i only had a chance to get down to canberra's annual enlighten festival on a weeknight this year, thereby missing the weekend performances and 'extras' (such as fiers a cheval & the fire garden). however, the day i did manage to get there was the same day Sydney was throwing up some crazy weather (i think this photo says it all) so the skies here had a bit of action about them as well!

while i spent a big part of the night (unsuccessfully) trying to capture the lightning that was striking every 10 seconds or so - it didn't detract from how awesome the projections looked on canberra's most iconic buildings.

so we went and checked out the Royal Thai Embassy's 11th Annual Thai Food and Cultural Festival today (along with most of canberra, it seemed!). as always, it was a busy affair of massaman beef, pad thai, mussel omelettes, satay sticks, and mango sticky rice, not to mention the free flowing chang and singha beers - had i known they were selling for $4 i would've made more of a day of it!

the main stage area also kept everyone entertained in between courses, with constant rotations of cultural performances that ranged from traditional dancing (who knew you could see ladyboys in yarralumla...) to muay thai and stick fighting. if you haven't been to this great event - don't miss out next year! 

2012 was the first year i got to see the Vivid festival, and man, was it cool. an animated town projected onto customs house, a chandelier hologram in front of the harbour bridge, illuminated games of noughts and crosses near the MCA. and somehow, the organisers of Vivid put on an even better show in 2013.   

for one, the Opera House projection this year (done by The Spinifex Group) was a huge improvement - lively and engaging. the addition of Darling Harbour and Walsh Bay as event 'precincts' also provided a chance to explore something a bit different, and escape from the army of prams, strollers, double prams, and 'baby joggers' down in Circular Quay/The Rocks (i know... an army of (D)SLRs and tripods isn't much fun to contend with either). and the ferry service between the precincts, while we didn't use it, seemed to be a great idea and was evidently wildly popular with young families.