More Napier road trip pics

We took a lot of photos on our road trip to Napier last weekend. Too many to put in the blog post I wrote about it. Turns out I still have more I want to share, so, for your viewing pleasure, here are some more of ‘em….

The statue of Pania of the Reef. This statue is rather famous within New Zealand, and there’s a lovely (and sad) legend associated with it and how Pania turned into the reef in the ocean near Napier.

Palm trees on one side of Marine Parade, Norfolk pines on the other. Steve liked the palms best. I’m a Norfolk pine type of girl, myself. But I particularly liked the juxtaposition of the two.

Sadly it’s a bit hard to see in the photo, but this was one of a few buildings that incorporated Maori designs in their Art Deco stylings. The darker coloured strips under the ‘Napier Antiques’ sign were Maori motifs. Gotta love local twists on international styles!

Art Deco cathedral.

Near the soundshell and overlooking the sea on one side and down the main shopping street on the other. Lovely bright green benches to relax on.

Looking through the pillars near the above benches, out over the square towards town and the little clock tower.

‘The Last Wave’ statue. The lovely lady in this statue lived in Napier around the time of the earthquake and won a beauty contest (or something like that?) held not long after the earthquake to bring a bit of cheer back into the city. And here she stands, in all her lovely 1930′s glory.

Cute little mosaics like these were all through the centre of town, each one of them different.

A pretty fountain we rested by for a while, near the cathedral.

On our way home from Napier, we drove up Te Mata Peak near Havelock North. Amazing views from the top! (And a rather scary drive back down – very narrow one-lane two-way road along the side of a very steep hill and lots of blind corners. Eek!)

We passed a lot of cute Art Deco houses and small buildings on the way home to Wellington. They were always there, but after spending a day walking around Napier looking intently at all the Art Deco loveliness there, I was noticing all the other Art Deco buildings a lot more than usual! Couldn’t resist getting a photo of this little beauty – it stood out with it’s colour scheme, a bit different from the far more common white-with-green-trim houses.

And I’ll stop with the photos there, that’s probably about enough from that one trip, don’t you think?

Napier weekend

Last weekend, Steve and I took a day off work and headed up to Napier for a long weekend.

We drove there from Wellington, and went up the Kapiti Coast, which meant we got to drive through the stunning Manawatu Gorge. We didn’t get a chance to stop for photos (there was a big truck behind us and Steve was worried about getting stuck behind it the whole way through the gorge), so I had to content myself with photos from out of the car window, like the one above. I love the Manawatu Gorge – so pretty and green and rugged, it always makes me smile. And the wind turbines on the top just add to all of that, somehow.

We passed some army vehicles on the way as well, which was a bit random. I always forget that the army base is nearby….

Napier is gorgeous. I’d never really been there before, and I must say, I loved it there! Above is a view looking out over the CBD from Bluff Hill, right in the middle of Napier.

Napier was hit by a large (magnitude 7.8) earthquake in 1931. Which broke the water mains, and started fires in the centre of the town. Because there was no water, they couldn’t put out the fires, and a lot of the town was destroyed, either by the earthquake or the subsequent fires. They rebuilt it as fast as they could, which was helped by it being during the depression and lots of builders needing work. And since it was the early 1930′s, the new buildings were Art Deco! Outside of Bath in England, Napier apparently has one of the most well-planned, cohesive central city areas.

It’s not a large city, so the buildings are generally quite small. Which adds to the vintage cuteness, I reckon. There’s all sorts of Art Deco styles – Spanish Mission, Striped Classical, and so on. I didn’t know all that much about Art Deco before we went there (aside from being able to recognise it) and after doing the self-guided Art Deco tour around the town, I can now recognise lots of the styles. Yay! Nothing quite like learning while you’re away on holiday, eh?

This was the entrance to a little park up the side of Bluff Hill. The earlier photo looking out over Napier was taken from the top of this park. The park was lovely – lots of little paths winding up the hill among old trees. Clearly it had been there for quite a long time – there were remnants of old brick paths fenced off and covered in moss.

After the earthquake, when they were rebuilding the city they did something that was very unusual for the time and buried all the power and phone lines underground. Apparently this wasn’t common until around the 1970′s. They also put the street lighting up differently – instead of having poles, they cantilevered the lights out from the sides of buildings. As a result of both of these things, there were no handy poles to put street signs up on, so they embedded them in the footpath. There are just three places in the central city where these original signs remain, although they’re recreating them on other street corners.

When they were rebuilding the city, cars were really starting to gain popularity, so they built the city with cars in mind. The roads are nice and wide, and a lot of the buildings have these shaved-off corners when they’re on street corners – this was designed to give drivers more visibility. The building above used to be owned by a former German – he designed the decorations to show New Zealand and Germany being united by the waves. I love how these touches are still on so many buildings around the town – it’s a place that keeps it’s history close to it’s heart.

We stopped for mid-afternoon tea and cake in this gorgeous little cafe. The cakes were so clearly handmade – they all had that slightly rough-around-the-edges look to them, with lopsided icing and all. There were lots of lovely art deco touches in the interior as well, but I felt a bit odd taking photos inside a cafe, so you’ll just have to imagine the edgings around the lights, the stepped doorway arches and the angular stained-glass window that was inside.

Steve switched to black-and-white on his camera for a while – imagine this fountain with a brilliant blue painted pool, and soft blue and yellow colours on the fountain itself. And then imagine it lighting up in brilliant orange and green at night, while the huge Norfolk Pine trees nearby have coloured lights strung in their branches. And the sound of the ocean right next to it. Magical.

And the last photo for this post – the National Tobacco Company warehouse. Apparently this is one of the most well-known buildings in New Zealand (which I wasn’t aware of beforehand, so I’m not too convinced by that claim. Or maybe I just don’t know enough well-known buildings). It’s stunning – lots of lovely plants, stained glass windows, and gorgeous colours. Definitely the prettiest warehouse I’ve ever seen!

Napier has an art deco weekend every February – I’m hoping to go along to it next year, to get dressed up vintage and promenade down Marine Parade listening to the jazz bands. Bliss!

Kittens and sewing, they don’t mix so well

A week ago, Steve and I adopted a new kitten from the SPCA. A gorgeous little three-month-old girl, with black and grey-brown tiger stripes, huge brown eyes and big pointy ears. We’ve called her Roxy. I’m thinking of her as our Art Deco cat. This is a concept that I have completely failed to explain to Steve.

Naturally, Roxy is adorable. She’s a kitten – is there any way kittens can’t be adorable? I mean, look at those eyes!

However, also like all cats I have ever come across, Roxy is not so good to have around while sewing. This evening, Steve was being all DIY-Man and fixing the door between the kitchen and the dining room, so Roxy got trapped in my room with me so as not to get in the way of power tools. Foolishly, I attempted to sew with her in my room. (Admittedly I had already attempted doing laptop stuff (kittens just can’t keep away from keyboards) and tidying stuff (everything you pick up becomes a toy to be chased) so I figured I may as well attempt the sewing stuff.) Turns out this didn’t work so well for the following reasons:

• Kittens like to sit on laps when you’re sitting down. They use their claws to get there. Then they get bored quickly, jump down, and 2 minutes later repeat the semi-painful getting-up-again process. My thighs are now covered in little pin pricks, despite putting a folded-up hoodie over my legs to protect them after a while.
• Kittens are curious. Anything and everything is interesting. Such as scissors, pins, pin cushions, and sewing machines. This results in having to take great care when doing anything, in case they suddenly decide to sniff a pin at exactly the wrong moment.
• Everything is a toy. If it moves, it needs to be chased and clawed at. Funnily enough, when you’re sewing fabric, that fabric moves. As does any thread hanging off the fabric. I’m very glad that the fabric I’m using for this week’s Sew Weekly challenge is pretty robust – anything even vaguely delicate would have been destroyed. (But then, if I was sewing with anything delicate, I wouldn’t have attempted to do so with a kitten in the room!)
• And lets not even get in to how much fun cats find paper patterns, especially when those paper patterns are pinned to fabric. I didn’t have a problem with this tonight though – I learnt many years ago that if working with paper patterns, lock and any all cats, regardless of their age, out of the room until the pattern has been put away again. Even older cats who are usually content to just sit and watch can go a little bit mad when there are patterns pinned to fabric. Hmmm.

Here’s what I had to contend with tonight. Luckily she’s so cute.

Off we go to Beijing!

Steve and I are about to go jump on a plane and go to Beijing for a holiday. Yay! So, no posts from me until we get back on Monday 25 April.

Sadly this also means I’m going to be a bit late with this next week’s Sew Weekly challenge – I know what I’m doing and I’ve got the fabric all cut out – it’s going to be awesome! (If it works, that is. The pattern is a ‘true’ vintage one – virtually no markings, very few instructions, and it doesn’t indicate ANYWHERE whether there is any seam allowance or not. Hmmm. I’m hoping it’s the usual 1.5 cm, or else I’m in trouble….)

So yes, stay tuned for next week for more updates!

Star trekkin’, across the universe…..

Went to see the new Star Trek movie last night with some friends from work. And, surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it. I really, truly enjoyed it! Enough to be tempted to go and see it again, even. (Which I won’t, coz I know I won’t get around to it, but it *is* rather tempting, I must say.)

I suspect a large part of this enjoyment may have come from the fact that I now have a bit of a crush on the Spock character in it. Go figure. I mean, a crush on Spock? Really?!? How on earth is *that* meant to happen??

Hmmmm.

Clearly, the combination of the logic, bottled-up emotion, dry humour, and pointy ears got to me.

Hah.

Maybe I should go see it again, after all……

Auckland = Rockband

After thinking about doing it for several months, Steve, Nik and I finally went up to Auckland last weekend to visit the lovely Melissa and Jeff (and their kids, of course. Can’t leave them out, can we now?).

Naturally enough, since they have the Rockband game, a lot of Rockband was played. Particularly by Melissa and I, who tend to alternate between vocals and drums so we both get to play the drums. (We did try a drum battle, but it got kinda boring kinda fast. Oh well.) I do likes that game. One day, I’ll buy me a house and it’ll have enough space to have the Rockband gear, and then I’ll get me a PS3 and Rockband (and max out my credit card in the process, considering how crazily expensive that stuff is) and it’ll be all good. Oh yeah.

(And in the meantime, I really should get my real, actual, proper drum kit and get over my fear of sounding dumb coz I haven’t played in ages, and actually just play the thing. Coz really, it’s rather silly not to. Indeed.)

Anyways, also had a girly weekend with Melissa while I was up in Auckland. She took me for my first ever pedicure. Very nice! My feet felt all lovely afterwards, and I’m not quite sure how they managed it, but they even made it look like I have real toe nails on my little toes, rather than tiny slivers of nothingness. Strangely impressive skills there.

Must go up to Auckland again, play some more Rockband….. (Or just buy my own copy. Heh.)

Single boys, single girls, and cocktails

A month or so back, JP (my flatmate) and I decided that since we both have quite a few friends who regularly complain about never meeting single guys/girls, we may as well get proactive and actually do something about it. The result: last night, we threw a singles party. (And yes, I’m still getting over the apparent stigma that is attached to having a singles party. While on one hand, I’m rather proud we did it and were all proactive and the like, on the other hand, it’s kinda embarrassing in a way, for reasons I am not entirely sure on….. Go figure.)

So yes. I was a bit nervous about putting the word out we were having a singles party. That whole aforementioned stigma and all that, y’see. Turns out there was no need for concern though – pretty much everyone invited was rather excited by the idea, and more than happy to come along! And bring their single friends as well. Result: the party went off with a bang!!

Not sure how many people turned up, but I’m guessing we had about 50 people through the house over the course of the night. The place was pumping for the first few hours, standing room only, groups of people talking away. (Slightly intimidating, I found. But purely because I always feel a certain hostess responsibility when I host a party, so was worried about people not mingling, etc. Stupid, but there you have it.) After a while, about half the people headed off elsewhere, and a core group of about 15-20 of us remained, which is when it turned into a rather good party, in my opinion. Lots of interesting people to talk to, but not so many you couldn’t move without worrying about accidentally elbowing someone in the nose or spilling someone’s drink.

The lovely Hilaire was helping us out for the evening, playing retro-trailer-trash-hostess in her glam vintage silver cocktail dress and heels, hair all up bouffant, eyelashes long and sparkly. That girl is an absolute legend!! Mixing drinks, taking them around on a little silver tray, putting ‘spank me’ post-it notes on people. What a star! She even arrived at the start of the night carting boxes of cocktail umbrellas and bright plastic animals to decorate glasses with.

But anyway, to cut a long story short (and yes, I’m inclined to ramble at the moment since I didn’t get to bed until after 4am last night so am rather tired and zoned-out), the party went off well. Would do it again. Probably in a month or two, actually. Only next time, JP and I are thinking we’ll experiment and try a different format – maybe a pot-luck dinner, invite a matching number of guys and girls and get them each to bring along a single friend of the same gender and a plate. More intimate mingling, instead of having to compete with music and the like. Will see how that goes. (I likes playing around with social interaction methods, yes indeed.)

But for now, I’m off to get some sleep…….

Relay for Life

Just spent the weekend hanging out down at Frank Kitts park, doing the Relay for Life. I was part of a work team we put in – the Power Walking Piggies. Yay team!
There were nine of us in the team who walked/ran part of the relay. Of those nine, five of us stayed for the full 20+ hours. And of those five, one of them was me! (Crazy? Yes.) As a result, am now exhausted, bleary-eyed, and sore-muscled. But happy, yes indeed.
The Relay for Life is an annual event run in various parts of NZ, raising money for the Cancer Society. The Wellington leg of it began at around 3:45pm on Saturday the 28th March, and ended at midday on Sunday the 29th of March – just over 20 hours, all up. During the Relay, at least one member of each team needs to be on the track at all times, doing laps around Frank Kitts park down by the waterfront.
With our team consisting of only 9 people (4 of whom only hung out and walked/ran for 1-3 hours each), the 5 of us who stayed for the duration of the relay ended up doing a fair amount of time on the track. (Not sure how long I did, but my guess is 6-7 hours of going round-’n'-round the park.) Naturally, this resulted in us getting very little sleep overnight, as we kept switching over, taking turns on the track!
Me being me, I couldn’t content myself with just ambling along. Nope, I had to alternate between walking as fast as I could, and running. Started off doing walk-2/3rds, run-1/3rd, and on my second stretch of being on track moved this up to walk-half, run-half, which lasted more-or-less for the rest of the Relay. Worked quite well – kept me warm in the middle of the night (must say, there is a certain beauty in running along Wellington’s waterfront at half past 3 in the morning under a starry sky, with the harbour stretched out peaceful and still in front of you and music playing in your headphones), got me a pretty decent amount of exercise (most running I’ve done in, well, I have no idea how long!), and satisfied my competitive streak by letting me pass the slower-moving people.
It was a fun weekend, actually. I was a bit nervous initially, not sure how well I’d cope staying up that long, but all was well! The weather was absolutely stunning – while cold at night, Sunday dawned bright and sunny, and I got to sprawl on the grass with a trashy magazine in between stretches on the track. Got to watch the sky change colour from charcoal to blue, while waiting in line for a cooked breakfast outside. Watched the early birds flying past. Started running with sunglasses on as the sun broke past the horizon and started bouncing off the water in all of it’s last-gasp-of-summer brilliance. (And yet, managed not to get sunburnt. Yay!)
We did pretty well in terms of raising money for the Cancer Society as well – my team has raised nearly $3000 so far, with a bit more probably coming in this week. Of that, people I know have sponsored me a total of $290. (Thanks, lovely people! *hug*) Then of course there were the proceeds of the aforementioned bake sale, and various other fundraising activities we did at work, which contributed to our team’s total. Not a bad effort, I reckons.
(One other interesting side effect – all this running has made me remember how much I actually like running (the soothing rhythm of feet on ground, outside in the fresh air, solitary yet connected to the world around you, and all that). Am now considering training to do a half-marathon. (Considering. Not 100% committed yet. Although hopefully that will happen – will let the idea float around in my mind for a few days, see if it solidifies to a resolution. Yes yes.))
And, as for the Relay for Life? I am definitely signing up to do it next year!

Homegrown ’09

Went to Homegrown ’09 yesterday. Second year in a row (and the second year they’ve run it). And once again, a super-fantastic day.

For those that don’t know, Homegrown is a celebration of NZ music. 11 hours of sounds by excellent Kiwi musicians, down around the Wellington waterfront. This year, with four stages with continuous music in multiple genres. Everything from HLAH to Evermore, Kora, Concord Dawn, and Katchafire, amongst others.

Went along at the start of the day (coz last year I went late afternoon and regretted missing out on so many hours of fine Kiwi music beforehand) and caught a bit of Katchafire’s act, before the noise and the loud teenagers got to me. Then wandered around for a while, to see what else was there. Lots of great artwork around Frank Kitts park – giant picture frames hanging from a tree; a huge rope of French knitting lying in the grass; Oamaru stone sculptures; shapes and images made of orange netting hanging from another tree. Lots of fun things to do and see! (Although sadly I never quite got around to playing Rockband at one of the tents that were set up….)

Went along to the Indie stage, and caught the first part of Tiger Tones set. They had a few technical issues,which was a bit of a shame as their sound seemed kinda promising although a bit uncertain.  Gave up on them after a couple of tracks, and wandered over to the Rock stage and saw the last track of Streetwise Scarlett, which sounded rather awesome.  May have to keep an eye out for them in the future and see what a full set by them would be like.

Then rambled off to the Electronica stage, and caught the last half of Clarke Gayford’s set.  Not bad – fun to dance to.  Yay!  (And extra-yay for the yummy packet of Smokefree peppermints they were giving out!)

Next up, headed back to the Indie stage to try and catch the last half of Bang Bang Eche, only to find that that stage was now running rather early so we got there just as they finished.  Drat.  Back to the Rock stage, for the last couple of tracks of Goodnight Nurse.  Then back to the Indie Stage for Fur Patrol, who were lovely as usual.  (Julia Deans nearly had a Janet Jackson moment, but managed to catch her top just in time.  Which probably disappointed many of the boys in the audience.  Oh well.)

Left there around 5, to go and get an autograph by Supergroove (or one member of the band, anyway) as my first-ever experience of standing around at a signing tent.  Felt like such a teenager, haha.  After that, hung out at the outdoor ampitheatre, eating pakora’s from the Hare Krishna food stand and watching the break dancing contests.  I so wanna be able to breakdance!  Somehow I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen, though.  *sigh*  Oh well.  *shrug*

Post-dinner, headed back to the Rock stage and saw the full set (first full set of the day that I made it to!) of Evermore.  Fun – sang along to Dreams and that “I can see the light” song that I don’t know the title of.  (Thanks Singstar, for helping me learn lyrics!)  Completely surrounded by (mostly male) teens singing along and jumping up and down, and in the cases of a few, having air-guitar rock-outs with inflatable guitars one of the advertisers was handing out all over the place.  Funny.

Next up, off to the Indie stage for Dimmer.  Nice, atmospheric set by Shane Carter and crew.  Nearly got a bit boring at times, but kinda trance-like, and generally pretty.  Especially the bit with the little stick of bells being turned slowly next to a microphone.  Pretty really is the only word I can use to describe it.

Stuck around the Indie stage after that for the next two acts – Weta and HLAH.  Both of which were super-awesome-fantastic!!!  Yay!!!  *bounce*

Was the first time I have seen Weta live, and I must admit to not knowing overly much of their music beforehand either, aside from the classic ‘Got The Ju’ track that I have on some compilation album somewhere.  They announced it was their last-ever set, though, so glad I hung around!  Was an excellent set as well.  Solid tracks, and full of energy.  They hauled a couple of extra people up on stage to help sing ‘Got the Ju’ as well – not too sure, but I think they may have been parents of a couple of the band members, or the like….?

After Weta, and while we were all waiting for HLAH, we were treated to an onstage burlesque strip tease by Eva Strangelove.  Not what I was expecting to see at Homegrown, but was fun times!  Lovely lass prancing around on stage in a purple feather boa and pink sparkley pasties.  Made for a novel and good between-acts filler. 

HLAH (aka Head Like A Hole) were even more fantastic than all the acts that had come before them, rolled into one.  Massive quantities of energy, bouncing around on stage, stupendous drumming, guitarist and bassist clashing instruments together, the crowd going wild, jumping up and down to their last track ‘Hootananny’, a brilliant cover of Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’ (which I’ve had going through my head ever since), and finishing with the guitarist launching himself backwards through the drum kit.  Bloody marvellous.  Truly.  Just wish it could have gone on for a couple of hours longer!

(Also wish I could have met the drummer, as he was rather hot.    Haha.)

Since the Indie stage was running well ahead of time (although that sadly didn’t affect the length of time HLAH played for, as far as I am aware) I then raced over to the Rock stage and got there just in time for the final Supergroove song of the day – the always-marvelous ‘Scorpio Girls’.  (Although was slightly disturbed to find that when I went to jump up-and-down, my feet were firmly stuck to the floor with all the spilt beer and bourbon.  Eew.)

After that, grinning like a loony due to the sheer musical goodness I had experienced over the last couple of hours, I headed outside.  Wandered semi-aimlessly, admired the clowns in black-and-white from afar, smiling at the prettiness of the huge white helium balloons they were each carrying, each of which had a white paper lantern floating underneath, all lit up and ghostly in the near-midnight sky.  Made for an absolutely gorgeous and serene sight.  Killing time while waiting to meet Steve, I wandered closer to the balloons and ended up briefly chatting with a rather deboniar clown with a walking stick, before wandering to the ‘Cadbury Moro’ stage where Shapeshifter were still playing and were Steve was.  So I managed to also catch the last 10 mins of Shapeshifter.  Yay for so many great bands all in one place! 

All-in-all, an absolutely marvelous day, and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

(And in the meantime, I need to hunt out a bit more of the HLAH back catalogue, as I now feel I don’t own enough of their music.  Yes indeed.)

Cuba Street Carnival 2009

Saturday (Feb 19th) was the 10th anniversary of the Cuba St Carnival.  Which, sadly, I didn’t get to see much of. 

However, the reason I didn’t get to see much of it was pretty good.  My capoeira crew decided to enter a float in the carnival this year.  A float of our very own, in fact, instead of doing what usually happens and just tagging along with the Batucada crew and their awesomely fantastic beats.

So, being a capoeira crew, we started off with the best intentions of getting all organised and sorted really early on.  Which, typically enough, didn’t quite happen.  (But we tried!)

Shaun came through well, with getting us a galleon on wheels for our float, symbolising the history of capoeira and it’s origins with the slaves who were bought over from Africa to Brazil.  He also organised a couple of conquistador costumes for two people on the ship to wear.

Outfits for the rest of us didn’t come along quite so nicely, though.  Starting off with big plans to wear sailor-inspired uniforms, a couple of weeks out from the carnival we realised we had nothing.  Nothing at all, I tells ya.  So, naturally, I volunteered to make stuff.  Coz really, I’m just crazy like that.  (Who needs free time, anyway?  Vastly over-rated.  Or so I hear.)

With little time to do anything, we bailed on the sailor outfits and decided to just go with uniform capoeira colours and styles instead.  So, off to Spotlight Shaun and I went, to buy up heaps of white, gold, and black fabric!  Decided that we would just make capoeira pants for everyone to wear – white, with gold and black stripes down the sides of the legs.  (White, due to tradional capoeira colours;  gold and black for Wellington, at Shaun’s request.)  To make things a little bit simplier for ourselves, Shaun found a website where we could order a whole bunch of white polo shirts (for the boys) and white fitted tees (for the girls) and get the capoeira Aotearoa logo put on them.

However, that still meant 23 pairs of trousers to be made, in only two weeks.

Luckily, various other people from the crew rose to the occasion, and we had several capoeira-trouser-making sessions at my place, with me direction the action and a variety of people (mostly boys, in fact) cutting, pinning, and sewing.  Oddly fun, actually.  Would do again.    Still took us a far-too-long time, but we got there in the end!  (With -5 minutes to spare, in fact.  A group of us spent all afternoon on Saturday sewing, and I finished off the last pair of pants 5 mins after we were meant to meet the rest of the crew at Thistle Hall to make our way to the parade starting place.  Funnily enough, they waited for us.  Admittedly, they wouldn’t have had any trousers to wear if they had left me behind.  Mwahahaha!)

The parade itself was fantastic.  Passed by in an absolute blur, with us all playing, singing, and actually towing (with ropes) our huge, heavy, but awesome-looking boat.  I think we earned extra street cred simply coz of the sheer people power used to get our float through the streets.  (Turning corners, in particular, was an interesting experience.  Turns out galleons on land don’t steer so well…..)

Got to see a few of the floats beforehand, while we were waiting at the parade start place.  Lots of girls wearing nothing but sequins, feathers, tassles, and fake fruit.  Lots of boys with giant pineapples on their heads.  People with big floating jellyfish held like umbrellas above them.  The Batucada crew with their always-awesome sounds.  Pole dancers, pole dancing on a float.  Two people (astronaught and alien) in a spaceship dangling above the street.  Old guy wearing a skin-tight skeleton costume, on rollar skates.  Someone dressed like a voodoo doll, complete with sewn-up mouth and giant pins appearing to stab right through their body.  Some brilliant imaginations out there!  Love it.  Heaps.  Oh yeah.

Woke up the next morning with two huge blisters, one on each big toe, from trying to jinga while moving forwards as fast as possible.  And somewhat sore hands from towing the boat.  Small price to pay for awesome times.