In my life:
Things at work are ramping up after the relatively slower pace in December. We had our quarterly planning days this week to decide on the next few things we work on, and it looks like it’s going to be a busy first quarter.
There was a massive storm in Sydney this week. I’ve seen a few storms since we moved here but this was unlike anything I’ve seen before with howling winds, extreme rainfall and multiple lightning strikes. Quite scary when you are alone. I found out the next day that a lot of homes up north lost power (and there are many that still haven't got it back) and there were a few fires due to the lightning strikes as well, aside from the usual storm havoc.

Otherwise, it was a quiet week without Sathya around. It’s not like we spend a lot of time together when we’re both home (parallel play is more our thing) but I miss just having someone around when he’s travelling and I’m glad he’s back home now.
I’m slowly getting back on track with the morning walks, PT sessions and my usual low-carb diet. I'm adding in the C25k program now that I don't feel like I'm dying every time I'm in the gym. I've given it a go twice before but always felt very out of breath in the first few sessions and gave up, but the walk/gym sessions seem to have helped with that this time around. Hopefully, I'll complete the plan this time and the Runna app has been great to use for this so far.
I watch a lot of Asian dramas (mainly Korean, Chinese, Thai and some Japanese) and wanted to learn one of the languages as the subtitles often leave a lot to be desired. Thai seemed to have the most in common with Indian languages and also had a lot of online resources available so decided to pick that.
There are a lot of YouTube channels that I follow, and I especially enjoy watching those that use the ALG method, but I just didn't find myself with dedicated time to watch them recently. So, on days when I'm not doing the C25K runs, I've started listening to Thai lessons on Spotify. I've found I don't retain as much information as I do with the ALG method, but I figure spending some time with a different method is better than none at all.
On Saturday I wanted to go do something outside the house again. Since Sathya is not the biggest fan of musicals, I decided it would be a good time to go watch one while he was away. I booked tickets for the 2 pm show of Jesus Christ Superstar at Capitol Theatre.



Chinatown & Mother Chu's Gourmet Kitchen
I grabbed lunch at Mother Chu‘s - one of my favorite Chinatown restaurants, before the show where I had the glutinous rice roll, salted chicken and their homemade lemon tea. I had some time to kill so I just strolled in the area for a bit after. They seem to be gearing up for the Chinese New Year celebrations, so should make a note to go visit at that time.
I then walked to Capitol Theatre for the show. It's a gorgeous theatre with a very unique style that I haven't really seen before. Apparently, it has been through many incarnations, from a vegetable market to a hippodrome for the circus to the current version, which was built in the 1920s and renovated in the 90s. Adding a tour of the theatre to my to-do-in-Sydney list because that sounds absolutely fascinating.



Capitol Theatre - Heritage Foyer
I didn’t know anything about the show other than that it showed Judas’s perspective of the last few days of Jesus’s life. And all I knew about that time was that Jesus is betrayed by a kiss from Judas, Peter denies him thrice, he's crucified and says “Forgive them father for they know not what they do” as he dies, and he’s resurrected after three days.
In hindsight this probably wasn't the best show for me to watch. I DNF'd Passion of the Christ a long time ago due to its graphic violence and while this wasn’t as graphic as that, it was still fairly difficult to watch at the end.
It wasn't helped by the fact that it's entirely sung-through and has no spoken dialog, so for the entire first half, I and other showgoers around me were lost and didn't really know what was happening. I'm not sure if it was because of where I was seated or if the words were drowned out by the music, but it was almost unintelligible, with few exceptions for the quieter solo numbers.
But on the good side, the actors, especially those who played Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene, had excellent vocals, only beat by the actors from Wicked. The music, a mix of Rock, Gospel and one very campy number, was really well done. The stage design, dominated by an upside down cross, was okay, but I wasn't too impressed by the choreography. After I came back, I read a few reviews and here is one which best described my feelings on the show.


Sydney Observatory & view from Observatory Park
After the show, I did a bit of shopping and then decided to head to Observatory Hill. It has a gorgeous park with pretty nice city views, especially at sunset, but I was there mainly to visit Sydney Observatory and view the Southern Sky Astrophotography 2024 exhibit.



The Cosmic Bat Nebula by Jarrod Koh, Kaleidoscope - Sydney during Vivid by Ed Hurst, Archway Glow - Milkyway in Hobart by Luke Tscarke
Spent some time viewing that and the other exhibits (did you know there is a Cloud Appreciation Society, manifesto and all), and caught the city views from the park outside. It was very gloomy but there were still a lot of people there taking pictures of the Harbour bridge.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk begins from a nearby location, and I was sorely tempted to do it, but it looked like it might rain so I decided to head home and come back for the walk another time.

Today (Sunday) was fairly relaxed. Sathya came back early this morning, so we decided to grab brunch at one of our local cafes and then spent some time browsing the stacks at our local library before spending a quiet afternoon at home.
On my screens:

- ThamePo (Thai, Queer, Ongoing) - Continues to be excellent, I'll have to look up who wrote the script, because I'd love to watch anything else that was written by them.
- Love Scout (Korean, Ongoing): Watched a few episodes of this romcom and it seems okay so far but have to see if I will continue with it or not as the preview for episode 5 looked a bit meh.
On my bookshelf:
- Alliance Rising by CJ Cherryh & Jane S. Fancher - Couldn't find a copy of Downbelow Station, but found this at the library today. Have just started reading this, so will post my thoughts on it next week.
On my playlist:
I was hoping to find one good number from Jesus Christ Superstar that would stay on my mind all week, but sadly since most of the lyrics were unintelligible, I don't really have a favorite from the show. So, I'm linking this absolutely brilliant, Korean version of the intro song from Hamilton instead.
On my camera:
I adore street photography pictures taken by other photographers, but I mostly take pictures of buildings & landscapes. It's mainly because I'd hate it if someone took pics of me without my consent and posted them online, so I avoid taking identifiable photos of people and posting them online too.
This means that my photos that do have people in them generally look like this instead. Would this still be classified as street photography though? Let me know.

Thanks for tagging along!
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