I splurged on a violin

I dropped almost $2000 just so I could take a photo like this!

Ok that was an obvious joke lol. I've been thinking about it for a while; ever since learning it for only a couple of years in high school, but I never felt like I'd be able to commit to learning it again. I even rented one for a while in Adelaide and it sounded so bad that I didn't use it again the whole time!

But recently I've become interested again, and I wonder if I can actually relearn it and have fun. Only time will tell!

The process of getting one was hilarious though, I had spotted a luthier that I could probably visit, as well as a couple of music stores that seemed to stock some. My errands led to one of the music shops, where I asked about their student violins. They only had these $350, fluoro orangey toy-looking instruments, and the shop assistant went to explain that it wasn't even made of proper wood and half of it was plastic! Oh my goodness! It also sounded terrible (even accounting for the fact that it was horribly out of tune) when plucked.

I then went to visit the luthier, but even though google said they're open for shopping, the actual signage was by appointment only, and they looked closed. I figured I should call them and then book in a time later on, and tried to catch the bus back home. But, for some inexplicable reason, I changed my mind, and crossed the road for the bus in the opposite direction? Which turned out to be a very good thing, because on the way I saw another music shop and thought, hey, let's give that a go!

This was a proper music shop and I found an entire section dedicated to violins, and they looked like the real deal, so I asked for assistance. I said that I wanted a student violin that was also kind of nice. Apparently this is a thing, and people do ask for it! I got shown some Chinese violins and some German violins, and wow, ok - I didn't expect the starting price tag to be almost $2000! What! Student violins are this expensive??? I mean I know I said nice ones but he was showing me nice ones. Considering I already have a Chinese violin back in Sydney, I really wanted a German one this time. But the shop assistant was now starting to say nice violins are between $3000 and $5000....

"So what's your budget?" he asked. What was I going to reply with? In my head I was prepared to spend $700ish but I realised I'd grossly underestimated how much a good beginner violin costs these days. I really wanted one though, so I said $1000, what will that get me?

He went back to one of the Chinese violins which actually did and sound pretty good, but I internally had a panic about the single fine tuner on the E string. I've never tuned without fine tuners on all the string and that was actually a daunting prospect. Even then, it was $1300. So I asked about the German one next to it.

"This Hofner is also really nice, this one is $1995."

My logic? It's only a few hundred dollars difference compared to the Chinese one AND it was under $2000 and it looked really really really good, and the assistant had explained the quality of workmanship and how it was more labour intensive, which I really liked the sound of.

"So um, since there are Black Friday sales everywhere, are there any discounts on instruments?"

Haha ok, so I asked that and the assistant did consider it! He went off to ask his manager after I explained I'd be interested in buying it if I could get a small discount. What was I doing, this was starting to feel like an impulse buy because I was way beyond my budget now!

He came back with $1795, and an extra $80 for a shoulder rest. I'll take it!

And that was that. Somehow I'd committed to spending more than twice my original estimate for a really really nice violin, that I can't even play hahaha! I'm so silly sometimes.

At the till the assistant asked me what got me back into violin (since I had explained I learned it in school but then stopped), and I mentioned a Youtube duo called Twoset violin, and one of the other assistants perked up and said that he knew of them too! They even talked about a recent concert they did, but I said I wasn't aware of them at the time, but I'd signed myself up to their mailing list for future events!

Another hilarious moment was when they said that this particular model was selling like hotcakes, it was very popular! Someone had come in and bought one on the Monday, and today I'd bought the last of their stock. I guess everyone wants a nice beginner violin haha. It definitely is a nice feeling!

They also helped rosin the bow (pre-rosin?) and gave me a high quality rosin for free, replacing the default rosin that was provided. How nice!

And of course the first thing I did with it once I got home was not play it, but do a photoshoot of it. Ok, I actually rosin-ed the bow first, and then did a photoshoot, and then tried it out. The sound is amazing!! But I can't play notes to save my life right now, so I'm going to have to relearn the fingering and make sure I can still tune it.

Yay for stupid expensive splurges on nice things!

Echoes of Van Gogh

Woohoo more culture time! I don't know how it is that I keep running into the Van Gogh theme - first my almond blossom teacup, then the immersive Van Gogh exhibition, and then now an Echoes of Van Gogh ballet by the WA Ballet company!

I really like that I'm enjoying watching ballet so much, and this was such a different experience than Swan Lake! This had a way more contemporary flavour to it and was great to experience, especially the sunflower skirts! The sunflower skirts and crow costumes were so amazing!

I think I'm going to aim for one ballet per season or something, it's actually a really fun thing to do!

Some Hades fun

Finally!!!

I stopped playing Hades when I couldn't beat Extreme Measures 4 on 10 heat, and found Dead Cells instead. But having learned that recently someone beat the hardest difficulty, I thought, why not, let's go back and actually push heat instead of trying to do only EM4. I even got an EM4 victory too! So now I can play a song banned for having too many notes :D

Aaand after 150 hours of playtime I finally got my Meg and Than scene lol

Silly Zagreus, aren't you glad it wasn't a dream!

The rest of the Ethereal series

Yes this is a very shoddy edit of the panels, I didn't try too hard and was just checking to see if the format worked. The end goal is to colour this! But we'll see if I ever get that done since it feels like it's a big project and I still don't have enough skill and patience.

Hayman Island adventure!

I never thought I'd ever visit Queensland again, and especially not the Whitsundays! But I had the good fortune to get this opportunity from work, which was pretty amazing! Never would I have ever imagined that I'd work for a company who could provide an all expenses paid trip like this! Especially because I could take a friend!

We flew out from Sydney, to Hamilton Island, which then had a boat transfer to Hayman Island. I'd done some preliminary research that showed it was a fancy boat, not dissimilar to the posh pit on the boat to MONA.

Hahaha ok first impression - this was nowhere near the calibre of the MR-1's posh pit food presentation! That being said, I still ate it all! There's nothing that'll tempt me to enjoy food quite like a French breakfast radish!

Look at the size of this room! It's huge! Super fancy! Though the mattress was far too soft for me and my bad back XD

The view from the balcony!

Oh wow, haha, it looks just like a resort! Lol, obvious me is obvious.

The infinity pool is pretty awesome!

We had two days here with a bunch of other workmates, but luckily, there weren't any corporate bonding exercises or anything, we actually were allowed to do whatever we wanted! The only requirement was to attend the two dinners with other workmates, but again, thank goodness, no one talked about work! Yay, we know how to have a good time!

The first night, we had a seafood buffet on the beach, and it was actually great! I was sooooo full. I tried most things, the sushi was so so and most of us were puzzled as to how to get soy sauce onto the sushi without spoons or little sauce dishes, so I had mine without any sauce haha. The rice was not great though. The gravalax, on the other hand, was extremely good and I kept going back for more!

The oysters were also good (and didn't run out early!), the moreton bay bug was surprisingly tasty; that actually impressed me! I did eat some of the vegetables too, which were also very good!

Dessert came out when everyone was far too tired (some people who flew in from Hobart had 3AM starts!), but I still sampled some fruit, cheese and sweets!

WOW this breakfast buffet! Good thing I'd digested all the food from the night before, this is the biggest range I've ever seen! There's just so many different types of food, there's something for everyone!

I took a little bit of most things, that roast ham was the best thing! I absolutely loved it! The chicken dumplings (the white ones) weren't bad either!

The cockatoos here love to snack on human food too!

Most of the paid activities were booked out (including massages!) so my friend and I did the free stuff! This was the fish feeding, and it was actually pretty cool! I got splashed on repeatedly by the giant trevally that would jump out to catch fish. Plus look at the greedy seagulls that would wait around and chomp on the fish food after we were done!

It turns out one of the pools here is one of the largest in the southern hemisphere! And, this resort is pretty cool in that some of the rooms have a balcony that lead straight into the pool - no fence, nothing! Amazing! My friend and I took our spots on the deckchairs, went for a dip, and waitstaff came around to take our order for food which was super convenient! This is the life! The seagull thought so too, and we had a bit of a standoff! Luckily I am partially trained in reading the body language of birds thanks to the pigeons, so I mainly just talked them down haha!

The oysters were really good, and my poke bowl was far too big, but it was a good feed!

Look at this little curlew! We called them the night patrol because on the first night, we saw a pair walking around and check in on every hotel room door. How cute!

We also went on a small nature walk around the island, where we learned a lot about the history of Hayman Island, including how it came to be a resort! Not only that, but I realised that the place is full of giant houseplants in their natural habitat! Everywhere I looked, I saw what I only knew as indoor plants, in their full outdoor glory. Plus there are green ants here (no one at any lol), honeysuckle (which I successfully took the stem out and licked the nectar!), and we learned about the smart cheeky cockatoos that would roll coconuts around so that they bake in the sun, and the water inside would ferment, and then they'd crack them open and get drunk on alcoholic coconut water!

Then once again night came around for an obligatory work dinner, in which I had a fight with a padron pepper and lost! That is, I ate one, thought it was fine, but then I ate parts with seeds, and started dying, and a fellow work colleague found this hilarious!

I am the most terrible person. All that choice at the buffet, with some new things on rotation, and I was already bored on day 2?! I'm just really not a resort person haha. I need to earn my food through exploration! That being said, their curry of the day was really good, I should have had that earlier too, and the poppadum are so good! I had to get the roast ham again cause that was so tasty! And a waffle again because why not.

Oh, that's right - we saw rambutans on the buffet! So we had to try them. I heard other people exclaim about the rambutans as well - it turns out people in the know realise it's an expensive and hard to obtain fruit, so they also treated themselves to that here! Rambutans have an interesting texture to them, their flesh seems more defined than lychees, and the skin between the seed and flesh seems to stick more on rambutans? With a slightly more mild flavour. Was fun to eat, but currently I still prefer lychees more. Too bad there weren't any mangosteens to sample!

Aah you cheeky cockatoos! You know human food, especially AN ENTIRE KNOB OF PEPE SAYA BUTTER isn't good for you right???

And we were done. That was it, two days of great relaxation! Even though it's not my type of holiday, it was definitely fun to experience!

One fun thing I discovered on this trip - since it was organised via work, I couldn't select seats on some of my flights. Turns out if you go to the counter and ask nicely, they sometimes can indeed give you better seats if there's room! I asked for seats closer to the front of the plane and I got really lucky many times! The more you know!