books: bright lights, big city

i thought i would start chronicling the books i've read by writing short notes on them as they're finished. goodreads accomplishes this function well enough on its own, however i thought it might be a nice exercise and help me process the book better by writing a bit about it afterward. i can also refer back to notes if i am ever curious as to what a book was about or why i rated it a certain way.

so the lucky first book is "bright lights, big city" by jay mcinerny. this is apparently one of those books that perfectly encapsulates an era, in this case the 1980's. i think i found it on one of those "100 books you have to read, etc." posts and found it convincing enough to add to my own must-read list. the second person narrative is easy to slide into, and although much of the story focuses on the particular avarice of the 80's – coke, clubs, and cancerous relationships – there's a lot of heart and thoughtful moments to break up the cynical nihilism; something that sets it apart from other 80's classics like "american psycho" to be sure. overall i found mr. mcinerny to be a very engaging writer, accessible yet witty, he created a simple story with a lot of enjoyable language. gave it a five on goodreads and aim to seek out more of his stories at a later date.

boom goes straya: the nuclear option and australia

just because the idea hasn't been brought to the table doesn't mean there aren't valid reasons for bombing australia. no, they don't pose a global terrorist threat – they're not even mean people – and it wouldn't stop any war from escalating either. they just sort of sit down here not really bothering anyone don't they? "so what's the problem, mate?" you may be asking. well let me just show you:

once again i'm having foreign fly troubles.

we live right near the beach and so you might be thinking, "oh that's great you can go hang out on the on the sand anytime you want! maybe read a book, do some light exercising, enjoy some sport…whatever!" well i'm here to smack that naiveté right out of your dumb stupid face because it is impossible to enjoy any of those activities for longer than 2 nanoseconds without having anywhere from one to two hundred flies attack you and spit their gross digestive stomach juices all over you. try reading a book when you're constantly swatting flies away. try focusing on performing a perfect push up when the fly hordes take it as a moment of weakness and launch a full on offensive.

consider the following highly accurate and no-doubt scientific charts:

and these flies aren't your normal, friendly neighborhood flies. you swat at a fly in the states and it may try its luck one or two more times but eventually it gets the drift: you don't want it there and it's going to go bother something else. maybe a cow whose only swatting instrument is unfortunately attached to it's ass. but australian flies, either through tenacity or lack of intelligence or pure evil, will haunt you until you either give up, kill it, or go bat shit insane trying to get rid of it.

i have seen grown men on the verge of tears. i have seen them try and verbally reason with the flies, to try and beg their leniency. you may already be aware of the stereotypical image of the australian with the cork rimmed hat. if not allow me to enlighten you:

it's not only a fine fashion accessory, those corks are to keep the flies from ravaging that man's fiendish good looks. without this very fine and practical head piece folks are apt to perform what is commonly referred to as the "australian wave." some may mistake the australian wave as the flailing of a lunatic if caught from afar. it is however the best defense against the fly scourge. what you do is simply move your hands in a swatting motion around your face, sometimes smacking your face in the process if it means ending the life of one of these horrible creatures, non-stop until your safely indoors. and that's it. that's all you can do. because the flies have already won. in a land of terribly deadly everything flies are the most insidious, because unlike a croc or a poisonous snake, there's not even a chance of escaping the fly.

and that's why i am not necessarily suggesting we nuke australia – what sort of mad man would i be? – but consider the fly free empty slate that would be left in the aftermath. it's not the worst idea in the world is it?

yeah, it probably is.

finally getting around to melbourne

i have forgotten how to make blog posts. obviously it has been too long. and really, what is this but a labor of love? i don't get any sort of compensation from it. sometimes it is emotionally satisfying. cathartic maybe. we get to some deeper truths here don't we? remember that sydney post? things got real for a hot minute didn't they? but when my heart isn't in it then there's no real reason for me to continue on, to press forward, to share my words and ramblings and opinions and feelings with the world via the internet. and that's what had happened for a little while. well a few months i guess. shall we get into it? let's get into it.

shit was hard. that's really all there is too it. we were in melbourne for well over 2 months and here was what had happened: we moved into a hostel and we got drunk a lot and we made short, fleeting connections with backpackers who were often younger than us and we struggled to find work and we struggled to find happiness and we spent much too much money during it all. this shouldn't reflect too poorly on melbourne itself but more on the australian job market in general as it is available to foreigners. if you are on a working holiday its sort of understood you will be getting a certain type of job and that is either a hospitality oriented job, a tourism type job, or farm work. there are thousands of restaurants and cafes in melbourne but with thousands of foreigners flooding those specific job markets the employers can be pretty selective. so if they don't want to hire a 28 year old american male with no hospo experience they can wait a bit and find a perky 18 year old german girl who can't speak english but has table waiting experience. fuck yes i was bitter.

but hey things changed. eventually i found a job working at the city aquarium through a friend i made at the hostel. this job requires us to assault people as they enter the aquarium and force them into a series of increasingly awkward photos. we then edit these photos so they are placed into aquarium friendly settings, such as the shark tunnel or hanging with penguins or among some coral. finally we spend most of the day once again assaulting people as they leave to get them to look at these photos, now nicely bundled in an informative booklet keepsake, and try and entice children into guilting their parents into buying them. its a pretty easy job all said and done. it mostly entails standing on your feet for long periods of time and trying to be friendly to people who don't really want to talk to you. you learn to deal with rejection. you learn to make small talk. you learn to verbally persuade people into doing things they aren't initially inclined to do. basically it's a crash course in how to pick up girls in bars, which is something i desperately needed anyway. 

i will soon be transferred to the melbourne star wheel which is the smaller melbourne version of the london eye. it has longer working hours and will be opening right in time for christmas/school holidays so it's going to be busy from open to close (they're hoping at least). it's not actually the first time the melbourne star wheel has opened – it was an attraction for about 2 months before it had to shut down because intense heat from inland forest fires caused it to start melting. so let's all just hope they dealt with that…otherwise i guess i might be unemployed again in about 2 months. 

oh but hey, i haven't really talked about melbourne itself, have i? what to say about my new home away from home. it's certainly much different from daegu! it's a coastal city but you can't really tell from the central business district (henceforth referred to as the cbd). instead the yarra river provides the most striking water feature as it cuts through the city essentially dividing it in two. north of the yarra is the main portion of the cbd as well as the trendy neighborhoods to the north. to the south of the yarra are the more yuppy neighborhoods as well as the coastal regions. the cbd is a busy metropolis and cultural center. hidden between the many large glass business towers are laneways dotted by tiny cafes, shops and bars. these laneways make up the heart of melbourne's identity. melbourne is also home to the largest tram system in the world. it's pretty convenient downtown where trams have their own lanes but in the outer suburbs the trams have to share the road with local traffic, which often creates spotty service and late schedules. furthermore its pretty easy to fare evade with only deterrent being plain-clothes officers who sometimes do surprise fare inspections, but they're even pretty easy to spot beforehand. 

eventually i was able to move out the hostel with jamie and the very same friend who helped me find a job. his name is chris and he hails from the northern english city of stoke. he has a heavy north english accent which sometimes makes him sound simple or slow but he swears that's just how people up there talk. we moved south of the yarra to a neighborhood called albert park (we think, the postal code is a bit weird - it could be middle park or part of port melbourne as well) into a little rundown bungalow not 5 minutes from the beach. you can see a video below of the digs. basically, a player for the north melbourne kangaroos (a professional aussie rules football team) purchased the place with the intention of renovating it (we all need hobbies right?) and wanted some people to give him some extra income until he started. and we're those people! like i mentioned it's a bit rundown but we're getting a crazy good price on it and it's only short term. basically it's perfect. the neighborhood is quiet and could use a bit more in terms of nightlife but it's filthy with nice little cafes and boutiques. and did i mention its right on the beach? the beach has a little walking/jogging path that extends all the way down to st. kilda, a popular backpackers area, and probably further. 

so, what started off being a shit endeavor has slowly started becoming something pretty great. i received my first paycheck last week so i am officially doing this thing from here on out. i also went out and blew half of it on things i probably didn't need but that's what first paychecks are all about am i right? i might be. now i can start focusing on things like how am i going to decorate the walls in my room and when's our first house party and what's the deal with all these annoying ass flies? 

check the photos and video below.

eureka tower, tallest building in melbourne

tram with fed square in the background. bit of an architectural oddity but apparently the city is growing into it.

fed square

view from fed square overlooking flinders station

one of the more popular laneways

scenes from the queen victoria market

chinatown, which is actually pretty big and full of cool bars and cheap eats

flinders station (?) from the botanical gardens

albert park beach

st. kilda on a non-busy day

busy day

luna park at st. kilda

my new house, you should SEEEE my NEW house

last camper days

so sorry about the longer than normal gap in the update. we are in the midst of desperately trying to support ourselves in melbourne with the little money we have left while trying to find a job, housing, a life, etc. try and understand the obligations i have outside of writing some words and posting some pictures!

before i jump into the mess that is our first couple weeks in melbourne i suppose i should wrap up the last leg of our camper trip. due to some poor calculations on my part, we found out we actually had about a week longer than anticipated with the jolly green rental so we took a longer course than planned. instead of going straight through victoria to melbourne we bypassed melbourne initially and hopped on over to adelaide. but first lets chat about victoria a bit shall we?

the section on victoria in the tiny tour book i purchased covers melbourne and its outlying areas and…that's it. i think the main difference between victoria and new south wales was that were more trees and less towns while passing through. our first main stop was a large peninsula and australians southern most point, wilson's prom. wilson's prom is a nature reserve and park and features some amazing camping opportunities as well as an abundance of natural wildlife and picturesque vistas. particularly if you're willing to hike a bit. we didn't want to spend too much time here so we opted for what looked to be a very scenic and relaxed jaunt up mt. oberon, which was more or less a service road for park vehicles. about half way up jamie decided he wanted to do some off-the-path climbing under the logic that going straight up the mountain would be much quicker than the slow series of switchbacks. i told him he was an idiot and let him do as he pleased while i pushed on. i later realized i was probably as big of an idiot for leaving him by himself as he tried bouldering up a mountain in the middle of a nature reserve. but did i let that stop me? no, of course not. i kept climbing and eventually i reached the top, from which you had an amazing 360 view of the park and its coasts, including the very lovely squeaky beach. just check the photos below. after waiting for about 15 minutes i started to really worry about what had happened to jamie and made my way back down the hill. not too far from the top i ran into a slightly bloodied and very muddied jamie. apparently he made his way up until it started to seem like it was more dangerous to go back down so he kept pushing forward through the bush and along rock faces and perilous slopes and what not. so basically it was just lucky that he wasn't actually dead. and after all that he decided not to make the final ascent to the top. his loss i guess. we eventually made our way back to the visitors center so jamie could wash off and we were soon on our way.

there wasn't much of anything between melbourne and wilson's prom so we made pretty good time making it to port phillip bay, directly south of melbourne. there we were able to hop a ferry over to queenscliff, bypassing melbourne altogether. we stayed the night in barwon heads, not too far from the bay. the next day we got up early and started along one of the most scenic drives in the world, the great ocean highway. the great ocean highway was a project started for returning ww2 veterans and runs along the southern coast of australia from roughly geelong, just outside of melbourne, to warrnambool, which is maybe halfway to adelaide. there were two things going against us on our trip however: 1) the overcast and rain that plagued us throughout the day and 2) the overcast and rain that poured on jamie's poor broken heart. the combination of the two turned us into very sour companions indeed. still, with the pockets of sunshine came pockets of happiness and the gloomy weather provided for some moody shots of the coast. some highlights along the great ocean road included the cape otway light station, "australia's most significant lighthouse" which was built by convicts; the 12 apostles, a group of naturally eroded rock structures out at sea, and some rainforest type areas. again, you can check the photos below. we continued driving past the great ocean road and made camp in what was basically a field. a free field. another day of driving. another night camping and then we were in adelaide.

which was probably not worth the gas money. adelaide seems nice enough i guess. a lot of parks. a nice market that covers a large area of the central business area. but not much in terms of nightlife. sure we were there on a tuesday but i'm not convinced that it would have made much of a difference had we been there on a better night. up to this point we had stayed 2 nights, 3 days in the main cities but poor adelaide…poor poor adelaide, we only spent 1 night 1 day. i didn't even take any photos. i couldn't be bothered as jamie loves to say. go there if you want to hit up kangaroo island – a wonderful nature preserve from what i understand – or go on a tour of wine country. don't go there expecting to have a really great weekend. i'm sorry adelaide, i did want to like you, but this time i think it is you and not me.

instead of retracing our steps back to melbourne, we cut through inland on the return trip and stopped overnight at the grampians national park. the next day we drove through and took the time to take in its many beautiful overlooks and waterfalls. you know the drill - check it below. it is probably worth mentioning that this was not only our last full day of the camping trip it was also my birthday. and it was also raining and freezing and not very nice in general. we stopped for the day in ballarat, australia's largest inland city, which isn't saying much. we had a late birthday lunch of pizza and then found a campground. we tossed some frisbee, had a few beers and then retreated indoors to escape the bitter cold and wet. we skipped dinner and went to bed around 8. yay, fun birthday! i couldn't even sleep that night from the cold and when i tried to go pee at night i found that the door had froze shut. who said australia was supposed to be warm year round? i want my money back, dammit! the next day at least we were able to finally arrive in melbourne, our final destination, and the beginning of the harsh realization that we had spent most of our money and were faced with the stinging slap of reality. but i guess i'll save that for the next post where i can hopefully wrap it up with the happy news that i finally found work and a place to live and things are starting to look up.

towers on top of oberon

the "boring" side

squeaky beach down there

video of the 360

port phillip bay

the ferry

koalas in the wild

cape otway light station

view from the grampians