A hello to you from Melbourne, where I've been holidaying in a heatwave.
In case you're wondering what Ex-Trip means, it means Extreme Trip. I didn't make up the name, I just called it the trip, but Henry decided that it had to have some sort of cooler name.
DAY 1 - Monday 20th
I got up early to finish last minute packing, before Bob arrived to hitch a lift to the airport. We caught a plane to Melbourne, and then took a taxi through from Melbourne Airport to our crash-place, the home of Henry's friend Jits (look back several posts - he was there with us the last time I went down to Bob's shack). We ended up going to the wrong house - the house number was 19A, not 19, and what was worse was that they both had the same coloured fence. We ended up waiting out there for awhile before Jits showed up, because his housemates weren't home, nor was he.
So then Jits rocks up, wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a sweater. In 36 degree celsius heat. He claims that the weather tricked him. Anyways, we chuck our stuff inside, before heading off to catch a tram to meet Henry at his (and several other people's) castle, Janet Clarke Hall (aka JCH). We go up to meet him, and then he tries to introduce me to Amy, but she isn't in.
After Henry gave us a tour of his dorms, we decide to hit Melbourne Central for lunch, and go for the very Melbourne delight of Hungry Jacks. In a way it was interesting to eat fast food that you had been having for the past two or three days in a different city. After lunch we hitched a train out to this science centre called Scienceworks, which seemed like what the Investigator Science Centre in Adelaide if it had a lot more people coming. On the way there, we were chatting loudly amongst ourselves and I managed to elicit several weird looks from this old woman who sat near us on the train - my outburst of "I'm not marrying some random girl just because I have a game she wants" elicited a real strange look. At the center, the highlight involved us coming into the big toy city designed for small children and having a play around and just laughing at ourselves looking so weird in a section intended for 3-8 year olds. I will have to upload this particularly hilarious video of Henry and myself dropping foam bricks on Jits' head. We were even approached by a film crew to appear in their promotional DVD, but unfortunately, we'll probably only appear in the deleted scenes section.
We take the train back to JCH, and it is here that I meet Amy, one of the infamous "anime girls" Henry is always telling me about, and the infamous Thrower of the Object of Rage. I know she reads this blog, so I'll be nice :p. She seems to be very photogenic - I wasn't expecting what I saw, namely less oestrogen-fuelled throwing of objects. But then, I suppose, what do you expect when you meet someone you'd only talked to on the internet before? Speaking of which, we head out onto Lygon St, where I meet another internet friend - a fellow DM from the Internode NWN servers. Those of you from there would know him as Nemesis_22. It's amazing, really - we've been good friends for two and a half years now, and only now have we actually met each other in the flesh.
We go and have dinner at this really nice gourmet pizza place that Nemesis recommends, and then wander down towards Southbank, along the Yarra River, from Federation Square (I wish Adelaide had a place like that) towards the infamous Crown complex. We had a lot of fun while we were wandering down there - I swear, Southbank is one of the nicest places to walk along in the evening. There was also supposed to be a flame-show, but it was a hot day, so they turned off the gas.
DAY 2 - Tuesday 21st
I wake up at 6am because I had forgotten to reset my mobile alarm. I shut it off and then go back to sleep. At 8:13am, I get an SMS message from Henry telling me we have to get to Federation Square ASAP. So I have about twenty minutes to get from bed to the tram station. In the mad rush, I end up losing a contact lens to the bathroom floor (later found by the very kind Jits), and spend most of the day with one good eye and one bad eye.
Bob and I end up getting to Federation Square and meeting Henry there at about 9:15am, and get to the platform just in time for the 9:17am train to wherever it was that we were going - to take a cruise through Eastern Victoria on a train called Puffing Billy.
The train ride is relatively uneventful, but for the first half of the journey there, we're stuck in a carriage filled with Japanese tourists. Yes, the stereotype is still very much alive. We end up riding the train all the way to the end of the line, at a small town named Gemsbrook. After getting lunch from a bakery near the train station and enjoying it in a park nearby, we head for a nature trail, and end up emerging about 40 minutes later much further than from where we were before, according to the tourists' map Henry had taken from the bakery, intended for young children, I believe. We walk down the road, and then we see a mechanic's shop. As we get there, I see the sign slowly being spelled out.
SHOP
MECHANIC'S SHOP
EMERALD MECHANIC'S SHOP
Here I groan and think that we've somehow accidentally hiked to a town further back along the train route (name, surprisingly enough, Emerald), but we walk a bit further and it's
GEMSBROOK EMERALD MECHANIC'S SHOP
I breathe a sigh of relief. We board Puffing Billy and head back towards the station we had departed from that morning, all hot, tired, and sweaty. By now my right eye is getting rather irritated, I'm sneezing, and I have a blocked and runny nose (simultaneously). I remove my right contact and subsequently lose it in the Flinders St station toilets, meaning that I am now stuck with one contact lens for the rest of the week. At least today I found that I can wear one contact lens and still have good vision, even if it does get a bit weird if I look out the wrong eye.
We return to JCH for a little bit, before heading out to little Chinatown, on Little Bourke St, by tram. By this time I am most certainly impressed by Melbourne's efficient and modern public transport system, so much more efficient in some ways than Adelaide's. I mean, there are more tram stops and trams in use than buses here, and the tram stops in the city have LCD screens showing how long before each tram that stops at that stop is coming in. We go to this little Chinese place to get some dinner, and then to Borders because Bob wants a book to read. While he's browsing, Henry and myself are reading an interview that Filmink magazine does with Borat, laughing at all his responses.
We return to JCH on foot, walking through this infamous alley in Trinity College where supposedly one girl was murdered and another raped, making people so scared of going through there alone that now they appparently have CCTV cameras and guards nearby, on little golf buggies.
At the moment, I am writing this blog on Jits' computer (another big up to you, big guy), and we are departing for Sydney tomorrow, and another hot day.
Photos to follow.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Thunderstorm Clubbing
I went out with my good friend Ben last Saturday night - the 11th for those of you who are reading this some time after time of writing. South Australia's been going through nasty drought, and we are really starting to feel the pinch now, with moderately heavy water restrictions on and therefore you're not allowed to wash cars with a hose, among other things. I'm sure there are more significant ones, but that's the one I remember. Anyways, this time Ben and I decide to hit Glenelg for a change of scene, and to scope out the bars there.
We cruise down there via Adelaide Airport, and as I pass Adelaide Airport, I see the distant, cloudy night sky light up with lightning.
"A thunderstorm's coming." I say. How right I was.
We get to Glenelg, it's still not raining, so we go and play pool at the pool hall for about an hour. Ben is an absolute god at pool, so he ends up beating me every single time we play. We come out from the pool hall about 9:45pm, and then cruise down the shop-side of Glenelg looking for good bars and clubs. Presto the Glenelg Hotel. At first Ben didn't want to go in because some of the people in there looked a bit scungy, so we moved on, coming to what looked like another bar, and stepping in, only to find out about five minutes later that what we thought were separate bars were simply two different rooms with bars under the Glenelg Hotel complex. There were all sorts there - the elderly, the unwashed and/or bearded, the very young, and the in-between.
Ben and I end up taking a seat opposite this trio - two white girls and a guy, who is busy being caring and boyfriendy with one of the girls, who is being girlfriendy right back at him. The odd girl out, a redhead (I think, and definitely not really that attractive), started talking to us, wanting to find out who we were.
Ben introduces himself, and then I get her to guess my name, with the offer that if she does, I'll buy her a drink.
Ma~n, she was dumb as hell, because I gave her several clues, but she still never guessed my name (Alex, for those of you who don't know me personally). She tried to get me to guess in return what high school she went to, again with the offer of a drink if I couldn't guess, but I simply played silly with those, not really bothering to, particularly when she mentioned that it was in the south. I know sweet FA about the south, but guessed anyways.
"St Peters Girls?" I guessed, knowing well that she looked nothing like the type who'd have gone to St Peters' Girls.
She never guesses my name, the closest guess of hers being Axel. I never guessed her school, but Ben did - Aberfoyle Park. I get up, get her drink, and come back. Presto, it's the wonder-drink we call ... WATER!
After awhile, I tire of talking to this rather unattractive girl, who seemed really shallow and not too smart - not the kind of girl I want to be getting together with - and we promptly left the Glenelg Hotel.
By now, it was simply pouring torrents outside in Glenelg, people everywhere were sheltering under the front shades of various shops, watching the rain and not willing to dash across the open square to the warm shelter of the McDonalds on the other side of the square. Down by the beach, there is the Stamford Grand hotel, with a big-ass line waiting to get in.
'Fuck that,' Ben and I think. We were sure as hell not going to wait in a line in the torrential rain to get into a place we didn't know was good or bad, particularly considering we were pants and T-shirts.
One mad dash through the rain and a drive into the Adelaide CBD later, we come back to our favoured stomping ground of Mansions, where things have really taken off. Here, it was hard to talk to girls because they were all either on the dance floor or in large groups around the bar, so after about twenty minutes in there scoping out the place, we choose to leave and wander along to the Botanic Bar down on the East End of Rundle St, witnessing sporadic lighting, lighter rain, and a few thunderclaps.
Coming into the Botanic Bar, it's dark, dimly lit, and filled with people. Ben and I formulate a battle plan. I come in and talk to this trio of girls (2 nice blonde/brunettes, and one fat girl), while Ben gets us a couple of glasses of water. I sit down, ask them what the deal is with girls having to open their mouths whenever they put mascara on, before asking them a riddle. The girls are sitting at a U-shaped booth, the fat girl in the dip of the U, the other two sitting in a line next to her along one arm of the U, something like this:
Girls
O Fat girl
Ben Me
That's only a rough sketch, but you get the general idea. Ben came in later.
Ben soon comes in with drinks, and talks to them along with me. I find out that two of them are teachers, and one a journalist. One of the nice girls is a drama teacher, the other nice girl a journo, and the fat girl was another teacher. I immediately identify the drama teacher as the one I'd like to get a number from. Unfortunately, she leaves to go to the powder room, so Ben quickly steals her seat and chats with her while I chat to the fat girl and keep her attention away from Ben and journo-girl.
She's a nice enough girl, and seemed pretty interesting, but I wasn't that really attracted to her. However, I was extremely curious why anyone in this day and age would wish to become a teacher, knowing what little shits kids can be. Ben gets them to take a photo of us together, before getting a photo of himself with them. They promptly delete the photo when he hands the camera to them so they can admire themselves.
Drama Teacher returns, and is not too happy to find Ben has stolen her seat. She appears to be the dominant one, and Ben challenges her to a thumbwar to win it back. She daggers him, and then he agrees to a duel of rock-scissors-paper instead. She beats him, he moves back to his old chair, and we chat for a bit longer before we bounce and explore the rest of the bar. There's an area with pool tables and couches, and a long corridor with toilets at the end between the pool table area and the general bar. As we're leaving the bar, we try the camera routine again, on this pair of girls sitting near a wall. They take a photo of us, and then of them, before Ben gets me to sit between em, to take a photo of us. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready, and therefore the photo is one of me with each arm around a girl's shoulders, looking down.
We bounce, and then decide to check out some of the other places on Rundle St, getting into this trendy looking place called Fumo Blu. What happens next is arguably the weirdest thing that has happaned to me all month.
I move for the toilets, and as I go there, I see two guys near the toilets, intimately close to each other and making out. They spot me, and look at me. One of em, an Asian pretty-boy, asks me how old I am. I reply
"Old enough." before I enter the toilets. I come back out about five minutes later and presto! There's a third guy there!
The rest of the time spent in Fumo Blu was cool - we talked to these two chubby-looking girls, joking about the pot-plant cocktail there that they had discarded, because they didn't like the taste (it tasted like lime when I tried it). After a little while longer, we left and ended up cruising down Hindley St where this guy on the sidewalk gave me weird looks when he saw me pull my chapstick out of my pocket and use it on my lips. I notice him and I say to him
"Yes, it's a lipstick. I don't appreciate you looking at me like a piece of meat like that."
We walk off, leaving him with a "WTF mate?!" look on his face, and his female companion looking rather amused. We step into the McDonalds on Hindley to get us some midnight snacks, and then I spot the same couple walk in.
They end up eating near us as well, and for some reason, as we leave, the girl who was with chapstick guy waved goodbye to us.
There really wasn't that much else good on Hindley St, so we decided to call it a night and head home.
I told my co-workers about seeing that couple yesterday and today. Amusingly enough, one of them said that gay guys usually like to hit on the masculine guys. I'm masculine enough that gay guys would hit on me? I ask her if she thinks that I'm masculine, she replies yes, but that I have a bit of a baby-face.
Well, the fact that gay guys are hitting on me bodes well for the fact that I'm actually attractive to women, or are on the path to it ^_^;;
Hopefully soon enough I'll be blogging about my merry dance interstate.
We cruise down there via Adelaide Airport, and as I pass Adelaide Airport, I see the distant, cloudy night sky light up with lightning.
"A thunderstorm's coming." I say. How right I was.
We get to Glenelg, it's still not raining, so we go and play pool at the pool hall for about an hour. Ben is an absolute god at pool, so he ends up beating me every single time we play. We come out from the pool hall about 9:45pm, and then cruise down the shop-side of Glenelg looking for good bars and clubs. Presto the Glenelg Hotel. At first Ben didn't want to go in because some of the people in there looked a bit scungy, so we moved on, coming to what looked like another bar, and stepping in, only to find out about five minutes later that what we thought were separate bars were simply two different rooms with bars under the Glenelg Hotel complex. There were all sorts there - the elderly, the unwashed and/or bearded, the very young, and the in-between.
Ben and I end up taking a seat opposite this trio - two white girls and a guy, who is busy being caring and boyfriendy with one of the girls, who is being girlfriendy right back at him. The odd girl out, a redhead (I think, and definitely not really that attractive), started talking to us, wanting to find out who we were.
Ben introduces himself, and then I get her to guess my name, with the offer that if she does, I'll buy her a drink.
Ma~n, she was dumb as hell, because I gave her several clues, but she still never guessed my name (Alex, for those of you who don't know me personally). She tried to get me to guess in return what high school she went to, again with the offer of a drink if I couldn't guess, but I simply played silly with those, not really bothering to, particularly when she mentioned that it was in the south. I know sweet FA about the south, but guessed anyways.
"St Peters Girls?" I guessed, knowing well that she looked nothing like the type who'd have gone to St Peters' Girls.
She never guesses my name, the closest guess of hers being Axel. I never guessed her school, but Ben did - Aberfoyle Park. I get up, get her drink, and come back. Presto, it's the wonder-drink we call ... WATER!
After awhile, I tire of talking to this rather unattractive girl, who seemed really shallow and not too smart - not the kind of girl I want to be getting together with - and we promptly left the Glenelg Hotel.
By now, it was simply pouring torrents outside in Glenelg, people everywhere were sheltering under the front shades of various shops, watching the rain and not willing to dash across the open square to the warm shelter of the McDonalds on the other side of the square. Down by the beach, there is the Stamford Grand hotel, with a big-ass line waiting to get in.
'Fuck that,' Ben and I think. We were sure as hell not going to wait in a line in the torrential rain to get into a place we didn't know was good or bad, particularly considering we were pants and T-shirts.
One mad dash through the rain and a drive into the Adelaide CBD later, we come back to our favoured stomping ground of Mansions, where things have really taken off. Here, it was hard to talk to girls because they were all either on the dance floor or in large groups around the bar, so after about twenty minutes in there scoping out the place, we choose to leave and wander along to the Botanic Bar down on the East End of Rundle St, witnessing sporadic lighting, lighter rain, and a few thunderclaps.
Coming into the Botanic Bar, it's dark, dimly lit, and filled with people. Ben and I formulate a battle plan. I come in and talk to this trio of girls (2 nice blonde/brunettes, and one fat girl), while Ben gets us a couple of glasses of water. I sit down, ask them what the deal is with girls having to open their mouths whenever they put mascara on, before asking them a riddle. The girls are sitting at a U-shaped booth, the fat girl in the dip of the U, the other two sitting in a line next to her along one arm of the U, something like this:
Girls
O Fat girl
Ben Me
That's only a rough sketch, but you get the general idea. Ben came in later.
Ben soon comes in with drinks, and talks to them along with me. I find out that two of them are teachers, and one a journalist. One of the nice girls is a drama teacher, the other nice girl a journo, and the fat girl was another teacher. I immediately identify the drama teacher as the one I'd like to get a number from. Unfortunately, she leaves to go to the powder room, so Ben quickly steals her seat and chats with her while I chat to the fat girl and keep her attention away from Ben and journo-girl.
She's a nice enough girl, and seemed pretty interesting, but I wasn't that really attracted to her. However, I was extremely curious why anyone in this day and age would wish to become a teacher, knowing what little shits kids can be. Ben gets them to take a photo of us together, before getting a photo of himself with them. They promptly delete the photo when he hands the camera to them so they can admire themselves.
Drama Teacher returns, and is not too happy to find Ben has stolen her seat. She appears to be the dominant one, and Ben challenges her to a thumbwar to win it back. She daggers him, and then he agrees to a duel of rock-scissors-paper instead. She beats him, he moves back to his old chair, and we chat for a bit longer before we bounce and explore the rest of the bar. There's an area with pool tables and couches, and a long corridor with toilets at the end between the pool table area and the general bar. As we're leaving the bar, we try the camera routine again, on this pair of girls sitting near a wall. They take a photo of us, and then of them, before Ben gets me to sit between em, to take a photo of us. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready, and therefore the photo is one of me with each arm around a girl's shoulders, looking down.
We bounce, and then decide to check out some of the other places on Rundle St, getting into this trendy looking place called Fumo Blu. What happens next is arguably the weirdest thing that has happaned to me all month.
I move for the toilets, and as I go there, I see two guys near the toilets, intimately close to each other and making out. They spot me, and look at me. One of em, an Asian pretty-boy, asks me how old I am. I reply
"Old enough." before I enter the toilets. I come back out about five minutes later and presto! There's a third guy there!
The rest of the time spent in Fumo Blu was cool - we talked to these two chubby-looking girls, joking about the pot-plant cocktail there that they had discarded, because they didn't like the taste (it tasted like lime when I tried it). After a little while longer, we left and ended up cruising down Hindley St where this guy on the sidewalk gave me weird looks when he saw me pull my chapstick out of my pocket and use it on my lips. I notice him and I say to him
"Yes, it's a lipstick. I don't appreciate you looking at me like a piece of meat like that."
We walk off, leaving him with a "WTF mate?!" look on his face, and his female companion looking rather amused. We step into the McDonalds on Hindley to get us some midnight snacks, and then I spot the same couple walk in.
They end up eating near us as well, and for some reason, as we leave, the girl who was with chapstick guy waved goodbye to us.
There really wasn't that much else good on Hindley St, so we decided to call it a night and head home.
I told my co-workers about seeing that couple yesterday and today. Amusingly enough, one of them said that gay guys usually like to hit on the masculine guys. I'm masculine enough that gay guys would hit on me? I ask her if she thinks that I'm masculine, she replies yes, but that I have a bit of a baby-face.
Well, the fact that gay guys are hitting on me bodes well for the fact that I'm actually attractive to women, or are on the path to it ^_^;;
Hopefully soon enough I'll be blogging about my merry dance interstate.
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