Yesterday I did that thing you’re not supposed to do if you live in Sydney and have no children under the age of seven. I went to the Royal Easter Show.

I’m not overly clear on why you’re not supposed to go to the Easter Show. It’s not cool, I guess. By the age of 26 you should have long since lost interest in pigs and goats and overpriced fairy floss. One day after Christmas break last year, I was sitting with a couple guys at the lunch table and they asked what I’d done for New Year’s up in Brisbane. After a brief stint at a house party, Katie and I had watched the fireworks over the city. My lunchmates were unimpressed.

“I’m a bit over fireworks,” said one.

“I was a bit over fireworks when I was twelve,” said the other.

It seems I skipped that stage of development.

Fireworks, in my opinion, like jelly beans and the Easter show, are primarily for kids. Kids of all ages! Because everyone, unless they’re exceptionally boring, likes bright colours and baby animals and sunny days sweeping the clouds away. Right?


I wondered how the Easter show would compare to the traditional American county fair. As it turns out, it wasn’t much different. There were games, rides, animal contests and lumberjack competitions. Cotton candy, toffee apples and snow-cones.

I saw cows…


…and pigs…


… and a hypnotist show, which was one of my favourite parts of the whole day. He made some old guy with camouflage pants and a hardcore Western Sydney accent conduct the 1812 Overture in front of a roaring crowd. One of my other favourite bits was the taste testing in the Woolworths Fresh Foods Dome. Who hands out bits of hot steak and sausage, hot pumpkin soup and seafood enchilada for free? Not to mention organic yogurt and cake. Woolies, you rock my world.

And then there was this:


It’s edible. More on that later.

After sunset, it was on to the bright lights, blaring music and surging crowds of the carnival.


Time for me to wander about with my camera and a mounting sense of horror about the abuses to which people will subject their inner ear. I mean, really.


Mine still hasn’t forgiven me for watching. Maybe I’m too grown up for fairs after all?


DUMBO CAKE!!!

Or maybe not.