Cairns

I had only three days to spend in Cairns, so as soon as I arrived I organized a guided tour to the Port Douglas area, which meant I’d get to check out the Daintree Rainforest and catch the scenic drive along the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately, tourism in Australia involves choking down the outrageous prices, which aren’t even on the same order of magnitude as Asia. Despite that, I surrendered my money under the premise that I wasn’t coming back to Australia anytime soon. (I can't prove it, but I believe the tourism costs are part of Australia’s strategy to push travelers into exploitative low-skill farm jobs).

Afterward I went to grab dinner and check out the rest of town. I hadn’t yet seen Cairns during the day, so my first impression consisted of a small, binge-drinking, kitschy tourist city. Two days later, when I would see it during the day, I realized I had pretty much nailed it. For now though, I made a loop around the city scouting out the restaurants. I finally settled on something familiar from Asia: A Chinese buffet market, all offering the same buffet selections for the same prices, and yet everyone was waiting in line at the shop in the southwest corner. Kafka would be proud.

I stood in the same line waiting for my turn, and reflected on the demographics of the people eating: Mostly older couples or families but some (much) younger travelers than me, mostly obese, and seemingly no solo travelers. I was still getting comfortable in my solo traveler skin, and I realized that the markets in Australia are not the hubs for social interaction that they are in Asia. I’d have to rethink my strategy in meeting people.

Fortunately, this issue was resolved in a “small world” way. I caught the profile of a familiar face from my days at Lafayette College (or rather, from my ex-girlfriend’s days), and I instinctively called out her name to see if I was mistaken.  Sure enough, in two years on the road, I had finally met a friend from my old life in the USA. (Since I didn’t ask her if I could use her name, I’ll refer to her as Lucy). We spent a few minutes to get through formalities and we decided to meet later after I finished dinner at Kafka’s Place.

When I met Lucy and her friend later that evening, we swapped travel stories and impressions on Australia, but the conversation tended to circle back to how freakin’ incredible it was to run into a friend so far from where we first met. I have to admit, it was a great way to settle into the last leg of my travels, and it also reminded me of how much I missed my friends and family from home.  And as nice as it all was, I called it any early night because I had an early pick-up for the tour of the Daintree National Park. It was too expensive not to be well rested.

The shuttle bus that picked me up at 7am was still half full and I chose the only seat that had any semblance of leg room. Seats during a tour tend to be de facto assigned seats, and I was happy with my luck. 15 minutes later, the rest of the bus filled up in one go and I was crammed shoulder-to-window as an overweight, emphysemic man huffed his way into the seat next to me. So much for good luck.

An estuary from the Daintree National Park flowing into the Great Barrier Reef. Our guide informed us that these are the only two UNESCOWorld Heritage sites that are immediately adjacent to each other. 

Over the next 8 hours, I learned that my travel companion was a simpleton, he talked in a lisp (the quantity of teeth in his mouth were a handful shy of enough), his inside voice was closer to a shout than a whisper, whenever possible he shouted bad and off-color jokes in relation to the tour guide’s monologue (bringing admonition from his wife), and his name was Michael. I learned his name from context since I figured asking might lead him to believe I wanted to continue the conversation. At the present moment, the air-conditioned bus hadn’t even started the journey north to Port Douglas and Michael was dripping sweat while struggling to get enough slack in his seatbelt to fit around his waist. Michael was special, maybe clinically.

The problem with guided tours in Australia, often guided tours in general, is that they tend to be over-hyped and gimmicky. The guided tour I was currently on advertised a chance to observe Australian wildlife including the colorful cassowary bird, a scenic view of the coast from the top of a mountain, a boat cruise down a crocodile infested estuary, and a hike through the rainforest. In reality: We visited a bird sanctuary with a petting area for kangaroos and wallabies, the bus driver drove up the mountain and we were given 5 minutes to take pictures from the lookout, we hopped on a rickety boat with a chatty tour guide who pointed out all the wildlife that I deduced is in the same place every day (if it hadn’t moved I would have assumed it was plastic), and we followed a wood-planked walking trail for a few kilometers through the jungle. I more or less expected all this, and took my disappointments in stride.

Look at how cute that eager wallaby is!! 

Someone clever altered the speed bump warning sign.

A young cassowary that snuck up on us during our hike in the woods. 

I’ve added a few pictures to Picasa, here, so you can get a sense of the tour, but my personal highlight was Michael. (I didn't take any pictures of him). When we stopped for lunch Michael was floored with the crocodiles we had seen on the riverbank. “That was probably the second favorite thing I've seen in Australia,” he told the air. And what was his first?! It was “eating lunch while feeding lions and tigers raw meat”. I was fascinated and appalled at the same time. Keep in mind that about an hour earlier, our guide explained that Australia’s rainforests are so old (~50 million years old) that they do not have any large predatory cats or primates. I thought about telling Michael that maybe only half that statement was true on this day, but that seemed mean. 

Talk about slightly optimistic signage when a crocodile "attack may cause injury or death". Only in Queensland. 

In the end, it was a nice tour for a person with a limited amount of time to spend, but I would have rather experienced it on my own at my own pace if I could have. For the next day, I had organized scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, and perhaps that would be better. Surely that wouldn't be over-hyped, would it?

A Bag Packed

On Friday, my co-workers organized a going-away happy hour and dinner for me. The timing coincidentally corresponded to our monthly paycheck deposit, which is usually accompanied with a happy hour, and so it appeared like I was extra special because a lot of people showed up. On top of that, they paid for my drinks and food and picked a venue near my apartment in Sydney, so perhaps, yes, I felt special.

That evening I started what I will call "a wicked bender" of a weekend. It is the type of weekend fueled by the desperation of an individual trying to extract everything fun possible from a city before he leaves it behind. It started tame: Sangria, a margarita, a very dirty martini. (There's a pun in there somewhere, I'm sure). Then a brisk walk to Darling Harbor, a few drinks at a sports bar, and an awkward yet non-threatening moonwalk around a group of nonplussed young ladies. Somehow that turned into gambling at the casino until 5am with two accomplices. That will happen. Fortunately, I won $600 playing Blackjack, which meant I paid for half of my flights around Australia. A similar experience happened again on Saturday night (sans the gambling), woke up a few hours after going to bed to have breakfast with a friend, and then returned home to pack my bag. After five minutes, I gave up and accomplished a nap instead. Packing is hard.

In a sort of awkward arrangement, my last day was a Monday. I said my goodbyes and tried not to think too much about how I would like to stay if circumstances were different (i.e mainly, Australia being closer to eastern USA). I returned to my apartment that afternoon where my first task was to sort my belongings into four piles: Things I will ship home, things I will donate to the salvation army, things I will throw away, and things I will carry around for the next few weeks. I did this apathetically for 30 minutes, gave up and went climbing instead. Somewhere around midnight I summoned the motivation to finished the job, and when it was finished, I crashed on my bed. It was a long previous three days.

So it was early Tuesday morning, the day of my flight to Cairns, that I went to the post office to ship my box of things home. When I plonked the large box on the counter, the postal worker's blank emotionless countenance told me my task would not be so simple. She notified me, with a condescending frown only a disgruntled union worker can give, that the girth of my box was too large. Indeed. I pleadingly asked her if she could find another box in the back room instead of having me purchases multiple tiny boxes (sold for $5 a pop) and have to pay separate shipping charges. She waddled, oh so slowly, to the back room to "look". I imagine her closing the door behind her, counting to 10, and coming out to tell me with a slight nod of the head that, "No, there are no boxes". I wanted to ask if she is always so helpful to customers.

$400 dollars poorer and an agonizing hour of my time stolen from my life, I walked out of the post office to head to the airport. On the walk and train ride there, I realized that I had still over-packed, despite all the things I've learned in two years on the road. To be fair, my pack weighed 13 kilograms at check-in, but I know I can do better for a 2 to 3 week trek -- I just didn't want to worry about not having certain things. (In contrast, when I went to Korea two years ago, it was 22 kilograms). Sometimes piece of mind is worth a few kilograms.

My whirlwind tour of Ozzieland. Keep in mind that Australia is about the size of continental USA.

I'll be flying from Sydney to Cairns to Darwin to Alice Springs, road trip to Uluru, and back to Sydney in less than two weeks. It isn't cheap but at least domestic flying in Australia is sort of what I imagine domestic flying must have been like in the USA during the late 80s and early 90s. In Sydney, no one asked me to take off my shoes. My Pennsylvania driver's license was taken as suitable ID. No one really gave me a "does he look like a terrorist?" once-over evaluation (I have a slight beard mind you). I high-fived the guard as I walked through the metal detector. Well, maybe not that last one.

Three relatively painless hours later (at least compared to the post office in Sydney), I arrived in Cairns. I walked to baggage claim and my friendly green backpack birthed itself through the carousel flaps. I threw it over my shoulders, sinched the straps, and walked toward the shuttle pick up area. Two sliding glass doors parted, a cricket (just one it seemed) chirped quietly nearby, as a gentle evening breeze welcomed me to Cairns. It feels good to be back on the road, I thought to myself.

Oh! And happy birthday Mom!

It's a Date

I can finally say, with a tinge of sadness and anxiety, that I've bought a plane ticket back to the USA. I will step onto American soil (San Fran to be precise) on August 26th 2012. That's exactly two years to the day from when I quietly hugged my half-asleep sister goodbye in her bed, and crept out to a dark and sleeping city of Boston. In the cab, I pensively looked out the window at the blurry and unexciting scenery to Logan Airport. I tried to convince myself that my shivering was from being under-dressed in the cold wee-hours of the morning and not nerves.

I sometimes think of that person in the taxi on that morning -- That Me. Am I any different from That Me? Would That Me be happy with what I've been doing with the last two years of my life? I definitely don't think That Me would be disappointed, but I can't honestly tell you because I find it hard to think of myself in any way other than what I am right now. The funny thing is that my time of traveling in Asia all seems so distant, like a life I've assimilated into my memory after watching it too many times in a film.

The sky this past Saturday morning was striking and typical for a Winter's day in Australia: cloudless and vibrant blue. I patroned my favorite bakery and, with bread and coffee in hand, strolled down to a nearby park. I found a jungle gym on which to lounge about while I finished my breakfast, reflecting on the fact that my days in Sydney were numbered (and feeling mostly good about that fact).

A group of teenagers decked out in capes and swords were L.A.R.P.ing. On the playing fields, men were kicking around a rugby football. Near me, an old man let his dog off the leash and the dog did a wild dash that says he has been pent up inside too long. The dog rolled around and delightfully proceeded to military crawl for a few meters back to his owner, apparently unwilling to sever complete contact with the pleasantries of green grass. I think I felt a little like that dog. This was a good morning.

If I could have, maybe I would have bottled that morning into a jar, so I could remember it so clearly in the future. Or maybe I wanted to save those sentiments from that exact moment, because I know its easy to forget how lucky we are, and how exciting and open-ended life's journey really is. Well, Time has a funny habit of moving on and this moment was no exception.

I was broken from my daydream feeling self-conscious and awkward (which is a personality trait I am painfully reminded of on a nearly daily basis). An adult can only play so long on a jungle gym by himself before strange looks follow. I figured I'd do a more normal pursuit and walk around the streets of row houses with no particular direction or stopping point. If there is a motto I've tried to follow while traveling, I'd probably quote from a Dan Bern song, "Sometimes you gotta get lost till you wind up someplace new."

I hadn't thought of that song for a long while -- maybe a year or more -- until I got a text from a friend asking what I was up to at the moment. I replied, "In the process of getting lost somewhere near the football stadium." I queued up that Dan Bern song on my iPod to kick off the walkabout, and set out. A few minutes later, I noticed for the first time that he finishes the song with a variant of the aforementioned lyric, saying "Sometimes you get lost and you don't find something new."

You might think I'm insinuating that my trip has been a trivial enterprise. That would be incorrect. But I am saying, in a really long winded and somewhat contrived, figurative way, that I guess I don't feel I'm any different than That Me in the cab in Boston two years ago. Or if I am, I can't really tell the difference. And I guess it doesn't really matter either way. You, dear reader, may one day soon be the judge.

In an ironic way, the idea of heading home is more daunting than leaving. I left for Korea on a one way ticket with my own means and a flexible itinerary (to get to Europe; Ha!). I'll be coming back with plans of catching up with family and friends, and after that, confronting the existential abyss. It means figuring out a new life again -- one that seems to be calling for a less transient lifestyle -- or figuring out how I'm going to procrastinate that for a while longer. Man, the existential abyss is such a pain in the ass. I think Nietzsche said that.

Anyway, I'm excited for the first phase of being back in the USA! T-minus 63 days!

F.B.D.O.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and write down blog ideas once in a while, you might forget what the hell to write about.

I usually know that it's time to make a post -- whether I have an idea or not -- when I find myself day dreaming about stories I want to write. Recently, my day dreaming starts with the image of a woman curled up with a pillow in a French window. She is looking out into a grassy, yellow meadow with a green evergreen forest in the background. The sun is setting behind the trees and there's a gentle cross-breeze in the room.  Sometimes, somewhere, a piano is playing, but it's muffled by walls or distance. (It's cliche, I know,  but it's a nice picture in a nostalgic sort of way). Then I pick a literary genre, piece togeher some details, and try to create a story that might be worth telling. 

Is there a narrator or am I the narrator? Is it a female voice or a male voice? Is the woman young or old? Am I seeing my own house with someone else in it? If yes, how do I fit into the story?  What is this woman feeling? Is the house empty? Who is playing that piano? What song are they playing?  The song always parrots how I imagine the woman feels: It's Fur Elise playing, but just the up-tempo section (that comes after the right handed notes every kid tries to learn so they can pretend that they know how to play piano for about 6 seconds). Then Charlie Chaplin pops out of the woods and the piano is playing the "The Entertainer", but Charlie Chaplin can't be alive SO he must be a zombie and now the pianist is playing Mozart's Requiem and I'm thinking that this woman is never going to survive the Charlie Chaplin zombie apocalypse with such abject observation skills that she could let an entire orchestra and choir sneak into the house without her noticing, not to mention locking the effing door! You're done for, lady! 

Well, I doubt anyone will be surprised to hear I haven't made millions on any book details. Yet.

So day dreaming covers about, uh, say 85% of my life since the last time I posted. Maybe. Maybe not. The other 15% I've spent at work (less so doing work) and starting to get more selective with my friends and acquaintances that I've made over the past two months. (You can never be too picky when you're new in town). Surprisingly, I've made a handful of friends from the New England area (probably a sign I'm missing home or they are just better people).  

My french roommate hitting in the GPS location for an early Saturday morning road trip to wine country. Mind you, the van was full of roses and other assorted flowers for the wedding. No complaints. 

Recently, I updated my tired-looking backpackers' wardrobe (with the help of my gay roommate, as cliche as it sounds), and continue to do so with weekend visits to the Salvation Army one block away. I've explored the extensive parks and gardens in the Sydney CBD area. On an invite from my French roommate, I kept him company on an overnight trip to the wine county of Orange where he was the florist-decorator for a wedding. Afterward, we sampled the local cellars.  I visited the Blue Mountain National Park and a set of nearby caves. I saw a platypus in the wild  (sorry if you already know this, but I repeat it because I'm proud of it). I went canyoning with a co-worker through a narrow, sun-warmth blocking canyon. And although I didn't see a Sydney Funnel-web spider, I thought about it sneaking up on me the whole time -- that is, until my core temperature got so cold from the water that I couldn't feel my limbs. 

My roommate's flower set up for the dinner table. 

Wine country in sunny Australia!

I've started climbing frequently at Sydney's Indoor Rock Gym, and I'm smashing it despite the fact that the route setters are friendly graders. I met up with a climbing friend from Perth and I pieced together a 26 (5.12b) at the rock gym. At the same time I was graced by my girlfriend who traveled 50 hours (round-trip flying time) to spend a mere week with me. That's purely a sign of her greatness, not mine. 

I've done the touristy stuff. The zoo: classy, well-arranged, nice variety of animals who look and act happy. The aquarium: Nothing special. Save your money. The casino: Don't go unless you plan on winning. Opera house: Sort of cool, but I would like to get back to something in the main concert hall. The Sydney Harbor Bridge: A nice walk with a view if you like windy bridges. Bondi beach: Where I ate my first deep-fried Mars bar. It's touristy but oddly alluring. Manly beach: Some good hikes around the national park, as long as you don't get lost.  I've hopped around the town from wild clubs to high class bars to dives to the gay clubs in "The Slurry". On ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) Day, I played two-up and won thirty dollars. 

The ANZAC bridge looking into the Sydney Harbor. 

Fresh sashimi from the fish market in Sydney. 

My roommate is helping me to attain a beginner+ level in piano. Currently, I can play both hands of Jingle Bells. But only the chorus. And it's a kid's version. I sometimes try to improve my french. This typically consists of my french roommate teaching me bad words to call women as we drive to the rock gym. I met the friends of the biker in the video below, who seemly want to pick a fight with me because I was wearing a helmet and riding a road bike (with "skinny tires"). I smiled, got my beer and then filmed this from a higher, farther vantage point. 

So things are good in Sydney. I highly recommend a visit if you ever have the chance. And if it is in the next four months and you're on a traveler's budget, you can sleep at the foot of my bed in a tiny, tiny room. 

But seriously, who is playing that piano?

Sydney, New Apartment, Mardi Gras

I flew into Sydney after a heavy storm had recently cleared. The plane rolled hard to the right for the approach and I, with a window seat, took in a birds-eye view of my new city for the first time. Suburban sprawl bled into denser residential housing into light commercial buildings and finally into jutting skyscrapers at the center. Brooklyn Bridge-esque sandstone towers anchored the north Sydney suburbs to the heart of the city and in between lay the Sydney Harbor bustling with ferries and sail boats. The Sydney Opera House -- smaller than I expected but catching the eye like a diamond -- conspicuously glistened in the clean, post-storm gleam of the setting sun. Talk about a grand first impression.

I had spent a lot of time looking at Sydney from Google maps, and roughly deduced the plane's location. I was quick enough to realize I was probably looking at a commercial building that would soon be my haunt eight hours a day, five days a week, for the next six months. What would my life be like here? What does Sydney have to offer?

I took a double-decker train from the airport to CBD (central business district), and then a bus to the apartment I had found from Gumtree searches when I was still in Perth. I met my quirky home owners, Maurice (ex-pat, British, age 63, semi-retired, slightly obsessive compulsive) and Alice (age 45, Chinese immigrant, hairdressing shop owner, chatty and fiery). They introduced me to my room in the detached in-law flat I'd be sharing with a Chinese university student. When I say detached flat, I mean a renovated garage. Unsurprisingly, the kitchen was outside under a covered patio. I sat outside with the owners as we got to know each other, and a rat ran across the one of the beams of the pergola. Alice exclaimed in stilted English, "I never seen that before!" One hour into my short-term lease and I was sure I needed to find a new place sooner than later.

During the first night, I was disturbed intermittently by some sort of rodent scampering in the ceiling. It didn't take much to imagine what sort of rodent it would be. I brought this up to Alice the next evening, and she said curly-tailed possums are notorious for nesting in ceilings, but they aren't a big problem. Okay, whatever. I started my search for a new apartment that evening. A few evenings later, while I sat at my desk, I heard scampering directly above the ceiling. A piece of the drywall spackle fell away from the edge where the ceiling mated with the wall. I looked up to see a dark brown rat tail hanging down from the hole. Yeah, try to fall asleep with that image in your mind. Good luck.

This time, when I told Alice, she listened. The next day she installed an ultra-sonic rat alarm, which surprisingly worked, and they had a contractor stop by to quote a price to fix the problem permanently. Fortunately for me, I had been proactive in finding a new apartment, and would move into my new place by the end of the second week of work.

Fast forward five days. (Whitney Houston died. The owners bicker about petty things. Every night, Whitney Houston music plays on a stereo system through a blown speaker).

With little fan-fair on a Friday after work, I packed my boxes and backpack, and hailed a cab to take me to my new row house apartment in the inner-city suburb of Surry Hills. (The cabi's licence was alpha-numeric and there were no dice in the mirror. He was from Bangladesh, if you were curious). I had only visited this part of the city once, which was during the room showing on a late night weekday. Now, on a bustling Friday early evening, I got to see it in a new light. Night clubs were setting up for the weekend debauchery and trendy clothing stores were closing down. A small number of street-level shops had seedy looking neon signs in front of inconspicuous staircases. Bars, cafe's and restaurants were full of people of all ages enjoying society. While I'm painting you a picture with words, there seemed to be a noticeable amount of well groomed men wearing tight fitting clothing and speaking in flamboyant accents.

Jason welcomed me with a formal tour of the house. He had taken care of everything so I could move right in: clean room, clean bed sheets, a shelf in the closet for shoes (and yes, I need a full shelf), cabinet for my food, two shelves in the frig, and a cabinet in the bathroom for toiletries. He suggested I unpack and then offered a tour of the essential shops nearby. So I did just that. As I learned the location of two grocery stores, Salvation Army, straight clubs, gay clubs, liquor stores for wine, liquor stores for beer, and bus stops, I got to know my new roommate better (I also live with a French guy and his Thai girlfriend).

During the house showing I had learned that Jason is from Malaysia, he's gay and works as an accountant in the city. While walking around the street, he laughed at me as I asked him if Surry Hills had a large gay community. He basically said Surry Hills is the heart of it. Sydney seems to be is a very gay friendly city though.

At some point during that walk, Jason asked me if I wanted to join him and some friends in the Mardi Gras. I agreed then basically out of a principle that my friend in Perth once put to words regarding living in a Western country like a traveler: Say yes to all new opportunities, because they usually end up being great experiences. Well, the Mardi Gras parade was one of those things I didn't feel comfortable with -- not because I assumed I'd be dressed in a hyper-skimpy outfit in public (which is really the best part) -- but because thousands of people would be intently watching each float that goes by and secondly, the parade was being broadcast internationally. With a debilitating fear of being the center of public attention, I'd have been equally as nervous as a driver of a float.

Between that Friday and the next Saturday, I got ready for the parade. First, Jason mentioned that he liked to style hair, and I mentioned that I liked to get free haircuts. When my trendy haircut was all finished, he gave me styling tips for how to use gel. Then he looked at my patchy chest hair, waved an open hand in the general area, and said, "You're gonna have do something with all this before the parade." Two days later he was shaving my chest and giving me instructions on how to do it without getting ingrown hairs. There was one night during the week where I met Jason's friends and we brainstormed about costumes trying to incorporate the float theme colors of red, white and black.

The float theme was "Muslims Against Homophobia". I mentioned this to a few people, and if they didn't say it out loud, then I read it in their faces: Um, are you crazy? I assumed they were trying to estimate about how many people in the world hated me. I would then have to explain that the float needed volunteers and, depending on how hard the guy was coming onto me, that I was neither. Anyway, I personally preferred our sign that read "Queer Muslims Need Acceptance". That's a message a little easier on the ears.

On the morning of the parade, I walked to the Asian market and picked through some of the women's clothing stores. I found some white daisy duke shorts, and striped white-and-red socks. I would pair that with suspenders I'd be borrowing and a star-print handkerchief.  Finally, I thought I'd paint on a lightning bolt over my eye a la Ziggy Stardust.

Jason's friends came over at 3pm and we spent the next 3 hours getting ready. My lightning bolt idea turned into a star to stick with the theme of the handkerchief and I added a few more in some risque places. Everyone else had rocked the color theme well.

The final product. The gay turned up to 11. 

From left to right, me (I'm the fat one), Jason, Florian (my other roommate, the florist), Susan, Yens, and Alan.  During the parade, everyone was cat calling for the two on the right. 

We arrived at the parade around 5pm but the first float didn't launch until 8pm. It had been overcast all day, and soon it was raining and cold. We were all a little under dressed, to say the least, and our float was scheduled for the last half of the parade. After a long time of huddling under a bus stop awning, the marching director of our float, a militant drag queen, arranged us in three's and two's and made us practice a dance routine to a Shakira remix. And then we were off.

At the back of the pack, anything resembling order quickly fell apart and we ended up free form dancing (well, you could call it dancing for the others; my technique is often classified as awkward shaking), waving, screaming, and running around to our adoring fans. It was pretty amazing how much warmer the street was when we got to the spot lights and big crowds (and the television cameras, which I ignored). The rain let up too, but I got the impression that the crowd was a little more subdued than previous years.

Forty-five minutes later, and it was over. There was an after party concert with RuPaul and Kylie Minogue, and we lost a few of our group. The remainder of us went out for Thai food in the Kings Cross area. The streets were a sea of people, but I would only be a spectator for the night. I was happy to have survived a very public event and have a set of friends for a unique welcome to Sydney.

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.