The Abandoned Power Station

I mentioned a few months ago that Perth has adopted "graffiti" as a legitimate form of art. It is respected openly, people and companies dedicate space for artists, community projects make sure walls are updated and evolving, and its relatively prolific throughout the city.

This past weekend, as I was wrapping up my time in Perth, I made the short little trek down to South Fremantle / North Coogee Beach area. (By the way, "Coogee" is a fun word to say). This is the location of the abandoned power station, where artists have wall-to-wall graffiti'd this enormous structure. A co-worker had tipped off me that it is a worthwhile and intriguing visit if you like alternative types of sight-seeing, and with only a week left in Perth, I had few opportunities to do so.

Some of the artwork is really complex and detailed, while others are of the "tagging" variety. One of the more impressive things, which is mostly lost in a 2D picture, is the location of the artwork. Imagine painting a 2 meter by 4 meter piece from 20 meters up with only narrow, rusty scaffolding at your feet. Some locations boggled my mind even if the person used safety equipment. I have to imagine that some people must have died, or at least were seriously injured, in the history of making this place what it is today.

I'm not going to say much more than that. I've updated the link with all the pictures from the trip to the power station, and few more pics I snapped of graffiti elsewhere in the city. Below I've put my top favorite pictures (in no particular order) I took at the plant. I hope you enjoy the impressiveness of their artwork, whoever they are. All I did was simply take a picture.

I took this picture while exploring the empty lot adjacent to the power station, while trying to find a way in. 

Missing from this shot is the entire stairwell, which is pretty cool, but that picture didn't turn out well because it was so heavily backlit. 

If you can imagine it, this is a power station literally on the beach.  Nowadays, power stations are hidden away as best as possible and it seems unthinkable to put one on a beach. 

This picture really helps show the scale of the building and just how much artwork there is in the place. This is one of four sections of the entire complex. On the top level in this picture,  there is no floor or obvious access. Making art is hard enough when you're relaxed, but imagine being terrified.

A creepy hallway. I actually walked all the way through here. As I was a third of the way through, I heard the sound of a metal door hinge creaking... nearly lost it. I didn't have the guts to go into the basement where little natural light penetrations.

Here's a picture of the exterior that shows some of the interesting and difficult places people have managed to graffiti. 

This is my last blog post from Perth! 

A Wrench in the Plan

Things have been moving right along in the world. I came back from Vietnam essentially jobless and scraping the bottom of the barrel, but quickly found three hospitality jobs (there may be an inverse correlation between dollars in your bank account and eagerness to work) and then started working 8 to 12 hour a day routinely thereafter, often in split shifts which meant 18 hour days.

I knew I had a paycheck on the way, but I had caught the pay cycle at the wrong time, so was forced to wait another two weeks for relief. That sort of dragged a bit, but I actually enjoyed the challenge -- the idea of getting by on my own and seeing how far I can stretch my budget. For those two weeks I had my food budget to $25/week, which if you know Perth, is commendable. Fortunately, each of my jobs came with a free meal each day or night, so the more I worked, the less ramen noodle soup I had to eat. Talk about incentive.

In the meantime, on a whim, I decided that I'd do a search for an engineering job despite having unsuccessfully tried on-and-off for months. But there it was, on Seek.com, a company looking for someone with exactly my relevant experience from the pharmaceutical industry. It's like someone took my resume and then wrote a job description for me. I applied and heard back quickly, to my disappointment, that they wanted someone who could work seven months, but my visa restricted me to six months with any single employer. That for me was the figurative death knell. If an employer didn't want my expertise because of a one month difference in eligibility to work, then I was never going to find a professional job in Australia.

So I made plans, started figuring out a budget for when I'd have enough saved up to buy a ticket home and maybe a little extra for a quick tour of Oz. I set some fixed dates in my mind to quit my jobs between mid to end of March. I started preparing myself mentally to go home. While riding on the train to work each day, I starting make a playlist of songs with themes about "home" that I'd listen to for the epic flight to North America. I was working my ass off each day to make this happen, but it was good because I was ready. I wanted to go home finally. For all intents and purposes, I was going home. It was just a six week trip to make it there.

Well, maybe life wasn't ready for me to go home yet. The recruiter called me back and said the pharmaceutical company wanted to interview me after things didn't work out with other candidates. I arranged an interview for 6am Perth time (9am Sydney time where the interviewers were calling from), which was the only time to that fit into my work schedule of 8:30am to 4pm as a barista at a cafe, and 5:30pm to 10pm as a pizza cook. There were several interviews. Those were long days.

At the end of the second Skype interview, I got a call from the recruiter.
How do you think the interview went? 
It went really well, even better than the first one, I think.
That's great. Well, they felt the same way. They want to offer you the job! Isn't that exciting?
That's great. Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity, but I sort of had my mind set on heading home soon. I need a day to think about it.

There was noticeable disappointment in the recruiters reaction to my somewhat neutral response. Probably because I was threatening her paycheck after a commendable effort on her part to work with me actively (and no other recruiter did that for me here in Perth).

I got sorted for my day at work, which means wearing all black (shirt, pants, and shoes). I always feel like an undertaker as I make the trek into work -- when I wear my all black sunnies (aka sunglasses) I feel like an out of place jazz musician. By the time I got off the train I knew that the "correct" professional and financial decision was to take the job in Sydney but I didn't feel comfortable about it. I'm stubborn and changing my mind on big things usually takes a week or two. I only had a day, and the burden of the decision felt heavy on my shoulders.

I arrived at work early. I wanted a coffee. I was brooding over my decision. While I was making a coffee for myself, my co-workers must have assumed I had started work and left me all alone at the front. Some customers came in, and I wasn't going to let them stand there waiting, so I took their order: A soy latte and a skinny flat white. It would only take a minute so I figured I'd make their coffee despite the fact I hadn't started work yet. But my head wasn't entirely in it, and I put the soy in the wrong jug and didn't notice until I started steaming the second jug of milk. Figures.

So I pulled some more shots of espresso, wash out the jugs, and start steaming the soy, etc., and all this is taking a few extra minutes. The supervisor comes up front to take the orders of more customers that have filtered in. She starts telling me that I need to start using a bigger jug because I'm going too slow. The other people in line can hear this critique. This was bullshit feedback for a few reasons. One, the original customers had requested two different types of milk, so a bigger jug isn't going make things quicker -- in fact, a bigger jug would probably take longer. Second, the reason it took so long is that I messed up the order. And third, I wasn't on the fucking clock yet. If someone else was doing there job I wouldn't be doing it for them!

I finished those coffees and started on a take-away order put in front of me. I'm still not on the clock yet but it's a take-away tea and a cappuccino, so will only take a minute. I call the order out and the guy grabs the tea from the lid to hand to his wife and the lid pops off. The water for the tea is very hot and it spills onto part of his hand. To be honest, I probably messed up putting the cover on entirely. He starts cursing at me, "You're dicking around for ten minutes and you can't even put a fucking coffee cup on right." Et cetera, et cetera. My supervisor says a few more things concurring with the pace of my work. Anyway, I clean up the small mess, and apologize. Then I take the coffee I had made for myself, now cold, and sit down for another ten minutes until my shift starts. Talk about the start of a bad day on top of the news of the morning.

I was put on some kitchen-hand work with the chef that morning. I explained to him my situation and he was very encouraging. I hadn't totally made up my mind yet. I think his enthusiasm for my opportunity helped me re-calibrate my own perspective and become enthusiastic too. I needed that. I called the recruiter on my break and told her I had made my decision. I was going to take the job.

So that was a week ago and things are happening quickly. I'm finish up my hospitality jobs this week. I took a picture of the last coffee I made at work, and I have a few more shifts as a pizza cook.

Pouring the milk for my (second to) last coffee.

The final result. Not bad for being under pressure.

I was lucky to find and secure an affordable apartment in Sydney that is walking distance to work. I'm flying out on Saturday morning, and start work Wednesday, February 15th.

Home is a relative thing. Often it's a comfortable place where friends, family, scenery and habits are familiar. When that isn't the case, then you are in transit -- you're a traveler, near or far from an actual home. When I'm in transit, I look at things with a different perspective and it often leads to unique experiences. If you're lucky, some of those in-transit places become a home, and I have some fond memories of places like that. But Perth never really felt like home to me. I've been in-transit in Perth for six months now, and that's too long and not that interesting. It would be more appropriate to say I was "stuck", and the intrigue was gone. So I look forward to the next six months in Sydney. I doubt it will feel like home either, and I'm not looking for Sydney to fit that bill, but it is one step closer to home and another adventure of a different variety. Those are two things I'm excited about.