Random: Easter Show 2014, Sydney

Sydney Royal Easter Show is probably the largest 'pop-up' annual event, held around this time of year - as the title suggests - of Easter. However there are a lot more of the easter show than just easter eggs and bunnies. It exhibits crafts, arts, cakes (yep), cats & dogs competition, to farm animals.

Last Saturday we drove to Olympic Park to go to the Easter Show. We arrived early - around 9 a.m. - and there were hardly anyone around yet.

The admission ticket is not inclusive of vouchers you will need to purchase separately to ride the various of amusement/ theme park type rides inside - from roller coasters, bumper cars, to a ghost house. Nothing as grand as the ones at Movie World or Dream World at Gold Coast though, and the vouchers are expensive too. I guess if you had kids, you would be spending more than a pretty penny at the Easter Show.

I have to mention that the Easter Show is a pretty big area to cover, so it's a good idea to get the map and daily schedule information leaflet from the information stand. We headed to the Domestic Animal Pavillion to see .... ... cats! I was a bit disappointed that despite what the online schedule said, there was no Scottish Fold or Munchkins in sight. But well, cute kitties are cute kitties, no matter what type they are :D

These are pamper felines worth of medals, and that's exactly what it was about - a competition. Kinda felt sorry for them though as they were cooped up inside those tiny cages for quite a while, while the judges examined each cat from ear tips to paws.

The cat on the right was very energetic and kept trying to escape from its cage - to no avail of course.

And some cats didn't look too thrilled to be probed around by the humans.

Not only cats, they also have dog shows and competitions

Around closer to lunch time, we headed to Woolworths Fresh Food Dome for some free food because we were too stingy to spend our money on overpriced snacks sold samples. The pavilion houses of a lot of food manufacturers & suppliers, most of them provide free samples to try. I suggest to come early rather than late in the afternoon. Around brunch time should be good, as the stands inside would still have a lot of supply to give to visitors. When we headed back later on in the afternoon to get more free food buy some stuff that strike our fancy, there were hardy any noteworthy food samples left. We ended up buying some chilli sauces from The Chilli Factory (I almost run out of the Scorpion Strike I bought from them about a month ago) and a very fragrant and yummy Fig Balsamic Vinegar from Pukara Estate.

Pretty neat display on oyster farming, describing various stages of their maturity level.

Then it's just more walking around to other exhibits... .

Pumpkins on steroids? Look at the weights of those monsters written on them. No joke, they are bigger than people

Flowers/Plants exhibits...

The cake/sugar arts exhibit is always a popular spot, as it showcases crazy awesome skills from cake artisans.

Cakes featuring more well known characters...

And after all those, well, more farm animals...

Row Row Row of butts....

I should have had more pictures - if only I did not forget to bring the spare battery for my camera -_-. We ended up spending around 9 hours at this year's easter show - the longest we have ever spent. We mainly got stuck watching the animals though :D