More Melbourne
Got up late again today – I really need to work on that. I don’t know why I’ve been so sleepy the last couple of weeks – I haven’t really had that problem while I’ve been travelling (for the most part). Anyways – after grabbing some coffee and hitting the discount tkts booth (no miss saigon *sniff*) I got a call from chere mama, which was lovely (it took us about 4 days to get in touch). Anyhoo – I got to talk over my financial position, which won’t really be clear to me until I actually start working in New Zealand anyhow, but it made feel better about what I want to do, going home from NZ (probably) in November, and knowing that I can work in Boston for a couple of months if I can’t afford to move to SF as soon as I get back to the states. So – all good things. After sitting on some church steps for about an hour and a half, it was getting a bit late, so I headed to the carlton gardens. These were much like the Fitzroy, in that they were mostly lots of grassy areas with trees here and there. They’re also the location of the Royal Exhibition building (which is a World Heritage site, but closed to the public at the moment) and the Melbourne museum.
The museum is seriously first class. First I went through a forest ecosystem, complete with birds and turtles and such. Then I went into the mind and body gallery – which was so totally cool. Not only did they have resin casts of organs, brains, circulation systems and such, they had antique surgical instruments, and really amazing displays. They had fluroscope (?) images of a heart beating and someone swallowing, a CT scan of a mummy’s brain, a facial reconstruction of a mummy, showing the depth markers on the skull and the finished product, and lots of old body parts preserved in formaldehyde. They also had a reflexes test (I scored .2 seconds) and a really amazing video of how hemoglobin is made in a cell, which I assume was CGI and not some sort of electron imaging, but should be mandatory viewing for all AP Bio courses, because it is so much easier to visualize proteins being made in a video than in blackboard or whiteboard sketches. They also had a great exhibit comparing the DNA of 3 types of possums, that take beginners through how a PCR machine works (so like CSI…). The whole thing was awesome. THEN they had an exhibit on Wallace (who was the guy that Darwin rushed to publish before – and get this – they remained friends) which included ACTUAL SPECIMENS collected by Wallace, including a greater bird of Paradise. It was awesome. They also had a bunch of original Gould prints, which if you have ever seen a Victorian-style painting of a Tasmanian wolf (tiger? I forget – whichever one had the awesome jaw) – it was done by Gould.
Finally, they had an extremely good entomology exhibit, which included tons of collected specimens, a bee hive and an ant colony (I found both queens, thankyouverymuch) lots and lots of spiders and tarantulas (and other live creatures). I’m actually fogetting what else was there. It took up about a 5th of one of the two floors of the museum – it was very, very thorough and well designed. The museum closed after that, so I skipped the aboriginal section and the visiting exhibit on the Great Wall of China.
Then I went to see Dinosaurs of Patagonia in 3-D on IMAX. Surprisingly, there were few children there. It was fun; about half of it was gorgeous arial shots of Patagonia, and the rest focused on argentinosaurus, and a giganotosaurus (I alsways pronounced that in the American style of gi-GAN-ot-o-saur-us, but since it is Argentinian, it is actually gi-gan-O-to-saur-us. Which sounds better). The 3-d was fun, especially with a small bit on quetzalcoatlosaurus, which has nothing whatsoever to do with patagonia – but you could tell they wanted to animate it.
Then I wandered up and down Lygon street, which is tons of open air restaurants (all either thai/malaysian/indonesian/indian or Italian (with pushy street hawkers apparently imported from Rome) some bookstores and an indie cinema. Very cute, neighborhood-y feel to the street. I found a sushi place down an ally, where I asked for some inari and salmon rolls and the lady made them up fresh for me. 🙂 I wandered down a different route in the CBD (central business district) coming back to my hostel (including the Greek precinct – I know where I’m eating dinner tomorrow), and found some used bookstores to check out. (I went into a couple independent bookstores on Lygon and both Neil Gaimans, the next Kathy Reich, and a Margaret Atwood were all 22-25$. I just can’t deal with paperbacks costing that much. If someone were to start a publishing company down here so not everything was IMPORTED, I bet they’d make a killing.)
Travel quote of the day: “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius (on a magnet I passed). Also – if Melbourne weren’t in the complete opposite hemisphere from where I want to settle, I would seriously consider moving here. The city is so, so gorgeous. I’m totally in love with the architecture.
PS – Bob Barker signed off with this: “Now, folks, I want to thank you very, very much for inviting me into your homes for the last 50 years. I am deeply grateful. And please remember: Help control the pet population — have your pet spayed or neutered. Goodbye everyone!” How awesome is that?!
Tags: Travel
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