptures including a hanging tear drop basket made out of steel. It looked like pipe segments had been squashed and then welded together into a shape similar to a 1970's bamboo swinging chair. One ceramic piece also stood out. The work consisted of three busts of carnevale women wearing elaborate headresses. Fine porcelain ceramic was the media and it was incredibly detailed work.

From the parade grounds we walked along the Torren's river past some of the other Fringe venues until we got to the Botanic Gardens. We went in search of another exhibit which we couldn't find so we wandered through the gardens and saw two weddings taking place. It was a beautiful day and would have been lovely for their big days.

Back up to East Terrace and we walked over to the Amacocco tent. There was an hour and a half wait to get in so dad and I skipped that and continued along Rundle Street looking in some of the boutiques. We stopped at CIBO for a coffee and also to look at their photo exhibit showing behind the scenes looks at last years Fringe.

We were pretty exhausted from all the walking by now so we walked through the mall and up to the tram to catch it back to where our car was parked. We drove home and I had a rest before having to get ready to go out again.

Again, I drove over to Stan and Kate's and we headed in with Luke to go and see a show called Circus, Trick Tease. We tried to find somewhere to eat and ended up at the Belgium Beer Cafe which was packed and the service was slow but eventually our food came and we wolfed it down before almost sprinting to the the Garden of UnEarthly Delights in time to catch the show. We pushed through to the front of the line much to the displeasure of the security but we did manage to find the venue and get a seat seconds before the show started.

Basically it was three performers who did mainly gymnastic type routines of balancing on each other and also using people from the audience. I was impressed when the "strong man" lifted four grown women who were sitting on swings suspended by one bar. That must have been over 250kg he lifted on his shoulders.

All three performers were amazingly strong. The other guy managed to balance on his head on an inverted wine bottle that was on top of blocks stacked about 2m high. And the girl, besides being very funny, managed to climb on top of both of the guys who were standing on each other's heads so she ended up being about 6m in the air standing on this guys head! It was quite amazing.

The show went for about an hour and although some parts were a bit raunchy (I felt a little uncomfortable for Luke) it was amazing. Afterwards we drove up the Parade and had a coffee at Manto's before I headed home. It had been a big day of Fringe activities.