Victoria – An Accidental Vagabond

Gertrude Street Melbourne

Published on June 3, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Days before beginning my trip on the Great Ocean Road, and a week-n-a-half before my mother dies, I a sit in a beautiful park looking up at a blue sky. It is 34 degrees Celsius and it is hot. Next week there will be fires surrounding the city of Melbourne.

It is late January in Australia which is summer to those of us from the northern hemisphere. I’ve never experienced a sunny February since 1992 when I had lived in Hawaii.

Where does all of this take place? In the past or the present?

It’s always the past unless it is happening exactly when it is happening, and as I gaze at photos from a year ago, and you read this post possibly years from the date it was written, I write it as I again sit in a cafe in June. I’m sitting across from a new friend that is going to leave the city for a new life. This morning around 8 a.m. another new friend, left Prague. My heart feels a little heavy since when you live your life traveling (or partially traveling) you fall in love with people so quickly. The friendships are so precious- as if we had all known each other for years, but this is impossible. I used to ask myself, would we even be friends if we had met in another lifestyle, in the nine-to-five world, would the age differences and the cultures matter more in our daily relations? I stopped asking these questions because they are useless questions.

Friends are yet again leaving my life. Yes they are leaving, my life. It sounds selfish, but this is all from my perspective, and I only know what I see and feel within my periphery. They walk into and out of my life or I walk into or out of their life, but from my perspective. Once we separate everyone becomes a story, just like I am a story to them. It’s remarkable.

Lisa left Australia a week before I did. I had more time because in China as a teacher you get up to a month off during the winter holiday. It’s a huge perk. They offer this month break in many countries, the U.S. does not, so Lisa had to return to the states after two weeks. This left me with about four or maybe five days on my own.

We met a friend of a friend of Lisa’s in Melbourne. Craig. He was a nice guy, and a talented artist. He walked us all around the city of Melbourne at breakneck speed. He didn’t drive and so he was an expert walker. Craig introduced us to this beautiful park the Fitzroy Gardens in the city near to where we were staying.

After Lisa left and I returned from my Ocean road trip, I spent one day wandering around the city by myself and I finally found Gertrude street. Lisa did end up finding it before me, but I didn’t go with her that day preferring to loll about in the gardens instead of shopping. I’m not a shopper.

My favorite thing is to wander, take some photos, and then sit in cafes drinking coffee or drinking something while people-watching and writing in my journal. I’m jumping a little ahead- on my last day I spent the earlier part of my day with Craig.

Craig had walked me over into the Italian part of the city and we had these amazing watermelon granitas. A watermelon-lemon nonalcoholic crushed ice drink. They were so amazing, so refreshing we gluttonously had two each. Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar, the cafe where we had the ice drinks was built in the 1950’s and it had that wonderful 1950’s cafe design, and apparently it was the same interior as it was 58 ago. The seats at the bar and the checkered floor. “Come back to the Five and Dime Jimmy-Dean Jimmy-Dean”. It reminded me of the Italian cafes you find in San Francisco or New York.

Melbourne has an Italian and a Greek part of the city, it also has a Chinatown that is the oldest Chinatown in Australia. “Country-towns” all have a kind of movie appeal. As if it’s all a set, and you are the actor in the film. You travel to a foreign country, and then have lunch on the movie set of another foreign country, then go for a walk in another movie set foreign country, and dinner in yet another, and somehow the Greek town in Melbourne has a likeness to the Greek town in San Francisco, but you have a difficult time finding the Greek town in Greece. It’s true, we are all just folding over stories and illusions. I do enjoy the layers. I don’t think Prague has any of these. Everything thing in Prague is Prague- maybe on the outskirts, maybe some Russian parts. I’m not sure this is a new and extemporaneous thought.

I didn’t spend a lot of time wandering through Chinatown since I had been living in China during my time of visit, and Chinese food outside of China is never as good as Chinese food in China. As a side note I think San Francisco’s Chinatown can at times give you the closest idea of what it is really like in parts of China.

Craig took me to the sky view of the Eureka Tower, but because of the fires we were not able to see anything. He kept apologizing that we paid to go up to the top of the tower and there was no view. I said, that it wasn’t a problem that it was just preparing me for my return to China where I never had a view because of the pollution. Nothing could have prepared me for my return to China, not even my mother’s last e-mail. We are never prepared for the reality of death, even when we think we are waiting for it. In truth, the fires didn’t prepare me for the pollution either. When Lisa and I first left Oregon we drove through and visited Crater Lake. There had been terrible fires that year; it was August 2013. The skies were full of smoke and we could feel it in our skin, but fire is a clean smoke and the burning wood leaves a different residue. In China it is concrete and chemicals- forest fires don’t prepare you- a walk through a burning chemical plant would be more appropriate. I suppose you prepare for life the best way that you can and then walk through it with balance so you can catch yourself as you fall.

As soon as I had returned to China, and a day after I found out my mother had died, Craig sent me a photo from the tower because the smoke had cleared and he wanted me to see the view. Unfortunately, since my mom had died I didn’t see the photo till two or three weeks after he had sent it, but the kindness was not over looked. Kindness and thoughtfulness can never be overlooked. I had left Craig’s story in this story of my story. I don’t know how his story continued, but I kept the photos and the friendly e-mails.Now I write about him here in a story.

The last moments of my day in Melbourne and Australia were spent on Gertrude street in the Sila cafe, eating cookies, and drinking coffee, and writing. All of my favorite things. I had always wanted to be a beatnik, but felt I lacked the talent of words,and I was born about 30 years too late, but I did know how to drink coffee and too much wine plus I knew how to meet truly interesting and talented people. That was about as beatific as I could ever get.

I was particularly fond of this cafe because it reminded me of one of my favorite places in the world; North beach San Francisco in Cafe Trieste where Francis Ford Coppola wrote the God Father, and the where the beats, and the poets, writers and artists of the San Francisco Renaissance converged to create or cure a hangover or just hangout.

Writing these post from the past while in a present tense, yet thinking about the future, I am aware of the constant intersections as if life was a highway. The common cliche of the open road or the drive through life, and there are so many on and off ramps. We think we have maps, but they are often outdated, and even with modern technology we still don’t always know if we took the right turn. Not that it matters, because it’s all about the journey, right? I think a lot of the journey is about the people you meet and the things you do, and how open you are to the experiences offered.
What will you do with your one precious life? I ask myself constantly, and more so now that she’s gone, my mothers gone. I don’t ask myself so much what’s the right choice, I cat because I have to accept the choices I make. That’s not the right questions. The right question is what will I do with my precious short fragile life? What will I do today, and how much of it will be devoted to tomorrow?

St. Kilda, A Special Part of Melbourne

Published on May 28, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

In all honesty, I didn’t do any research before going to Australia. My friend sent me a message about how we should meet up in Australia, and I said yes. I bought a plane ticket, I reached out to my few Aussie, and Tassie friends, they hooked me up with places to stay and recommendations and then that was it. My friend Lisa did much of the research on what to do and where to stay. I felt like after spending six months in China that a trip to Australia was going to be so easy- and I was so right.

I’m happy Lisa put more into it because without Lisa’s research we may never have stayed in what I consider the best part of Melbourne. St. Kilda is a little distance from the center of the city, but worth the commute. It felt like a place completely separate from Melbourne, which I imagine it is to some extent. I’ve already mentioned that I liked Melbourne, and there were many great parts of the city, but St. Kilda was my favorite.

It wasn’t just because of this creepy fun park with the nightmarish clown mouth that you walk into, Sydney also had a Luna Park, but it helped with the setting. I had heard from some people that St. Kilda was once a pretty aggressive area. It makes me think of Dog Town when Southern California beach towns were tough and surfers weren’t the pretty groomed boys and girls of the magazines, but actually more gang like and territorial. I don’t know if that’s really what it was like, but you can tell that it’s still a little rough around the edges. I personally like that; the rough around the edges part. I tend to think rough around the edges is another way of saying creative and edgy.

No one wants to live in a place where they feel unsafe, but you also don’t want everything to look like the cookie cutter idea of happiness. I think you always need a little bit of wild to remind yourself that life is unpredictable and chaotic; everything else is just a facade. I guess to be more specific, once money and image comes into a neighborhood the rules and regulations get tighter. That once awesome muralist that would paint amazing paintings on the wall is suddenly a criminal, all because one person with more money moved into the neighborhood and doesn’t like the way it looks. Or the local market that would once give away food that was going to go bad to homeless people is suddenly fined because that new posh business that just moved into the neighborhood doesn’t like having homeless people around because it’s bad for business, or that local rock club that has been around for decades has to shut down because some real estate mogul has come in and bought up the property and wants to build condos for vacationers and he doesn’t care what happens to the local neighborhood because he doesn’t even live there, and so on. There’s still homelessness, there’s still crime (or new crimes have been created through new laws) you just can’t see any of it because they pushed it into another neighborhood. That’s what I mean about the facade.

I suspect St. Kilda will head the direction of tourist and vacation destination and price increases. I imagine it has already seen some price increases. It’s too bad it couldn’t stop right about where it is just floating between once rough and now up-in-coming that’s always the best time.

Judging by the architecture and some of the old photos of the area it was originally a pretty wealthy place, a fun palisade for the wealthier folk of Melbourne to come and visit for their summer holidays. But as happened to so many places at the turn of the century, it went from a Victorian playground for the rich to a red light district. Something happens and it falls into neglect and disrepair and eventually it becomes dangerous like Coney Island or Santa Cruz boardwalk. Those places were both scary in the 70’s and 80’s just watch The Warriors. All they wanted to do was make it back to Coney Island. Maybe it’s all just a crazy cycle.

One thing that we got to experience while we were there was the St. Kilda festival. Nine days of music and art. It doesn’t get more spectacular then that really. We watched several bands, and wandered into many galleries. To me music and art are basic fundamental parts of life just like food and shelter. We need it in order to really feel alive. We are nourished and then we express ourselves. If you really want to see what’s happening in a city check out the music and art scene. Is it exciting and new, refreshing, and surprising or is it something you can see on vevo or any manufactured pop scene?

I didn’t take many pictures of the bands, but I loved this colorful girl group that called themselves We Love the 90’s or something like that. I didn’t realize the 90’s were so bright and poppy, but maybe I wasn’t paying much attention back then.

And, of course we had to see some metal. We stayed about three nights in St. Kilda in a nice hotel just a few blocks from the beach. Even after we left and stayed in another part of town, I returned to take a final walk on the beach. I mean, just take a look at that sunset. It’s like it’s something straight out of a last days of summer motif.

The Interactive Arts exhibit in Melbourne NVG

Published on May 27, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

I’m sitting in a cafe in Prague as I write this post about an exhibit that took place over a year ago. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, when my mother died last year, I really felt like it didn’t matter whether or not I posted anything here about my trips. Especially my trip to Australia. This is because three days after I returned back to China my mom was found dead in her apartment, and I felt so angry with myself for not being there with her, or at the very least sending her that e-mail I had promised. The e-mail that would have told her all about my trip. I didn’t want to talk about the trip because I was so mad at myself for going. The truth is I had a great time in Australia, and I was really happy there and if my mom had lived, I would still have been happy with the memories. I would have told her all about it.

This blog is no substitute for sending an e-mail to my mother, but I feel a little melancholy with the idea that all my life experiences will just fade into obscurity when I die. I mean they could be lost in the obscurity of the web, but I’m okay with that because the illusion that I’m sharing something of my life makes me feel like I’m a part of the story. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I’m still working out this whole “what to do with my one life” thing. I think of Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day, and I wonder, yes, what am I supposed to do with this life other than love being a part of it. What am I supposed to do? Is it greedy to want more? Is it too much to request that I experience the best of this world and die with that? I hope not. So why hold back on sharing the stories even if obscurity is the future.

If I had to be asked what I liked more Sydney or Melbourne, I’d have to pick Melbourne. I know they’re kind of rival cities, and I know that there are arguments for liking Sydney more, but the best way I can say it is that Melbourne was more my speed. Sydney has better beaches, but Melbourne had something special. A vitality, and an energy like something was being created. Sydney had that suit feel: All business and then some expensive partying at night. Everyone is beautiful, successful, and making money. I understand that this appeals to people, but it’s not my thing. I like real spontaneity and spark. I like the idea that things are not finished yet and its all still a grand work in progress. A place where you can take risks because failing is only part of the process. I don’t think this risk taking and allowance for failure is in Sydney so much because it already has the image to upkeep and when image becomes more important than process, I think it gets a little boring. But, what do I know, I was only there for a week.

While I was in Melbourne there was an interesting exhibit going on at the National and International Art galleries of Victoria. I really enjoyed the National Gallery (NGV) because it was all Australian artists and all interactive. There was work from artists all over the country including Aboriginal art.

And, since it was interactive you could literally walk on some of the pieces, in fact, you were invited to.

In the International Gallery you had famous pieces from artists like Warhol and Lee Krasner. I was excited to see an original Krasner piece since a lot of her work has been overshadowed by her husband Jackson Pollock (mainly by her own choice since she wanted to foster him as an artists).

So much time has passed since I went to this exhibit, that I have lost the names of the artists. I have them somewhere in a journal hidden under piles of clothes in un packed suitcases. This is how I’ve been living for almost two years, unpacked and uncertain but moving, moving, moving- on. As soon as I find the names I will update this post.

I think some of my favorite work was the video work and of course the photography. I’m a huge fan of the film genre- moving and still.

I’m not the kind of person that can really tell you what’s happening in a painting. I lack the vocabulary, but something about the medium of film really speaks to me even some of the most abstract work.

I don’t know how long my friend and I stayed in the gallery, but it was an almost all day event. I think we did both the National and International one in the same day. It was well worth it. There were many pieces I didn’t take pictures of because I’m not really big on taking pictures of art. It isn’t a motto, it’s just that I forget because I’m more interested in just looking at it, and I rarely feel like I capture it well in a photo.

The final photo below is from an alleyway near the gallery. Melbourne has some of the most amazing and creative street art that I’ve ever seen. I took this picture while we were planning our next activity.

It is interesting how little of my trip remains in my memory especially since I had enjoyed it so much. I assume it has to do with my mother. I lost some of my joy. I think my mom would be sad to know that I had lost some of my joy because of her, but to her I would say, “what do you expect woman? I love you and you’re gone.” Still, I should reach back for some of those memories and those joys. I had never thought I would ever go to Australia. It had seemed so far away, and since I never have any money I had thought, I’ll never be able to go, but I was there. And, now I’m here in Prague writing about being in Australia. It’s ungracious to not revel in the memories of a joyful time of travel. It is ungracious to me and to my mother. So, a year after her death, I can say, “Mom, I had a really good time, and I’d like to have more.” I’d like to tell her all about it, but I’ll just have to settle with the ubiquity of the web.

So more tales from the travels of the past, as the travels of the future are dreamed about in the travels of the present. To the open road. No one can express the joy of travel more than Whitman.

You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

Song of The Open Road, Walt Whitman

The Great Ocean Road

Published on May 24, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

A year has already long past and the memories of this trip have faded. Memories that include the details of names and dates. This post will be useless to anyone looking to find the perfect tour and route because I’m empty handed or headed. I had meant to keep a journal and I think I even kept the tour guide with the brochure and name of the company with the intention of sharing the information. It was a great tour as far as tours go. A two day trip with an engaging and friendly tour guide. I had plans of sharing, but three days after I returned from my vacation in Australia my mom died, and then none of it seemed to matter. So the details are lost, and all I have left at this point are some photographs, and some small memories- everything else seems to have erased.

All you have to do if you are in Melbourne is go to the center of the city and ask about tours along The Great Ocean Road. It’s really easy. I had zero information which is usually the case because I am an inefficient traveler- hell, I can’t even tell you what I’m going to do, so if I can book a tour anyone can book a tour. In the center of Melbourne there is a huge tourist center complex. It’s all underground beneath one of the art museums. I believe there was a choice for a one, two or three day tour. I don’t think one day is enough you can’t see much, and three would have been great but I didn’t have the money or time so I picked two days, and it was a great choice. I’d never done tours until this year (which was 2014) except a couple of walking tours many of year’s before, and normally I’m a little hesitant. I picture many white hairs and slow movers- although I’m quickly aging into the white hair population, I still like a mixture of ages. This random grouping of people was high on the diversity list. I was the only American, and the driver was the only Australian. There were a couple from Sweden, two couples from different parts of China, a woman traveling on her own from Hong Kong, a boy from Japan, a boy from Germany, a lesbian couple from Argentina, three twenty somethings from Italy, a couple of girls from England, and an Irish girl. I can’t tell you the route or anyone’s name, but I can tell you every country people came from. Our tour guide had offered up the front seat and no one was interested in taking it so I took the seat which honestly I think was prime seating. I felt a little guilty, so on the second day I offered it to the others, but no one wanted it. Shame in a way, but for me it was fantastic to see the distant ocean rising to greet us.

They picked us up from the various places that we were staying. I was at a hostel that had the word “space” in it’s name. It was a nice place. I’d recommend it if I could remember. Then we drove off toward the famous Australian roadway. On the first day we stopped where you could see the famous Twelve Apostles which are enormous rocks that had once been a part of the land mass but due to millions of year’s of ocean slamming up against the land and eroding away the softer parts we are left with these giant bits of rock.

We had the opportunity to ride in a helicopter (price not included) which was a splurge for me, but I thought since I had never ridden in a helicopter before, and I’ll probably never do it again that I should take the opportunity. I got to sit in the front seat for this one too; it was my lucky tour. I think the yellow pack around my stomach was a parachute, but it didn’t seem like enough to float my body safely into a sea filled with Great Whites. Obviously, we didn’t crash.

It is interesting in a helicopter. You have to wear giant headphones because it is too loud to hear what anyone is saying. It’s probably too loud for your ears in general. If we wanted to talk to each other we had to push some button, but we didn’t really feel like talking. Inside it feels like you are moving really slow, but when two helicopters are passing in the sky you can see that you are actually moving quite quickly, but something about the size and the shape slow down the sensation of speed. Even watching the cliffs pass underneath us seemed slow.

Apparently, enough people have washed their dishes in the toilet that this sign was needed. I can’t fathom actually thinking of washing the dishes in a toilet as being a good idea, but I guess something about the freshness of the toilet discolored water really caught someone’s fancy. Or many fancies.

What was unique to this tour, at least according to the tour guide, was that we did the route backwards. We started at the Apostles while most tours ended at the Apostles. He said the reason behind the backward approach (which made it take a little longer to get to the coast) was to beat all the major tour buses. I don’t know how unique this tour route really is, but he was right. It was the height or tourist season, and we never met a tourist bus, but about five would be arriving as we left a place.

I don’t remember the names of any of the places except for a few. One of those places was Apollo Bay. It is a sleepy beach community that is also a popular destination. A friend of mine had lived there for many years and he is the artists of one of the wooden sculptures. I also remember Bell’s Beach which is a popular surf spot. There they have surf schools which we watched for a bit, but Bell’s Beach has a greater significance other than just being a prime spot for surfing. It is the greatest surf in the world according to the movie Point Break. In fact, in 1991, according to Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) that year at Bell’s Beach there was going to be a record monster wave that he and his gang of surfer bank robbers were going to ride. That was the motivation behind all of the bank robberies. If that isn’t a major plot line, I don’t know what is (alone with the whole screw the system and the banks theme). Point Break had a special place in my teenage heart since my friend and I saw them filming a small part of it in Portinfino, California. We were 16 and thought we saw Patrick Swayze, and we began screaming and jumping up and down until we realized it was his stunt double. I really wanted to see Keanu Reeves. I think I may have had a teen heart attack if I ended up seeing his double.
We ended up staying the night in a surf hostel a little outside of Bell’s Beach. Can you imagine? A surf hostle. I think I was standing at the edge of one of my major life fantasies.

CIMG3184 — A traveler from China, and an Australian parrot.

Before settling into our sleeping arrangements we wandered through a rain forest, and then an open park with wild and sleepy Koalas, and wild and hungry parrots. Then we ventured to a famous lighthouse that had something to do with some British show that I had never heard of, and then we stopped at a beach named Torquay. I remember this place because there was something special and powerful about it. It was a surf spot, and small, and looked like the other surf spots but there was a powerful energy in the air and with all my heart I wanted to stay. I was hoping they would just forget me, and I would have to make my way surviving in the town, and learning to surf; raising a family; and teaching my dog and cat how to be surfers or at least to ride skateboards. I pictured it all. I would have sand-stars hanging from my hippie windows, and wear wrap-around skirts that would make Stevie Nicks jealous, and be incredibly happy with my partner Bodhi. Or Keanu. Alas, they did not forget me.

That night our wonderful tour guide made us a bbq of seafood and other bbq meats, and a huge salad. This was also included in the price. We all sat together and ate and chatted. It was at this time that we began to get used to one another and started learning the very basics about each other. The Swedish couple were both bartenders traveling during the dark dismal winter of Sweden. They were traveling for a few years in as much sunshine as possible, but they both agreed that when they decided to have children they would go back to Sweden to raise them even though the winters were awful. One couple from China were traveling through all of Australia for a month which was really unusual to find a couple from China that could take that much time off, but they had saved for a few years. And, there were more stories like that.

Australia is known to have fires. Many fires. Especially, in the Melbourne area, and on our second day there was a huge fire that was spreading and filled the sky with so much smoke that I thought I was back in North China. The day was dark and warm and all the colors were subdued.

We took a ferry somewhere, and ended up at a small park where you could hand feed the Kangaroos, and the Wallabies. They also had some pretty lazy Tasmanian devils. They are said to be nocturnal creatures, but that’s no excuse for laziness.

Then we went to a place along the Ocean that reminded me of part of Hawaii. In this spot you could see sleeping boxes for penguins and wild wallabies. Lastly, we went to see the tiniest penguins in the world. Yes, I just about died. I really did. The penguins roll in on the waves. Literally, they wash up on shore from what ever rocks they’d been out playing on, and with each wave they tumble in little roll poly clumps like masses of seaweed, and the huge crowed of humans gasp and coo then they all rise from the stadium like seating and try to follow the path that the penguins walk on their way to their tiny beds. It’s well controlled they keep them roped off- I mean the humans of course. I was so caught up in awe of darlingness and daydreams of stealing one and bringing him back to my fantasy beach house in Torquay, he would definitely be the pet to surf, that I lost track of time and was late to the bus. This was a little embarrassing since the Italians held the record for being late, and I ended up beating them during the one time the tour guide said, “it’s important not to be late for this part of the trip”. Then he eyeballed the Italians. Little did he know that I would succumbed to the pull of penguin seduction. He even had to come and find me. I try to be remembered.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any photos of the darling little butter balls of cuteness because we were not allowed to use flash and it was night. They were seriously strict about the flash (people did try) because it’s like strobe lights to the little guys, and the flash frightens and disorients them to the point where many of them go crashing back into the ocean where sharks and other meat eaters are waiting for them.

At the end of our two day journey we were dropped off at our respective places of temporary habitat, and said our good-byes, forever. I left Australia invigorated and happy, but as I said, three days later I would be heartbroken by the loss of the most important person in my life. Now, that so much time has passed, and even though I still ache when I think too much on my mom and how much I miss her, I can finally share the events of January to February 2014.

It was a really nice trip momma- you would have loved it.

And for your extra entertainment, I present for you the trailer to the original Point Break: