The Royal Sydney Easter Show

Today, Michael and I went to check out the Royal Sydney Easter Show. It's basically a lot like the Montgomery County Fair, only even bigger. It goes for about a week at the Sydney Olympic Park. Tickets include the cost of public transportation, which I think is a good way to encourage people to take it. They also had express trains running to and from the Olympic Park, stopping only at three major stations, which worked very well with most people had room to to sit. It never felt claustrophobic like the DC metro when it's super crowded during a big event. 

Here is Michael with some crazy eyes right when we arrived. At 5pm they sell discount tickets so we walked in with a big horde of cheapskates like us.

These alpacas were being taken from point A to point B, and we intercepted them for petting. I just now noticed that, because of the angle, it looks like I have a tiny deformed left arm in this picture, and now that's all I can see when I look at it.

Probably the most popular building of animals was the Nursery; who doesn't love all the babies? Here are some baby chicks hatching...

and some ducklings following each other around like lemmings.

The main difference I noticed in the plant/produce competitions was that in addition to the normal stuff we are used to seeing like giant pumpkins, there was a bonsai competition (pretty cool; wish I had taken a picture), and there was also a carnivorous plans competition. Here is the venus fly trap 1st place winner:

Another first for us at the show was our first rodeo. New South Wales lost to Queensland, unfortunately. I did not find it particularly enjoyable to watch people mildly torment animals, but now I can say I've been to a rodeo. Who would have thought the first one I would go to would not be in the US?

There is also a large carnival with rides and games and the typical bright lights and junk food. There was a big top with circus acts, as well as some kind of woodchopping competition show, but neither of those were active while we were there. The popular souvenir to buy is a "showbag". There is a large building devoted just to the sale of showbags. Basically they are just large themed loot bags that cost $20-25 with random stuff in them. For example, you could get a Cadbury one with a lot of chocolate, a Hello Kitty backpack with a bunch of little Hello Kitty stuffed animals and pencils, a sports one with your favorite team's paraphernalia, or one from a popular magazine that has three magazines and sample products. There were some people there I saw walking away with as many as 10 bags, as though this is the main reason they come, which seems very strange to me. There's nothing particularly special or limited edition about any of the stuff you can get, and it's not that great of a deal. 

So, we survived our first Royal Sydney Easter Show. The End.