Another meditative dither around the Australian National Gallery.
Of course, I took my camera to try and catch something interesting. I checked with security at the entrance and non-flash non-commercial photography was fine.

My timing was off by about 50 years and the entire joint was occupied by 22,000 school kids of various ages. This turned out to be pretty OK, as many of the more famous artworks had someone from the gallery discussing each piece to small subsets of the horde. I walked around from group to group and actually learned some interesting eavesdropped factoids.

I did feel very uncomfortable taking photos in the gallery with all those kids around. So I snagged one or two adults before letting the camera hang and enjoying the art.

Later.
Outside I saw this Japanese dude sitting in a row of deckchairs. Thinking it made a cool composition I stole a shot. He looked up over his phone and smiled.
Wanting to impress with my pre-holiday Japanese fluency I dropped an: “arigato gozaimasu” but more like “a-(as in apple… not as in artichoke)-rigato gos-eye-ee-mass” just like I’ve been practising.
Delivered with a slight (almost imperceptible) polite bow…..after all, I just stole his portrait.

He looked confused for a moment. Then, “Actually, I’m Chinese“.

Yes. And I am an idiot.
Born and bred.