The first thing that we did was secure ourselves some food. We decided to share a plate of food from Peace Harmony (a vegan Thai restaurant in the CDB) and a mushroom pie from Go Veg. The food from Peace Harmony was characteristically yummy. We had a plate of rice with soy 'fish', seitan and buk choy and it was tasty and filling - particularly the 'fish' which was yummy and seaweed-y.
The pie was a little disapointing. The contents were fairly yummy, although a little too processed for my preference, but it was cold in the middle because it hadn't been in the oven long enough. They had warned me that this might be the case (after I had bought it) and so I took it back to get heated up, but it was actually still cold when I got it back... so it wasn't the best.
After we had filled our tummies we wandered the stalls to see what was there. Quite a few of the stalls were very specific in their issues (i.e. Chinese Bears, or Animal Testing, etc.) and those ones weren't all that interesting to me, but there were a few good stalls from companies that supply fair trade and vegan products - including some catering companies whose cards I stored away for future possibilities.
After checking out all the stands we decided to get some sweet stuff at Tea and Empathy (a food stall run by the NSW Vegan Society). We got some choc-chip cookies, a little chocolate muffin and a little spice cookie. They were all pretty good, but the spice cookie was particularly delicious and I wish (in hindsight) that I had bought some more for later.
Finally, on our way out we went back passed the Etiko stand and that was where danger struck. We were quite taken with their sweat-shop free footware and within about 5 minutes were suddenly the proud owners of one pair of low-rise sneakers and three pairs of Thongs for Acheh. So much for the budget! The only thing that saved it further was that they were out of size 10 sneakers (for P).
After that we made a hasty exit (having emptied our wallets) and headed home.
It was a nice afternoon and really inspiring to see that so many people were interested in living a cruelty-free lifestyle. Perhaps next time we will take the time to check out some of the cooking workshops or to listen to some of the speakers.
