Just got back from Melbourne where I had an unbelievable time. It was a perfect week. We drove down with my friends Jono and Haber from Sydney and stopped for the night at a beach called Dolphin Point. Though there was a little town behind it, the trees leading up to the beach provided great coverage, so it felt like it was just the three of us camping on a deserted beach.. It felt like taht scene in Y Tu Mama Tambien when they finally get to the Boca del Cielo, except none of us brought a hot aunt that was willing to fuck us. We cooked hot dogs by the fire and drank delicious mango juice. THe road trip was great.. I saw my first Kangaroo. He was lying dead on the road, probably hit by a car...so that was cool. THe conversation in the car was fascinating, and throughout most of the trip we were driving along a corridor with stunning forests at either side and occasional glimpses of the coast line.
Melbourne itself was incredible. Its a really vibrant city and has a great cultural life. We must have seen like 6 great music gigs just walking around town, and they were all free. I also went to a free Opera show in the park on Friday night, everyone just brought their picnic basket to the park and enjoyed the show. The first night we were there Jono took us to this dance studio beside a Church, where every Tuesday a bunch of random strangers get together and just dance. It was a really liberating experience. No drugs, no alcohol, no introductions, just music and dancing in the middle of the day...actually the end of the day, but it was still light outside.
There seems to be a big debate here and everywhere about what city is cooler Sydney or Melbourne. I feel like this debate is fueled mostly by ignorance. Melbourne is clearly the cooler place. Sydney is definitely more beautiful, probably the most beautiful city Ive ever been to,...but its not cool. The streets are wide and lined on either side with these majestic trees that look like they could have been characters in teh Lord of the Rings. The whole city smells like flowers, the birds are always chirping, the beaches are beautiful and pristine, and the women are really hot....but Its really hard to find a good live music gig in Sydney, especially a free one, whereas in Melbourne we just walked around Fitzroy and bar hopped from gig to gig. Melbourne has a much more active and readily available cutural life. In Sydney you must either try really hard to find it, or pay for it. Melbourne is not as pretty but it has a great vibe. Everyone rides around in their bike, the architecture doesnt seem to have changed much in the last decades, so you can walk around and feel like your in the 40's 60s or even 80's. That being said, the center of the city has a really cool modern feel to it, theres a lot of green, and a cool museum complex in the center called Federal Square. It even has a beach, which though not as pretty as Bondi, has a much cooler, less pretentious vibe... So yea, feeling pretty bumbed that I didnt choose to base mysel in Melbourne
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
China
Since the Chinese government blocks a bunch of internet sites, including this blog, I was unable to write my daily experiences as I had hoped. Pero bueno, aca va entonces un pequeno resumen de lo que fue la locura de China. I guess the firstt thing is that China is on a whole other level of magnitude. I saw buildings that I thought only existed in movies like I, Robot. ANd everywhere you went in teh Big Cities (HOng Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing) there were cranes so the construction is non-stop.
It really is quite the culture shock to be in CHina. I guess I just wasnt used to feeling like such a minority, but you really feel it there. There were even a couple of days in some of the small villages that we didnt see any western people outside of the hotel. ANd the Chinese get a kick out of the westerners too, we were stopped a couple of times in the street and asked if we could be photographed. Una vez vi una familia de puras ninas monas, y habia unan fila de de Chinos esperando pa tomarse fotos con ellas! Also the CHinese have some habits which I found quite gross.. THey spit everywhere, and all the time! ANd not just a little spit, IM talking Leo in Titanic type loogies, the ones that come from deep down in the throat. So every 2 minutes you hear that distinctive sound of someone bringing one up. And everybody spits, even old women!
Also little kids pi in the middle of the street and its no problem. Inclusive, los pantalones de los pelados tienen una raja en la parte de atras pa que les quede mas facil y ni tengan q bajarse los pantalones! Even the girls do it, they just pop a squat and go in the middle of the street. Me sorprendio bastante el poder del chorro de las ninitas, me ha hecho pensar seriamente en bajar al pozo. La comida es un video completo. Yo llegue penzando qu iva a ser aventurero y probar de totdo, pero ese plan quedo descartado muy rapidamente. Comen de todo! Tortugas, ranas, escorpiones estrellas de mar, intestinos de todo, pies de gallina. Y es una fritanga constante! En cualquier esquina y cualquier punto turista tienen su olla llena de aceite. Como que uno baja la montana mas linda del mundo y de una en el gift shop, hey you want some dried yak meat or some yak yogurt!
It really is quite the culture shock to be in CHina. I guess I just wasnt used to feeling like such a minority, but you really feel it there. There were even a couple of days in some of the small villages that we didnt see any western people outside of the hotel. ANd the Chinese get a kick out of the westerners too, we were stopped a couple of times in the street and asked if we could be photographed. Una vez vi una familia de puras ninas monas, y habia unan fila de de Chinos esperando pa tomarse fotos con ellas! Also the CHinese have some habits which I found quite gross.. THey spit everywhere, and all the time! ANd not just a little spit, IM talking Leo in Titanic type loogies, the ones that come from deep down in the throat. So every 2 minutes you hear that distinctive sound of someone bringing one up. And everybody spits, even old women!
Also little kids pi in the middle of the street and its no problem. Inclusive, los pantalones de los pelados tienen una raja en la parte de atras pa que les quede mas facil y ni tengan q bajarse los pantalones! Even the girls do it, they just pop a squat and go in the middle of the street. Me sorprendio bastante el poder del chorro de las ninitas, me ha hecho pensar seriamente en bajar al pozo. La comida es un video completo. Yo llegue penzando qu iva a ser aventurero y probar de totdo, pero ese plan quedo descartado muy rapidamente. Comen de todo! Tortugas, ranas, escorpiones estrellas de mar, intestinos de todo, pies de gallina. Y es una fritanga constante! En cualquier esquina y cualquier punto turista tienen su olla llena de aceite. Como que uno baja la montana mas linda del mundo y de una en el gift shop, hey you want some dried yak meat or some yak yogurt!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
China - first impressions
First thing that I liked in China was that there was a smiley face on the sidebar of the luggage trolley in the Shanghai airport. Also, when passing through security, I was asked to stand for a pet down, and there were these foot shaped suns with a smiley face to indicate where to place my feet.. Theres really no need for those smiley faces but I thought they were a nice touch
If I had any doubts that China was gonna take over the world, they have now vanished. This shit is on another scale!! Hong Kong is basically a gigantic mall. Each building is bigger than the next and they all look like something out of Star Wars. Also, they all connect wth each other in this intricate system of walkways, so that youre just going from building to building without ever touching the street..and all these walkways and building lobbys and metro stops are all malls. Every building has a shopping mall, theres simply not a single inch without some sort of store...theres even escalators in the middle of the street in one of the higher end neighborhoods. Its an amazing city, though I would never want to live there..
Its pretty scary to think how Chinese kids are gonna grow up n this envronment. Today we took the train to Shenzhen which is in mainland China. The immigration line was full of little kids that were also crossing the border. Some of these kids couldnt have been more than 2 or 3 years old, and they were standing there at the immigration couter, all of them standing on their tippy toes holding tere I.D cards..the immigration officer had to stand up to see them. There were hundreds of kids, it was a really cute/funny/creepy thing to see...
The best part so far though has been the endless amount of funny looking Chinese people. Old people are especially great. I have a picture of a really awesome pensive old dude with a hawaiian shirt on. I also had lunch with some really quirky characters yesterday. I went to eat with an English dude that I met at one of the tourist attractions, and when we got to the restaurant we were seated at the same table as three Chinese people who were already having their lunch! Even though there wre empty tables, the waitress sat us down with them. They didnt speak any English so there wasnt really much to say, but I took a good picture.
If I had any doubts that China was gonna take over the world, they have now vanished. This shit is on another scale!! Hong Kong is basically a gigantic mall. Each building is bigger than the next and they all look like something out of Star Wars. Also, they all connect wth each other in this intricate system of walkways, so that youre just going from building to building without ever touching the street..and all these walkways and building lobbys and metro stops are all malls. Every building has a shopping mall, theres simply not a single inch without some sort of store...theres even escalators in the middle of the street in one of the higher end neighborhoods. Its an amazing city, though I would never want to live there..
Its pretty scary to think how Chinese kids are gonna grow up n this envronment. Today we took the train to Shenzhen which is in mainland China. The immigration line was full of little kids that were also crossing the border. Some of these kids couldnt have been more than 2 or 3 years old, and they were standing there at the immigration couter, all of them standing on their tippy toes holding tere I.D cards..the immigration officer had to stand up to see them. There were hundreds of kids, it was a really cute/funny/creepy thing to see...
The best part so far though has been the endless amount of funny looking Chinese people. Old people are especially great. I have a picture of a really awesome pensive old dude with a hawaiian shirt on. I also had lunch with some really quirky characters yesterday. I went to eat with an English dude that I met at one of the tourist attractions, and when we got to the restaurant we were seated at the same table as three Chinese people who were already having their lunch! Even though there wre empty tables, the waitress sat us down with them. They didnt speak any English so there wasnt really much to say, but I took a good picture.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)