Going hunting for secrets
After my long ranting and self-indulgent post yesterday, we went out for drinks with a couple, Reece and Heidi, who were in our hostel on St. Kilda Road. We went to their local in the CBD, a nice little pub with Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and Interpol as its soundtrack. I raised the opinions previously expressed in this blog about the city only to be met with agreement. Maybe not to the vehement levels attained by myself yesterday, but still, there were definately nods. However, Heidi thinks that there is an underbelly to Melbourne that holds an array of ‘secrets’ in terms of places to go/things to see. I’m not entirely sure what she meant. I rekon there is quite a good live music scene, even though if most of the posters I have seen plastered to nearly every available surface have been for thrash metal bands with names like ‘Sputnik and the Ratboys.’
Which links me nicely to something particularly odd about the city; the graffiti. Now, London has it’s share of graffiti, but Melbourne is almost dripping with it. Nearly every blank wall in the CBD that isn’t covered in posters is covered with graffiti. Brilliantly, it doesn’t seem to be particulalry sinister, nor ‘street,’ nor even particulalry post 1999. The graffiti in many places will look like its from the back drop of an overly camp 1980’s New York film. Something like Warriors where street gangs battle it out, on skates…
There’s even some graff on St. Kilda Rd. of Bebop and Rocksteady, two iconic enemies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turles. It’s almost like the entire begining of the millenium bypassed the Victorian graffiti scene.
Lauren is working today for a massive time and a half. I did a reccy of the local area, seems to be plenty of cafe’s and that nearby, which is nice, when we first got here we thought it was just industrial estate for as far as the eye could see. Nothing too strenuous(sp!) today, I may have overindulged on the sherry last night and I may now be suffering. Still, at least the weather has picked up, it’s not quite hot yet, but it’s certainly warm enough that I feel sorry for dogs locked in cars.
Tags: Australia, Melbourne, Travel
mikeloken
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