The personal authentic travels of a world-wide drifter, you'll always see pics of me at the locations being described (if the other blogs you're reading don't do that, odds are they were NEVER there, just saying…)
Luna Park, in the suburb of North Sydney Australia (kiddy-corner across the bridge from the Opera House) is a classic, “historic” amusement park (of the pre-Disney variety). It was based on (and, like ALL the Luna Parks around the world, is named after) the one in New York City’s Coney Island. It is one of the few such surviving parks to feature “Fantasy architecture” in the Art deco Style, and interestingly… is one of only two amusement parks in the world that is protected by government legislation… and is listed on the NSW Heritage Register
Luna Park was initially constructed in 1935 and has a history of on again off again, operating schedules, due in part to a fairly dodgy safety record, which included a catastrophic fire in 1979 that killed six children and one adult, called the Ghost Train Fire.
As a result, during its off years, some very high-end housing developed around the location, whose residents complained loudly when the park began operations again. This resulted in a compromise of removal of rides that were deemed too loud … because of screams of happiness from riders, and limited operating schedules at night… making it basically impossible for the park to be profitable.
Apparently there used to be a really good roller coaster back here… the residents of high-end condo’s complained and it was removed.
That said, Luna park still consists mostly of rides I can’t ride (because of my inner ear issues)… with the possible exception of the Ferris Wheel, and games I’m no good at, so that from my perspective while it’s very PRETTY to look at the place it’s really not a draw, for me personally… NOT the way Disney parks are… and the few times I’ve been there it’s looked pretty empty, all things considered.
We had weather!!! This storm produced what news outlets are dubbing the worst hail storm to hit Sydney in 20 years. My friend and I were actually VERY lucky during it, we got all the pretty and excitement, and none of the damage… while the area called North Sydney, which is a short walk east of us as the crow flies (its the area of tall buildings on the right side of the image below) got tennis ball sized hail that broke straight through car windows, we only got hail the size of quarters. Apparently, all told, there were 30K lightning strikes over the four hours of the storm. News reports today put the damage into the millions, and 20K homes lost power.
Panorama shot
The plan for today was to take advantage of the fact that my one year pass for Scenic World, which I bought last year while in Katoomba, had not yet expired, and drive out there with my travel buddy and his mom. We cancelled because there was a warning of sever storms…. First we had rain coming down in sheets, then we had hail that started out pea size and graduated at about quarter size…
The little white spots on the ground are hail
and then we got THIS. note how it seems to be starting just AT — as in in FRONT of the bushes on the far side of the street, AND its a double rainbow?! — you can’t see from this shot but its a COMPLETE rainbow
My travel buddy was in his bedroom, working — he works remotely, hence his ability to travel… but he still has to work…. and had headphones on and was missing the whole thing… when it was hailing, he was not excited… I even brought him a quarter sized piece of it that had landed on the veranda, but NOPE, unimpressed, but THIS woke him up….
This is the photo he was trying to takeAnd here’s my two arch shot… note the bridge to the right of the rainbow
What was kind of interesting was that over time it drifted away, as in didn’t get less intense, but seemed to be more out into the distance. FIRST it was in front of the nearby bushes… but then behind them…
But then it moved out like miles away onto the horizon… so that now I could get it all in one shot without having to use panaroma…. and then 45 min later
This was going on…. …. SCARY… The cloud formation in the photo above showed up in a news article the next day…. And according to the news report it was directly over Manley Bay (a few miles east of where we are)
And its not done… at one point I had my back to the window and saw two bolts of lighting reflected in my screen as my room lit up… and there was a building shaking BOOM a second later…
All told, it appears that my weather karma is still holding.
So, yet another of my bucket list items has been checked off, although not at all in the way I had imagined. I have seen a fireworks display over the Sydney Harbor with the bridge and the archetypal Opera House in the background with my own eyes.
It was totally unexpected… I was lying in bed in Sydney Australia, getting over a bad cold I’d been fighting — starting just 3 days after my arrival (so I probably picked it up during my flight), and my traveling mate for this trip had gone out with an old friend of his (he’s originally from Sydney) to a party. So I was not in the best of moods… stuck in bed, missing a party … etc.,
To pass the time, as I was lying in bed, I was yet again watching the movie that won the 2016, Academy Award for best picture, “Spotlight.” For those who don’t know it…it is a movie about how the Boston Globe in 2001, had exposed the sexual abuse scandal that is still rocking the Catholic Church today. They had followed up on a theory of a psychological researcher — who had argued that 50% of Catholic priests were sexual activity and that of those, about 6% were pedophiles. According to him, this was not because they were attracted to children, but rather because male children from rough neighborhoods and broken homes (in particular) were the least likely to admit to the abuse.
Going on that researcher’s assessment (which would have meant about 90 pedophiles within the total population of Boston Priests) the Globe’s journalists were able, through extensive legwork, and by reading between the lines of church records — to uncover that while only one pedophile priest was currently in the news, in fact 87 of them were currently being bounced around the parishes of Boston; all of this being part of a methodical & institutionalized attempt on the part of the Catholic Church to protect itself rather than its children.
Once their research was published, over 1000 Boston area victims — knowing they were no longer alone — stepped forward, and ultimately 249 priests and brothers were publicly accused of sexual abuse JUST within the Boston Archdiocese. The Globe’s finding, had world-wide repercussions, effectively opening a can of worms as all Catholic communities, one by one, in a domino effect began to publicly address this cancer within the Catholic church… a phenomena which we are still dealing with almost 20 years later.
I’ve talked about Pell before… Almost a year ago I was in Australia, in Ballarat, a town just outside of Melbourne, which is epicenter of the abuse scandal here (I was staying with a woman I had befriended via Facebook years before). At the time I had blogged about “Ballarat’s loud fence: Civil protest against the church in Australia” and had included an amazing song written and performed by the inimitable Tim Minchin, ‘Come home (Cardinal Pell)’ … a song he had penned in an afternoon. (I admit I have since developed a bit of a crush on this guy… he is a genius.)
At the time, as far as I knew, Pell was only thought to have been actively involved in the coverup, but as this week’s court case proved, he was also sexually abusing boys himself.
So this was a story that while was of HUGE interest to the Australian public, it was NOT being covered by the local press. In fact, the Judge on the case had instituted a media gag order on its outcome. As such, the Herald Sun Newspaper of Melbourne’s front page rather than covering the results, showed in large letters the word CENSURED followed by, “The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians [The Australian State within which Melbourne and Ballarat reside],” but, that said “The Herald Sun is prevented from publishing details of this significant news. But trust us. It’s a story you deserve to read.” The gag was so tight that even foreign press, for fear of legal repercussions, were blocking Australian readers from seeing what they’d written about the case. I learned about it because my Ballarat friend was reaching out via Facebook to her friends abroad to see if THEY could read trustworthy media sources talking about the case, and tell her what those articles had said.
Anyway, at this point you’re probably asking yourself, “WHY in fuck’s sake is Rebecca going on about Cardinal Pell in a blog post about a fireworks display over the Sydney Harbor?!” Well… when I saw the display I had NO IDEA why they were happening. My Aussie friend hadn’t known they were going to happen, I’d had no warning. So part of my brain sort of assumed that MAYBE … if this wasn’t due to some corporate event… just maybe they were in celebration of outcome of the court case.
Talking about it the next day with another Aussie native, apparently there’s a yearly TV show here in celebration of the Christmas Holidays that has something to do with caroling… and always includes fireworks over the bay that part of the program, and she though this was for that… but I couldn’t find anything on-line to confirm it… so I like to think that this was in celebration of the conviction… to paraphrase the country western song… it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
[Updated, Aug 2019]
This blog post offers a fairly comprehensive description of every business in the Fish Market, and what their offerings are. It starts with with Fresh fish, and then moves through all the prepared food offerings, based on my visit in 2018.
Anyone who is a fan of fish (as in eating it) should consider a few hours at the Sydney Fish Markets, located in the Pyrmont neighborhood of the Greater Sydney area. According to their site, they are the largest market “of their kind” in the southern hemisphere (but that’s actually a very vague statement, so I’m not sure what it means exactly). That said, the place is fairly large, a bit labyrinth like, and offers an almost overwhelming number of options to the first time visitor (so reading a blog post like this before going really could help you make some decisions). While I’m guessing at these numbers, the place seemed to be 50% a full-fledged fish market offering freshly caught raw fish (or what the Aussies call “wet fish”), about 40% is fast-food stalls where you can gorge-out on pre-cooked (displayed) fishy delights — a lot of deep fried or smothered in cheese– until you need to loosen your pants, and about 10% is normal sit down restaurants (for the boring) that specialize in fish — most of which are Chinese food (probably because the majority of the tourists that like to come here seem to be from China — and in my whole life I’ve only met ONE person who didn’t like Chinese food).
As you walk around, especially if you get there earlier in the morning (before 11am), you quickly realize that this place is a bona-fide fish market, in that it is the city’s wholesale (i.e. bulk sales) hub for products to restaurants, and other businesses, as well as offering retail sales (small sales) to the public. I’ve been to a few “fisherman’s wharf’s” over the past few years, and till and as such was expecting this one, like those, to have degraded into a tourist trap (because of changes in the fishing industry) … that is not the case here. This is the real McCoy. The auctions of the morning’s catch begin at around 6:30 am, while the onsite restaurants and other shops intended for the public open up for business a few hours later, at 9am and close at 4pm.
If you spend enough time walking around the various shops (and peak into corners) you’ll find all sorts of workers descaling ….
and deboning some of the freshest fish I’ve ever seen for sale to the public….
…as well as folks who are busy shucking oysters. And, if you pay attention you’ll begin to realize what isn’t there… namely, ANY of that fishy smell that one comes to expect around places that sell ‘fresh’ fish… which usually isn’t actually all that fresh… and ALL of the fish here are clear of eye and firm of flesh [for those of you who don’t know how to identify fresh fish, read the article linked] in a way you just don’t see much of anymore — which tells you just how fresh they are — even at the high end local fish stores with the best offerings… this place is just fresher than anything you’re used to.
Like I said, about half of the market is just that … as in you can buy an impressive variety of fresh fish to take home and cook. There are (to my count) five of this type of fresh fish shops scattered around the fish market area:
De Costi Seafood, which is not in the main building (but rather is in a sort of strip mall that lines one side) was the first of these shops that I entered…
In addition to fish to cook, De Costi’s sells a small amount of ‘prepared’ fish that you can eat outside while gazing out at the bay (at your own risk … the seagulls here are aggressive and will try to steal your food)… such as the ever popular sashimi, which I soon learned pretty much every one of the fresh fish shops offered. This, you can either buy in pre-cut sets designed for one person (usually of the most popular salmon/tuna mixes), or you can ask them to assemble platters of the stuff for your family/group (although there is a minimum number of grams of each fish that you have to buy to qualify for this service).
An older woman is slicing up sashimi grade salmon while a younger worker watches
Although MOST of the customers go for the salmon or the tuna (and as such about half the case was just of those two), at the other end of the case was a wide array of choices that included local cuttlefish, imported surf clams from Canada and scallops from Japan, all of them sashimi/sushi grade [PLEASE do not just buy raw fish, cut it up and eat it uncooked, as it might make you very sick! Please read this to understand the difference between sushi grade fish and fish intended to be cooked. That said, flash freezing is process that deep freezes the fish to super low temperatures that your normal home freezer wasn’t designed to achieve (in effect killing off parasites with cold instead of heat), so NO you can’t just stick it in the freezer at home and save yourself the money.]
In addition to Sashimi, De Costi offers some other foods you could buy and eat including pre-cooked lobster, smoked salmon, fish pâtés, and shucked oysters on the half-shell… as well as some semi-prepared foods, like “marinara” mixes (combinations of raw seafood) for you to take home and cook at home, with pasta, or in seafood soups and stews.
But for the most part De Costi’s is about raw fish… of every shape and variety that the Australian shores offer.
But like I said, De Costi’s is just one of about five different stores in the Market that sell to fresh raw fish to the public.
Musumeci’s Seafood, is another of the fresh fish shops, and is also located in a separate building from the main structure.
Of ALL the shops it’s the only one I found to be handing out samples (from the woman standing behind the little table in the middle of the picture above). These “tasties” were of their smoked and/or roasted salmon, and pâtés made from salmon or trout.
Once inside the offerings were pretty similar to what I found at De Costi’s, only they seemed to have more in the way of shellfish and less in the way of the scaled variety … and what fish they did have looked a little, the worse for wear… just not quite AS fresh… but that could have been because the facilities upon which they were displayed all looked a little long in the tooth and distorted the overall appearance (at a glance).
This store seemed to focus a much larger percentage of their counter space than De Costi had, to the sashimi trade, with more in the way of pre-sliced combo offerings and side dishes like seaweed salad… so more aimed at the tourists than to local cooks… I think…
Hidden behind Musumeci’s (closer to the water) is another store by the name of Claudio’s Quality Seafoods, which to me looked better and fresher (more akin to De Costi) in terms of their fish…
and this place had an even better shellfish selection than Musumeci’s had (so the best of both worlds so to speak), a variety of which was being sold pre-cooked (and of course they had the obligatory sashimi as well)…. and it is also where I found the guys in red doing the filleting in the picture towards the top of the blog… (I was beginning to think that the presence of folks visibly filleting seafood is one of the attributes you want to keep an eye out for when judging these places. If you can’t see anyone actually prepping fish for sale… move on to the next store.
I also saw something at Claudio’s Quality Seafoods that I didn’t notice anywhere else in the market, shark steaks for sale. They have this large piece of shark sitting there (see image above). They can’t display the whole thing since small ones are about 10 feet long, and really big ones can be as large as 20 feet. Instead they put out this very large slab, and then you tell them how many “steaks” you want, and they cut them off with something akin to a chainsaw. (I wasn’t lucky enough to see a slice being cut, but there was a local guy taking around a group of Asian visitors … a small handful of people… and I overheard him describing the process to them.)
That said… From all of the reviews that I read before coming here (which I think I agree with), Peter’s Sydney Fish Market is considered the best of all the shops in the entire Market. It has a very large and bright location within the prime real estate of the main building and sells almost (pretty much) EVERYTHING that all of the other fish stores sell… both cooked and raw (didn’t see any shark) … and in addition includes almost all of the most popular dishes that the food stalls have on offer (although, based on my personal observations, it sells the duplicated dishes at a slower rate, so the food stalls cooked offerings might be more recently prepared — that said, there are dishes here you can’t find elsewhere and these dishes therefore move faster).
In the center of the store Peters offers a VERY large selection of fresh fish and unlike the other places in the market that sell the same, Peters will even cook your fish for you, but for a fee….(in the USA stores that do this do it for free)… But, I noticed that fee varies with, is the fish already filleted or not… if not, it costs about $5 AUD more per kilogram.
Where in the US stores that cook it for you tend to either grill or steam (rarely both), at Peter’s in addition to these two your fish selection can also be stir or deep fried … and with a whole variety of spices and flavorings from which to choose from… and there are also side dishes on offer.
But this was only the start of what Peters offered in terms of prepared foods…. you could also have them prepare shellfish to order, or chose from their pre-cooked offerings….
Among the shellfish you could buy (already cooked), was something I had heard about on a travel Food Channel show, ‘Australian bugs’. From what I learned from the show, these are variety of shellfish that are picked up by accident, i.e., garbage fish that are not considered desirable by the fish trade, that Aussies have taken to eating as a “local dish” but that, like I said, no one else eats. (I tried them, I wasn’t impressed).
[… ironically, even though the gelatinous Blobfish, which you do see for sale in Korean fish-markets, originates in Australian waters, I didn’t see ANY of it for sale in the Sydney Fish Market. I first learned of the fish when living in Korea, when my best friend there while walking me through his town’s food market told me that blobfish was almost inedible with no muscle and just a sort of gelatinous mass of blubber … but he said that Koreans during The War were so desperate for any food source they could fine, that they had figured out a way of processing its flesh with chemicals to make it so… kind of like how olives straight from the tree are very bitter and inedible, and need to be cured first]
Blobfish in a food market in Masan, South Gyeongsang, South Korea, when I visited in 2013
In addition to cooked fish, Peter’s offers a not only the obligatory Sashimi option, but also sells pre-prepared sushi for $2.50 AUD each (fish on rice, rather than straight sashimi) … allowing you to pick and choose from their offerings which pieces you wanted in your set. Be Warned, I noticed — and confirmed this by asking — that once noon rolled around, no new sushi offerings were added, and you will be stuck with what was left over from the morning. So, if you want sushi from Peter’s, buy it early… [That said, one of the food court places offers a much more limited selection of cooked sushi that’s sold adjacent to its hot food (blech — cooked sushi?), and there is also a nondescript hole-in-the-wall sushi joint within the main building called, “Sushi Bar at the Fish Market”, which makes it to order, but from my observations — I left at around 12:30 did barely any business other than selling drinks during the early part of the day when Peter’s offering had not yet sold out]
The woman on the right is teaching the younger male worker how to debone the fish
In addition, Peter’s was selling freshly made before your eyes “Aburi” shellfish … which translates to flame seared … these are scallops completely covered in cheese and other stuff… and hence so far off my diet that I couldn’t taste them…. Almost all of the food stalls sell the same, but these seemed to be the only ones that were grilled to order.
The only major competitor to Peter’s is probably Nickolas’s Seafood, which to my eye was offering a variety of 30% fresh/wet fish and was by far more, like almost 70% a cooked foods sort of place….
Really MOST of what they had, was cooked stuff for the tourist market, like at the food stalls… although like Peter’s it has sushi, but not as much…
but Nicholas’s distinct product seemed to be these very pretty platters of seafood (the little plastic round containers hold the Aussie version of cocktail sauce which is heavy on the mayo… blech). The scallop platter may seem overpriced, but scallops sticks at Doyle’s or Christy’s with five on a stick were $10 AUD… so you sort of have to do the math… and you can of course take home the shells if you so wish.
While Peter’s seemed to specialize in fresh (or what the Aussies refer to as wet) fish, Nickolas’s seemed to do more “swimming” shellfish — live and in a tank. While there I saw this almost comical scene when a customer came in wanting to buy a six ginormous lobsters… which when taken out of the tanks and laid on the floor for the customer to inspect… started skittering around said floor in a desperate attempt to escape and freaked out this little girl.
Pre-cooked foods only options
So, like I said before, while all of the above options also sold food you can eat on the spot such as the obligatory sashimi…. or cooked lobster or sushi in some cased, about 40% of Sydney’s Fish Market consists fast-food type stalls [not made to order restaurants], where you can pick from the displayed pre-made fish delicacies (although most also have some stuff cooked to order, usually for larger family sized trays, etc). So for instance, adjacent to De Costi’s in the strip mall type area is the…
Salty Squid, which while they do make a few things fresh (burgers and the like, for those who do not like fish), is essentially no different than a fried fish fast-food place…
The first such shop you’ll notice as you enter the building is Doles, (it’s at the very entrance)…. here they have a food stall sets up that sells flame grilled fresh fish on a stick…
This was hands down my favorite of the places because they don’t smother it in oil, and will even do with completely without oil if you ask… even corn on the cob (with no butter)… very healthy food.
Right behind this healthy option stall they have a larger restaurant setup that sells oysters, and all foods unhealthy … either deep-fried or smothered in cheese or cream sauce… which in my mind utterly defeats the point of eating seafood.
Across the hallway from Doyles, still at the front entrance is
Christie’s Sea Foods is yet another food court/stall type business whose dishes vary from deep-fried to grilled — but I noticed a lot of oil added to their grilled foods
and adjacent to Christie’s is The Fish Market Cafe — which to me looked to be the least healthy of all of them, but also probably the most popular of these places, as it seemed to be doing the most business in selling prepared foods.
Sushi Doughnuts and Tacos (in a deep-fried seaweed shell coated in panko )
While most of the customers opted to sit indoors to eat their food, the fish market is directly adjacent to the water and there is seating outside for those who want to enjoy a view with their food.
That said, there are more than a few seagulls and such who hang out at this location, and these are fairly aggressive birds who will happily steal your food from you (some online sources I read said that it’s not unknown for them to dive bomb you for it), which is why almost every table is covered with an umbrella or located inside a sort of tent (think not only dive bombing seagulls but also seagull poop)… they’re set up more to help protect your lunch from the bird, rather than you from the sun (although they do that too).
if you ARE intending to make a meal of it, the ONLY cooked veggies I saw were carbs… your choices are corn on the cob … which I had… rice or noodles… if you want veggies or fruit with your meal, at the far end of the market there’s a small fruit and veggies market that also offers up things like fruit salad and chocolate covered fruit.
For your dessert options there is also a bakery and coffee shop inside the main building. And for those in your party who do not like fish... (in addition to the burgers at the Salty Squid) there’s an Italian deli that will make sandwiches. … That said if your traveling companion is like mine, a vegetarian… well those folks should pretty much just stay home because this place will most likely just offend them. [My vegetarian friend is also the only person I’ve ever met who refused to eat Chinese food.]
Sit down Restaurants:
Finally, the fish market consists of about 10% sit down restaurants where you order from the menu like normal. Two of these are located on the same strip mall type building where De Costi’s is located, just past the Salty Squid fast food joint… that said, neither of these seemed to be doing a load of business during the whole time I was there (and I was there till 12:30). The Third is a restaurant I only discovered after I started composing this blog, and looked like someplace I’d like to try, so I went back and did so… Fisherman’s Wharf Seafood is a fancy Chinese place located on the 2nd floor of the Market’s main building via some stairs — there is an elevator to it at the very back of the building, but its hidden behind the fruit and veg market, the elevator at the front of the building will NOT get you there –and during the market’s open hours/lunch they do DIM SUM… yo mama!!! Monday to Friday : 11am – 3pm Saturday and Sunday : 10am – 3pm I checked it out later in this trip and gave it a separate review which you can read if you follow the link.
The only sit down restaurant I took photos of was the Sea Emperor….
Well this is going to be a short post. The day I arrived on this most recent trip to Australia I dragged my travel partner out to Costco (which is pretty far out in the Sydney suburbs) to load up on groceries because our Airbnb wasn’t all that convenient to the local stores… and spotted this:
I’ve only seen these things before in the U.K., you stick in a $1 coin (Australian Dollars, its the gold looking coin) and it unlocks your cart from the others,
like I said my travel buddy REALLY didn’t want to be there so I couldn’t give it the full appreciation of what’s different from in the USA I would have liked. That said, they did NOT have the Kirkland brand smoked salmon… I ended up buying smoked trout that looked like smoked salmon… didn’t really enjoy it.
I was only in Adelaide for about two and a half days (arrived Feb 15th, around dinner time, left Feb 18th, 2018, around noon), and most of that time was spent convalescing (from the massive concussion I was suffering), so I really didn’t get to see more than glimpse of the place. That said, I would happily go back again. It’s the sort of city that’s big enough to have a bit of everything you’d want in a city, but not so crowded that you can’t find a parking space. (Sort of like Evanston, IL, or Chattanooga, TN) — also not many photos were taken
The first night we were there my travel buddy (who is an Aussie himself) walked me over to the “Rundle Mall” partly just to see it, but also because we needed to run by the local Target (yes Australia has this chain too) in order to pick up REALLY BASIC things the Airbnb host had not thought to provide for us, and I’m talking pillows and towels sufficient for two people. (This Airbnb sucked so bad that the sheets on the bed didn’t pass the sniff test — not by a long shot — for having been washed after the last guest had left.)
Oh, and he told me that in Australia the term ‘a mall’ tends to refer to a human-traffic only shopping street (cars are excluded), which may or may not be covered, as if not more often than it means a massive indoor shopping town, as it almost always does in the USA. An arcade by comparison isn’t a place full of games, but rather it’s something like the picture below (which is closer to an American idea of a mall, only it seems to be one walkway with shops on each side)This sculpture located in mall and according to my is fairly iconic to Adelaide, and is titled, A day out. I only took the one picture, but it actually consists of a four different pigs scattered about….
If you look carefully at the bench where the guy is sitting and talking on his phone, below it is a 2nd pig….
Alongside the pigs statue (I’m blanking on the correct word, I’m finding my ability to recall words is still not back to 100% even though it’s almost six months since my accident)… OH, remembered it… the ‘art-term’ I was searching for was an installation, since it’s actually a collection of statues rather than one.
Adjacent to the pig statues stood this group of protestors, the screens were all showing a movie that demonstrated the conditions of pigs on farms, including how they were killed, and the squeals. The protesters stood there silently. Add the two things together and you really do essentially have a performance art piece… even if it wasn’t what was intended by the artist of the pigs.
This art piece is another Adelaide landmark called either Mall’s Balls (I have a feeling this is Aussie humor), or ‘the spheres’ that serves as a meeting spot for people.
(the google map refuses to embed, so please check this link for the location)
Personally, it reminded me as an inferior version of Chicago’s (my home town) Cloud Gate, affectionately referred to, and better known as “the bean” — in fact I doubt most Chicagoans could tell you the proper name.
During my time there I ate at one fairly decent restaurant, a Japanese place called Gyoza-Gyoza, which is apparently a local chain Japanese Izakayas (sort of the Japanese version of a pub, where folks come after work to drink and eat).
Overall the food was pretty good, very authentically Japanese
If you’re traveling around the state of Victoria in Australia, and want to visit Grampians National Park, which lies about three hours northwest of Melbourne, or a full five and a half hours drive south-east of Adelaide, take my suggestion and seriously consider a stop in the small town of Halls Gap. Based on my own perusal of google maps, of all the various ways into the park (which is a fairly large 646 square miles), Halls Gap is the only one ‘organized’ to support tourists’ needs. It is located on the side of Grampians that is closest to Melbourne, and its the only place where I know of where you’ll find a specially trained and staffed “Information Office” who are ready to provide you with suggestions of what to do while there; and it’s also where you can pick up things like hiking or driving maps, or arrange for various tours of either the parks or of one of the nearby vineyards, book a golf time, book lodging for the night, etc. (If it’s anything like the information offices alongside Roosevelt National Park in the states, their computer’s are organized to tell you which hotels still have availability for that night — but don’t hold me to that as we weren’t looking for lodging.)
Our first stop was at the information center for maps, and then we went to the nearby Brambuk Aboriginal Cultural center & Bush Tucker Cafe, for a bite to eat (I strongly suggest checking out the Cafe as it specializes in the unique foods and flavors that the native Aboriginals and original European settlers to the Bush would have experienced.. but, that said, the cultural center was kind of a major let down and only suggested if you have time.)
After that we drove into the park itself….. Because this visit was on February 10th, only about two weeks after I fell down and went boom on Jan 25th, giving myself the worst concussion of my life, our visit was limited to easily accessable by car locations… so no hiking for me, not even a little bit. Just sitting in the car, being driven around and seeing new things was exhausting for my brain at that point. Getting out of the car to experience the lookouts was about all I could manage.
The first time I tried to take a picture of the friends that I was visiting the park with they had their faces completely in the shade, making taking a photo of them almost impossible. The picture of me (above) was me trying to show them an awareness of light what was necessary in order for them to be well-lit in this harsh/high-contrast light situation (things photographers know); that said, the woman on the left is the friend who I was staying with (who serendipitously for me was a former registered nurse, so she perfectly understood my limitations at that point).
Before this photo I had them do a little dance (“go left, no, not that far, yah stay there”) in order to make sure they were well-lit
Our next stop was at Reeds Lookout and balconies …. apparently from the car park & lookout there’s an easy walk to the balconies, but like I said, I was not physically able at that point to do even that. That said I found a REALLY well done video on YouTube that someone made of the walk and the views I would have seen had I done it:
That said, we met up with a fairly large group of bikers, while at the lookout
After this we headed to Bunjil Rock Shelter, one of the many Aboriginal religious sites scattered throughout Australia, and then home.
Brambuk National Park & cultural centre is about a 3 to 4 hour drive away from Melbourne, and a 5 hour drive away from Adelaide, so if you haven’t made the effort to road trip between the two (or live in the area), odds are you’ll miss this National Park. Along with the natural wonders of the place, and a host of optional activities (which I will discuss elsewhere), there is a must see but ultimately highly disappointing Aboriginal cultural center, a really wonderful little cafe with very unusual foods, and of course a pretty good gift shop.
From my first days of planning my trip to Ballarat, my friend who was hosting me had been describing this place to me, and it was one of the things I insisted we had to do, in SPITE of the fact that I was pretty much laid up because of the sever concussion I had suffered not two weeks before.
As part of my experiencing Australian pies, I ordered a “Skippy” pie (you have to love the perversity of Aussie humor — check the link), which I shared with my friends (one of whom at 99% of the chips… I only ate two)
we passed on the Lemon Myrtle scones and instead opted for the Wattleseed Damper w/Quandong & Peach Jam and Wattleseed cream (because I had no idea what a Damper was). After checking out their menu, we decided to go for the Bush Food Platter
which had a little bit of everything (Kangaroo, Emu sausages, Crocodile, Wild Duck (Australia has a few different breeds, they never told us which one we were eating), 2 Bush Food Chutney’s (again we never found out which flavors) & a Garden Salad w/Bush Tomato & Balsamic Dressing) which is intended for two people, so we shared it between us. DEFINITELY worth trying, if only for all the new flavors. (see below for what some of these things look like)
some of the spices and seeds mentioned above
While waiting for our food we raided the gift shop, which had a very good selection of items (many of which were made by Aboriginals with the proceeds going to them).
At first I thought left versus right-handed boomerangs was a joke on the tourists, but no, apparently they need to be designed differently. That said, I was tempted to buy this map of Australia (below) showing all the native tribal lands… but didn’t.
Once done at the first building you walk down a path to the cultural center
The real disappointment of this visit was the thing that should have been the star, the cultural center. Even though pretty much all they have in there is photographs, we weren’t allowed to take any. There was a movie on Aboriginal culture but you had to pay to see it (and it wasn’t cheap, so we skipped it).
According to their website’s description, “The Brambuk Cultural Centre is the longest running cultural centre still operated by Aboriginal people. Come here to explore the culture, its traditions and various multi-award winning architectural establishments.” So, you’d think this would be a place where politically motivated local Aboriginals would choose to work in order to teach interested visitors about the grandeur of their own culture, and share their love of their own history.
[Rant: Firstly, let’s keep in mind that I have spent months of my life, studying, living and working on the Navajo reservation, and to this day still maintain some VERY close friendships with Native Americans I met during that period of my life who are to this day deeply involved with trying to improve things for their people. What I am not is a knee jerk liberal who attends protests and talks the talk, but has never spent more than a day or two being a tourist among said people, and has therefore never really walked the walk, let alone never spent any real-time talking to said people, whose rights they are so moved to protect; and hence doesn’t even really know who they are let alone understand their problems, and what these people might want for themselves vs., what you the privileged white person might want for them. That said, one of the things that kind of annoyed me while visiting was my observation that in the modern-day Australians (who by all appearances as white) seem to take extreme pride in any small amount of Aboriginal heritage they can claim. Keep in mind, in the case of Aboriginal Australians, that by the third generation, such heritage is difficult to identify visually, and unlike with African genes it can’t “pop up” unexpectedly — where two seemingly white parents can give birth to a dark-skinned child, the same way two brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child. So for instance, I, while researching this piece, learned about a European/Anglo member of the Tasmanian government, by the name of Jacqui Lambie, who offended the Aboriginal community by claiming she was one and therefore could represent them, and then went so far as to get her DNA tested to try to prove it. While this on the surface might seem to be not unlike Americans who point to Native American roots that their ancestors would have tried to hide with embarrassment. The difference is that … where as in America that person might take pride in being “part” Cherokee, they rarely if ever have the audacity to claim the state owes them something for prejudice that they themselves never have had to face in their daily lives because of that genetic heritage. In Australia, however, they will; in the current age they will describe themselves as simply Aboriginal, not as ‘part’ Aboriginal, because it is now not only COOL to be Aboriginal, but again it comes with all sorts of benefits designed to provide a ‘leg up’ in a society that has heretofore condemned them. I was for instance more than a little ticked off to see Aboriginal art, which is sold as such rather than just as art, and it’s a big deal to be able to PROVE the authenticity of said art… only for the photo of the artist to be of someone with blond hair and blue eyes. Think Iggy Azalea, the Australian rapper who claims aboriginal heritage who couldn’t understand while Americans took issue to her calling herself, “black” and hence being an ‘authentic’ rapper…
In the US, the TRIBES would never allow such a thing, for the obvious reason that funding is finite and every kid who is part Native, but has suffered none of the deprivations of that ancestry, who takes that funding is in effect taking it out of the mouths of the folks who really need it. And now that the tribes themselves have found creative ways to pull themselves out of poverty, they are getting EVEN FIERCER about who does or does not get to call themselves “Native America” versus, being of Native American ancestry. It would be a bit like the Johnson’s (African American family, founders of Ebony and Jett magazine and first African American to make make the Forbes 400 list), who used to live near me — and walking distance from one of the very best high schools in the country — had mansion on Lake Michigan, with a swimming pool and tennis court, and had the Commodores (Lionel Richie‘s band before he went solo) play for their kids sweet 16 party taking advantage of preferred places and funding at Universities, intended to help cure socioeconomic disparities that exist in the African-American community]
According to the staff member we spoke to, while the Aboriginal community gets the final say on what happens there, and everything is done with difference to them… sadly, their interest sort of ends with that, and is mostly focused on the money generated by the place… although one of the staff members said if we signed up for the classes and performances that we had read about and wanted to see (which weren’t happening at that time, and hadn’t happened in a while, and he wasn’t sure when the next one might be), we MIGHT (but not would) see Aboriginals working those events.
What displays they had were placed kind of hap hazard, so that it didn’t tell any sort of meaningful story. Overall, it was kind of massive waste of time
One of the joys of travel is an opportunity to reconnect with old but distant friends. My travel buddy and I were doing a road trip from Adelaide to Sydney that allowed us to pass through Canberra, where both my he and I had friends. While there, my friend suggested that we attend go to the Parliament House and attend a session of the House of Representatives, which I was thrilled to do.The building above is actually the NEW house of Representatives building, (opened in 1988 and cost 1.1 Billion Australian dollars to build — wiki) according to my friend. The Old Parliament House (below, built in 1927) sits directly across a green divide from the new one, with the two buildings facing each other.
A picture of the old building from the opposite side, but you get the idea
My travel partner, Mik, had said to me that he couldn’t understand why they’d built the new building, when the old one still seemed perfectly good. I, however, have a theory. The old building has a stripped classicism style (the “rational architecture” style preferred in the 1920’s, and particularly embraced in Nazi Germany, that tends to reflect power the way a football linebacker reflects power); the new one reflects the old (both geographically and thematically, note the white pillars) while having a lot of “touches” that ‘honor’ aboriginal culture. [As I discussed in the blog post about the protest march I took part in the day of my accident, there seems to be a focus on appearances in how Australia addresses the political problem — on the world stage — of their relationship to their aboriginal population that eclipses the import of actions … and I think the new building intentionally includes these surface touches to show their ‘deep abiding respect’ for their native populations, without having to actually address the very real and substantive insults still happening today (see later in this piece).]
Note the Aboriginal art in front of the main entrance for the building
Below is the front entrance of the new building… note how on thematic level it reflects the shape of the old building; note the up down and the negative/dark versus light working of the shapes; but is less about brutish power (like the old building)… and more delicate, and hence also reflective of the “pillars of democracy” appearance — that you tend to see in the greek revival preferred in American Government buildings.
also pay attention to how while the old building looks from this angle as though it is embedded in a mountain (photo above, entrance is just to the left of the photo); so that the new building is actually built into the side of a man-made hill, with the elevated flag sitting on the top of its peak. So ULTRA modern while still reflecting the old building and the “Natural” elements. (Why yes, I do have an undergraduate degree … a BFA… in Art from the Art Institute of Chicago, and yes I did also attend the Royal College of Art in London … why do you ask?)
Got to love Aussie humor, I bought a box of the “Parlimints”
The interior of building is full of pillars decorated so as to bring to mind a grove of Eucalyptus trees … the one of the most common native of the Australian continent/country (so again, shifting the focus to the natural and native)
So for example consider the pictures of the tree on this website, and then compare it to the columns, and you’ll see what I mean. Once inside, we picked up our pre-reserved tickets to view the debates, and since we had time, so we explored the gift store at length, and then we went to have a snack at their cafeteria (which is REALLY nice and worth checking out.
THIS was my very first Lamington. One of the purposes of travel is eating new foods, and back when I was in Ballarat, my friend there had said that I needed to try a Lamington while in Australia. That said… when I saw they had one I ordered it for my tea, and had my travel buddy for this trip, Mik — an Aussie native, try it, and he deemed it to be a good Lamington …Not outstanding but good … I wasn’t impressed.
When it was time, we joined the group booked to attended the House of representatives question time, and passed through a security check… unfortunately we were not allowed to take out our phones for any reason while in the observation deck, and there were staff member posted at the front of every aisle to make sure we didn’t… they even would come talk to us if we were sitting “properly” (no putting your feet up, etc)…. I did find a YouTube video of the actual debate we watched (released by the government), but it said these videos are only up for 6 months at a time, so I didn’t bother.After we were released from the we did a guided tour of the building, as well as some free range wandering around … above the chamber there was the symbol of Australia but it was too small to see in the photo, so my travel buddy noted it was also on their $0.50 coin.At the back of one of the big rooms, there is a mural that the tour guide told us was actually very important, but because of a dinner event planned for that evening it was being blocked by a black curtain, the gold triangles, and the two projection screens hanging from the ceiling… I was however able to get a glimpse of it from behind the curtain… again, it looks like a natural Australian forest, and in it I spotted a Cockatoo (the white ones with the yellow plumage on top of their heads).
One of the amusing things the tour guide pointed out were these stickers across doorways,
According to the tour guid they’d been put there by the U.S. President’s secret service when he came for a visit… they go through, made sure the place was safe, and then placed these stickers across all the various doorways and closets along his path to make sure that they weren’t accessed between the inspection and his arrival.
after this we took an elevator to the roof of the building … in part because the building has that very interesting lawn roof, which is what makes the building look like it’s embedded into a mountain.
According to my friend, when the building first opened up you used to have full access to the lawn and kids used to use it for fun (rolling down the hill of soft manured lawn). After this, as we were heading home, my friend took a route that brought us by the back of the Old Parliament building (picture above), and pointed out to me the Aboriginal Embassy encampment located in the park just across from it. I asked him if we could park and visit it… which I got the impression is something he’d never done before based on his response (he seemed a bit intimidated by the thought) but he agreed.
So we walked into the encampment, while there we were called over to come sit with some of them who talked with my friend, while I listened from the edge, before hitting him up for money. To be honest they reminded me of my months on the Navajo reservation, where I was doing research on economic development there; it was just like any of the times I was around the alcoholic, out of work, vagrant Navajo who the were a source of anger and embarrassment to the other tribal members, the ones I was interviewing; these latter were the ones who were actually getting on with their lives and making something of themselves and trying to make life better for their people, rather than doing nothing while blaming others for their condition, well, nothing other than coming hands out and hitting up their more driven relatives for cash.
… although I am guessing the movers and shakers do need to enlist someone to just sit there and do nothing (and who better?). After this, my friend seemed pretty deep in his thoughts as we headed home… we couldn’t really do much more at that point because I was utterly exhausted
View of the Parliament building from across the riverThe view from our Airbnb
…..
The next day is when we went to have dinner with a very old friend of mine, Tat, whom I have not seen since my undergraduate days at the Royal College of Art, 30 odd years ago … which is where he and I met first while sharing a vat of photo chemicals in the dark rooms of the college. Yes, we’re that old…
That said, somewhere in his files he has naked photos of me, because like the mutual friend of ours in the image behind us (we sent this photo to her), I also was one of his models — only no one ever wanted to put the pics of my body on a wine bottle like they did with hers (which is ultimately what made his career). Lumpy fertility goddesses don’t make for good advertising campaigns. That said we had a really nice meal together … with many of its ingredients coming from his own garden… and then we walked around his neighborhood (A Canberra suburb).
My friend Mik petting one of Tat’s pet fish
This was a video I took of some cockatoos we passed on our walk
If you’re looking for a healthy meal to eat while at the beach, Mongers’ Fish and Chips is an option. That said, it is NOT the most amazing fish I have ever had, and it is NOT particularly cheap; as such, especially since they refer to themselves as “gourmet” I was expecting better (especially considering all the amazing reviews it had on-line). I chose it in large part because you had the option of frying OR grilling, and my diet required the latter.
On this day back in on January 24th, because the sky was blue and the temperatures were not too horrible, I had been touring around the greater Sydney area by riding on most of the various ferry lines. [Note: the 24th was the day before the horrific accident that gave me the horrible concussion that I’m still getting over 6 months later — including dental work to try heal my jaw which has been clicking since it got dislocated that day] This was in fact my 2nd time in Manly.
The first time I had gone there… I think it was by car… with my travel buddy and his mom; we had dinner at an Italian place, whose name I’m sorry to say I no longer remember — it was actually pretty good. After he and I had taken the ferry back to Sydney (which is when I got the idea to at some point in the trip spend a full day just riding around on the them). This time, when I arrived in Manly, it was about my lunch time (which is normal people’s early dinner time), so I looked on yelp to find a decent fish place — which directed me to Mongers.
I ordered the grilled Barramundi (which is native to Australian waters) with salad… but they removed the corn (carbs) and the pesto (oil) and got creative to make it a bit healthier with spices, and extra veggies in the place of the corn. I took my meal with me to the beach,
found a nice bench to sit on and enjoyed my meal there. It was OK, not great… the fish didn’t seem particularly fresh to me (an attribute that glares loud when you aren’t covering it up with things like frying or pesto). That said, the view was steller!
I remember I fed my leftovers to the seagulls, who apparently are not big fans of lettuce. Then, I walked around Manly until it was time to catch the next ferry back to Sydney.
Going on that researcher’s assessment (which would have meant about 90 pedophiles within the total population of Boston Priests) the Globe’s journalists were able, through extensive legwork, and by reading between the lines of church records — to uncover that while only one pedophile priest was currently in the news, in fact 87 of them were currently being bounced around the parishes of Boston; all of this being part of a methodical & institutionalized attempt on the part of the Catholic Church to protect itself rather than its children.
Once their research was published, over 1000 Boston area victims — knowing they were no longer alone — stepped forward, and ultimately 249 priests and brothers were publicly accused of sexual abuse JUST within the Boston Archdiocese. The Globe’s finding, had world-wide repercussions, effectively opening a can of worms as all Catholic communities, one by one, in a domino effect began to publicly address this cancer within the Catholic church… a phenomena which we are still dealing with almost 20 years later.
I’ve talked about Pell before… Almost a year ago I was in Australia, in Ballarat, a town just outside of Melbourne, which is epicenter of the abuse scandal here (I was staying with a woman I had befriended via Facebook years before). At the time I had blogged about “
Like I said, about half of the market is just that … as in you can buy an impressive variety of fresh fish to take home and cook. There are (to my count) five of this type of fresh fish shops scattered around the fish market area:
This sculpture located in mall and according to my is fairly iconic to Adelaide, and is titled, 
Overall the food was pretty good, very authentically Japanese
The building above is actually the NEW house of Representatives building, (opened in 1988 and cost 1.1 Billion Australian dollars to build — 
also pay attention to how while the old building looks from this angle as though it is embedded in a mountain (photo above, entrance is just to the left of the photo); so that the new building is actually built into the side of a man-made hill, with the elevated flag sitting on the top of its peak. So ULTRA modern while still reflecting the old building and the “Natural” elements. (Why yes, I do have an undergraduate degree … a BFA… in Art from the 
So for example consider the 
After we were released from the we did a guided tour of the building, as well as some free range wandering around
At the back of one of the big rooms, there is a mural that the tour guide told us was actually very important, but because of a dinner event planned for that evening it was being blocked by a black curtain, the gold triangles, and the two projection screens hanging from the ceiling… I was however able to get a glimpse of it from behind the curtain… again, it looks like a natural Australian forest, and in it I spotted a 
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