Adelaide Festivities Part 2: WOMADelaide

Missed the last installment? Click here: Adelaide Festivities Part 1: Soundwave

Being unabashedly hippy, one of my favourite events of the year is WOMADelaide, a 4 day celebration of world arts and culture held in Adelaide's beautiful Botanic Park. Also, being brought up by an unabashedly hippy mother, I've been attending WOMADelaide since I was a child!

Psst... that's me dancing

The festival is very family friendly, there's a great kids' section with lots of activities and performances, all stages and stall areas are 'no smoking' areas, and it's a very relaxed and positive atmosphere - no drunk swearing people, and no one asking you to breastfeed in the toilets. Oh, did I mention that children 12 and under get in for free?

Plus, I think it's great for children to experience the world and all of its magnificent cultures. All around there are children laughing, playing, dancing, and climbing trees. You hear them discussing the music, performances, and ideas being presented, and adding in their own perspectives. Being a massive hippy and also an early childhood educator, I just think that it is so important for children to be exposed to these things. It really shapes them into the inclusive, worldly, ethical, conscious, and active participants in society that we want them to be (or should want them to be!). I am lucky enough to have a much younger sister (she's 12) and I have really enjoyed watching her become the wonderful person she is today through experiences like WOMADelaide. I had a very proud moment this year when she headed off towards the social justice and activism area saying "Now, let's go sign some petitions!" (For Christmas last year she also donated money to OXFAM instead of buying us presents).

There are so many fantastic acts to see, lots of stalls, and even workshops that you can do with the performers. This year, they were also running hour-long yoga sessions in the mornings. I jumped at that opportunity and found it such a lovely way to start the day; doing yoga under some beautiful shady trees while fruit bats chattered in the branches above. What a relaxing experience!

However, as my sister put it, "WOMAD, you come for the music but you stay for the food". How right she is. WOMADelaide is the biggest eating event on my calendar. In fact, Jeff and I save up money specifically so that we can gorge ourselves on the abundance of delicious sustainable and multicultural food.

This year the event attracted 90,000 people over the 4 days. That's 90,000 educated, ethical, environmentalist, barefoot hippies like myself so you can bet your life that there was a lot of vegan food on offer!

Here's what was going down, down to my belly that is:

First off, a lovely warm chai, which was followed by many more. All chai sold at WOMADelaide is made with soy milk.

Next, a handmade spring roll filled with some kind of mushroom. I noticed the nice texture that the mushroom gave the spring roll but mushroom-hater Jeff didn't and ate his all up saying how delicious it was. Little did he know his nemesis lurked inside...

I also had some mushroom in these tofu cold rolls. My goodness they were yummy, and filling!

Something that I find such a novelty, the drinking coconut. These were very popular. The coconut water inside is so refreshing and then you can scrape away the coconut flesh inside with your spoon and eat it, a big hit with the children of WOMADelaide! I really like the texture of the fresh coconut flesh.

I paired my coconut water with this cinnamon and sugar bread AKA cinnamon doughnut. I was so glad that the stall selling these was back this year, as they weren't there last year.

In the evening, I had a sago and fresh fruit dessert (you can find a recipe to make your own sago here).

Lastly, I couldn't go past the Hare Krishna's feast of rice, vegetable curry, and kofta with tomato chutney, even though I'd just had one the week before at Soundwave!

Happy eating! :)