Melbourne

So after checking in and whatnot (in a 16 person mixed dorm this time) i made moves to the night market only a block away. They do markets daily, morning into afternoon, but on Wednesdays they have a night time shpeel as well. it was epic. Soo many people, sooo many stalls, sooo much art, food and music. Pretty early in I noticed like every other person was carrying a kebab with a weird spirally thing on it, munching away. After using my spot-on private eye skills I located the source of this, apparently korean twisted potato, and tried one. You pick the spice on it, and I went with salt and vinegar. All it really was though was a potato sized french fry, cut spiraled out (reference yourself to an apple peeler corer and see what it does. My favorite kitchen tool). Aside from fatty snack, mine also posed as a conversation starter when a couple who just arrived from Taiwan were staring at it as googly eyed as I had been at all the others, so I offered them a piece of this similarly foreign food. They were so thrilled and went nuts when I said I was from new york... they each had to take a picture with me. random celeb moment? I could see other people nearby trying to figure out if i was someone they should know. weird.

I wandered a while more, watching people get drunk off sangria, and continued to satiate my hunger by trying kangaroo, emu, and croc (though I've had croc before). Some place sold them as burgers or sausages, but also had a sampling bit to get all three with salad. bingo.

outside of the massive complex which was filled with all the stands (like biggest pans for paella ever, a crazy hammock stand, street signs turned clock, clothing, coconut anything) there was a stage where bands played. I sat through a lot of the set of an african style band, complete with tribal type dancers and crazy flavour. Everyone was getting their groove on.

before departing I gave into the sweet beckoning of a macaron (disappointing. Nothing beats macaron cafe in ny) and listened to a bit of a spanish band's set (all dudes with a surprisingly sexy female bassist).

On my was back I was distracted by an alleyway that seemed to be pumping with music, people and art. Unfortunately I was arriving at the very end of an alleyway art market, but had enough time to stroll down it and try some dallah, ginger drink, and check out the crazy art work.

When I got back it was all chats with my bed neighbors who were working through a bottle of pimms. They were all really cool and gave me thoughts for the rest of my travels. One guy, Chris (who goes by steel because there are too many Chris' in the world) drank a bit more than everyone else and was soon coerced into getting his makeup done by luna, the gorgeous korean makeup artist. May have been the ugliest girl I've ever seen, ad he made no point in hiding it as he went bed to bed bothering people to get their makeup done too. no success.

Come morning I woke up to the free breakfast my hostel has (cereals and toast w/ spreads, and coffee/tea) pretty sweet, and then made my way to the zoo. It was really easy navigating the city's tram system, which only cost $4 for all day unlimited use. Throughout the day though I noticed that heaps of people didn't even pay for the tram, which is apparently a problem here. It's really easy not to pay, since you get on a door and continue, and paying would be holding your card to a wee box thing. In fact, I didn't pay (well not really pay, since I had paid for the ticket, but check in) for the tram the first 4 times I took it, because I had no idea what i was doing. Took an old man to set me straight.

I was at the zoo at 10am-- same time as all the school children with zoo field trips that day. I was off on my own briefly, peeking at the weird animals in Australia, but soon started talking to two 12 year old girls who were on an and of year, pre highschool, trip to Melbourne. They live 7 hours away but their school put them up with activities for a week. Nuts! They told me about all the weird native animals in oz and I helped navigated through the park most efficiently for the short while they had for exploring. It was really funny to hang out with these preteens, but to be honest, they made the zoo experience so much better.

Animal-wise, the emus and kangaroos were kept somewhere that was barely enclosed... like you could pet them if you weren't as terrified as i was, and there were crazy birds walking around everywhere, separate of exhibits. Meerkats were funny to see, and I now know what a wombat is. Not what I was expecting.

After the zoo I went to the botanic gardens and went up some crazy shrine they've built. No idea what it's for, but I assure you I could've figured it out if I read any of the hundreds of plaques decorating the walls. They I went to the observatory, which wasn't anything but a cafe during the day, so m eh.

Tiredness hit hard so I passed out on the grass for a wee bit before heading to the australian center for contemporary art. Tiredness wasn't helped there because it was all weird video pieces, something I've never been fond of (like, do you, lady, really think I want to watch a video of you ripping out moustache hairs?) That said, I didn't stay very long and walked towards the Victoria Gallery, much closer to my speed, but still not quite. Some bits of the building itself were really cool, like the water falling over crazy painted glass in front, all collected from rain, or the fact that there was a high tea place, but the art was all early european or not too exciting furniture. By the top floor I finally found a couple of things I liked, but overall not as good as the shit I went to in Sydney, art wise (which is all good because Melbourne itself is filled with unbelievable street art and architecture, making up for this small flaw). I was going to go to the acmi, (aus center for moving image) but felt that a nap was more in order, so I'll do that tomorrow.

I picked up earplugs from a pharmacy on my way back, and holy shit best spent $3 in my life... Like, why I didn't buy them sooner is embarrassing. I got such a good sleep, and am looking forward to equally amazing ones to come.

Once I peeled myself out of bed [nap], I was off to south melbourne for their Thursday night market. not nearly as good as the night market on Wednesday (really small) but the area was pretty cool to be in, and I got the best grilled octopus I've ever had. good enough to force the cart vendor to explain how he made that possible. I also got a few sharkfin dumplings at an asian spot to make the feed sort of count as a dinner.

I was then off to the angus stone concert, but was stopped at the door for wearing jandels. What. So I ran home, and by ran I mean took the tram, which took ages, and got running shoes (looked like a goober, but whatever man. there's only so much I can carry on my back) and returned. I missed the first opener due to this flipflopslipup, but the second one was really weird and interesting, something smyth... Angus was pretty good too, but I didn't really know what to expect because I only really knew his music when he was angus and julia stone. The crowd was majority girls and their boyfriends, with handfuls of homosexual couples mixed in, and almost everyone was drunk.

Sa'll good though, and sleep cometh.

Also, as a note on transportation since I keep forgetting, the sydney trains had something nuts that I've never seen before. You had the option of flipping the back of the seat... like rolling it over sorta in a really neat and well designed way, as to make it face forwards or backwards. Crazy, and I loved it.

Lastly, Melbourne's fucking cold, or like, the single pair of holey leggings and small cardigan I brought were vital, but not enough. Woooop bali on Sunday!