Monday 30th June 2008
June 30, 2008
Changing rooms today means I have to checkout at 10:00 and check back in after 12:30. 2.5 hours lugging my bags around. Lovely!
Woolworths has become Safeway here in Victoria. Same logo, motto and store design.
Discover the rooftop terrace in the hostel, complete with free binocular hire.
Sit on the free city tour bus for a couple of laps to take a break from the cold. The Manchester driver provides extra commentary in addition to the recorded narrative. Even the tour bus drivers are English!
Swim & sauna. ‘Stoke guy’ I met last night is also taking advantage of his free swim.
The Asian invasion is even more extreme than it was in Perth.
With Australia apparently being such a rich source of Asian culture I guess I could use this time to learn a bit more about their food and cooking style.
My first real sit-down, restaurant meal in Oz. I play it safe for now: special fried rice. turns out to be prawn & chicken; tasted ok but not exactly ’special’.
It leaves me with a sweet craving. I venture into the 24 hour Asian grocery store a couple of doors up. With a little help and guidance from the counter girl, I find among the salted prunes (yum!) and chicken flavoured biscuits a tub of sugar-coated sugary strawberries with extra sugar. Reading the ingredients I see they don’t have the courtesy to use flavouring to even pretend there’s any strawberry in there.
No Strawberries (no surprise there).
No Strawberry flavour!
Just an entirely different fruit altogether?! Mmm, Mulberry.
For the benefit of our friends at ‘Ken Ken’ in Vietnam:
Sunday 29th June 2008
June 29, 2008
I’m up before the sun. That’s a first for me in Addie!
Just 1 hour on a plane and I’m back to where I started 29 years ago.
The reason I came to Oz and, one day, home to my modest cafe-bar-restaurant.
Or so the master-plan goes.
YHA – not much included free except for a pass to the city swimming baths. I’m sold!
It’s a fine standing, red-brick box. As warm and inviting on the outside as it is on the inside. Lots of room in the kitchen though.
Find free WiFi Internet access in the cold city square. (Always a high priority on entering a new town).
Finally succumb to the natural order of backpacker life: pasta + sauce; my first purchase from the famous Queen Victoria Markets (oldest and largest open-air market in the Southern hemisphere – oooh!).
No sooner have I finished as I get joined by Penny from Grawler (a northern suburb of Adelaide). An elderly mental, recently escaped fro an institute/care home of some kind. I TOTALLY believe her as she proceeds to throw random, disconnected nuggets of her life at me. It’s classic crazy old lady: wilted cardigan, full length skirt finished with scruffy white trainers, and bobbing like a nervous child as she talks.
Shards of incredible intelligence, awareness and wit break through every so often.
Saturday 28th June 2008
June 28, 2008
Practice my pool all afternoon.
I’ve been here over four weeks! I’ve become stuck again. Disappointed with this realisation I immediately book a flight to Melbourne. I’ll get a job and seek refuge in routine until the sun comes back.
Gym: jog – 1 mile, cycle – 1.25 miles, row- 1 mile, boxing 10 rounds.
It’s the pinnacle of the weekend and I’m off to bed at 21:30. Lame!
But I know there’s no other way of breaking my midday wake up routine.
Friday 27th June 2006
June 27, 2008
Half the hostel is in bed and the other half is out on the town. It’s just me and the TV. Still living the dream!
Thursday 26th June 2008
June 26, 2008
Feeling the need to do something, anything, I go to the end of the bus line (the train network is nothing like it is in Perth, it’s buses all the way) to Port Adelaide, 40 minutes to the north. $7.70 day rider.
It has its heritage buildings and nice bits but there’s a general feeling of being in struggle; there’s almost as many empty, abandoned shops as there are open ones. Designated development plots suggest it could be worth coming back to in 5 or 10 years when it’s had time to get comfortable in the new image planned for it.
Swim & steam room on the way back.
Wednesday 25th June 2008
June 25, 2008
Day of DVDs (Saw3, The contract, Black Hawk Down)
Tuesday 24th June 2008
June 24, 2008
Don’t leave the hostel ALL day.
Monday 23rd June 2008
June 23, 2008
Feeling ’slothy’ I replace my lost gym gear and seek out a gym to play with my new knuckle protectors.
The heavybag wins again.
Splashed out on an official Freemantle AFL (Aussie Football League) shirt but a small defect get’s me 20% off. Not only my favourite colour (purple) but also an nice souvenir of the time I spent washing pots and cooking chips at the Subiaco Oval, their official grounds.
Sunday 22nd June 2008
June 22, 2008
Nothing again.
DVDs all day.
Saturday 21st June 2008
June 21, 2008
Not surprisingly it’s a quiet day.
Out again tonight though to mark Aaron’s leaving next Wednesday. There’s a big bunch out but I haven’t really got to know anyone in this hostel yet. Too much through-put.
