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17 Nov
Made travel plans (one more week in Melbourne, 2 weeks in Hawaii, LA.) Had a nice phone call with a friend. Went to another Japanese exchange meetup, more about culture than language per se, was pretty fun. Checked out the Night Noodle Market, was crowded and expensive and my nose kept running, I fled home.
18 Nov
Took the 109 to Port Melbourne beach. I preferred St Kilda beach, less any difference in the beach (which I stay off of because of sand) and more the surrounding area. Kilda had shops and a Coney island clone and penguins, Port had a cruise ship and trucks loading it. I did find a parking meter saying $5/hour or $13.30/day, which I think overrides the "thirty" I thought I heard Saturday. I had to blow my nose nearly continously and wondered what kind of pollen was blowing off the ocean!
Later I looked up my allergy results and yeah, I'm allergic to grass pollen, the levels of which are HIGH and EXTREME.
Took the 1 tram downtown. Some trams like the 96 are spiffy. Some are old and poorly air conditioned (but have opening windows) and no stop announcements and horrible narrow tram platforms in the street inches away from traffic.
Spiffy or not, tram speeds aren't that much faster than walking, if nothing goes wrong.
Checked out a Japanese market, got mugicha, no hojicha available.
Tonight's meetup was a stargazing trip, taking the train out to some stop with no obvious reason for existing. I was the only white person. Had fun talking to a couple of Korean girls on the train. This is a real train, with bathrooms, and conductor checking tickets, and 30 minute headways if that. At our gaze point the ground was pretty dark but there was still a fair bit of glow from Melbourne, especially off the clouds as they moved over. More stars than you see in a city, but sure not Dark. I did see two satellites (one of which I found), two clear shooting stars, and maybe two more. The organizer took photos. I didn't realize what the multi-exposure ones would be, I thought they'd be superimposed in one place, not 'walking'.
19 Nov
Went to the St Kilda tram stop, which is several minutes earlier than St Kilda beach. It wasn't too exciting, just a modest and not entirely thriving commercial district. Some "New Orleans" ornate buildings. Also a Madame Spaghetti gelato shop, which sounded confused, but is actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettieis
16 is another horrible tram, which I took to go pick up the keys of my next place. But some tram broke down and we were stuck for 15 minutes until the passengers rebelled. There were at least 11 trams backed up head to tail, and apparently everyone rebelled at once, or one tram rebelled and triggered the others. So something like 1000 people marched toward downtown Melbourne, in surprisingly good humor. I almost felt sorry for the cars trying to make a simple turn and having to wait for a human river to pass.
Tried taking another tram after my keys, but it merges onto the tracks of the broken down lines, which were jammed with late trams or something. Remember I said they were only somewhat faster than walking if nothing went wrong? Yeah, if something goes wrong then they are not at all faster than walking... I found that meditating while I walked really did reduce my annoyance levels.
Meetup was a Spanish language thing. A Colombian guy talked faster than I could understand easily, and ended up seeming annoyed with us and reading; he said he was a professor of Spanish literature back home, but is here with his girlfriend and just works as a laborer. I walked with an English woman, whose levels matched mine.
Took a bus home. Yeah, no stop announcements.
Skype call with W. Woo!
20 Nov
New place. Really hot -- 32 or 33 C -- and high grass pollen levels, so I hid indoors apart from a grocery run. I'm in a desert of reasonably priced food: the close market is an IGA which is small and overpriced, and the alternatives are IGA Xpress which are even more so. In the evening I went to a general language thing, running into the aftereffects of *another* broken own tram. The event was loud and disorganized and I fled earlier, getting some Japanese food. A possibly drunk guy walked in demanding chow mein, which the staff hadn't even heard of; they eventually sorted out that that was a Chinese dish and this was a Japanese place, and he left abashed rather than belligerent. I waggled my eyebrows at the waitress, who later asked if I'd been there before, she thought she recognized me. Was pretty friendly, I was trying to weight the odds of 'flirt' vs. 'being friendly'. Bayesian prior is against me.
Made travel plans (one more week in Melbourne, 2 weeks in Hawaii, LA.) Had a nice phone call with a friend. Went to another Japanese exchange meetup, more about culture than language per se, was pretty fun. Checked out the Night Noodle Market, was crowded and expensive and my nose kept running, I fled home.
18 Nov
Took the 109 to Port Melbourne beach. I preferred St Kilda beach, less any difference in the beach (which I stay off of because of sand) and more the surrounding area. Kilda had shops and a Coney island clone and penguins, Port had a cruise ship and trucks loading it. I did find a parking meter saying $5/hour or $13.30/day, which I think overrides the "thirty" I thought I heard Saturday. I had to blow my nose nearly continously and wondered what kind of pollen was blowing off the ocean!
Later I looked up my allergy results and yeah, I'm allergic to grass pollen, the levels of which are HIGH and EXTREME.
Took the 1 tram downtown. Some trams like the 96 are spiffy. Some are old and poorly air conditioned (but have opening windows) and no stop announcements and horrible narrow tram platforms in the street inches away from traffic.
Spiffy or not, tram speeds aren't that much faster than walking, if nothing goes wrong.
Checked out a Japanese market, got mugicha, no hojicha available.
Tonight's meetup was a stargazing trip, taking the train out to some stop with no obvious reason for existing. I was the only white person. Had fun talking to a couple of Korean girls on the train. This is a real train, with bathrooms, and conductor checking tickets, and 30 minute headways if that. At our gaze point the ground was pretty dark but there was still a fair bit of glow from Melbourne, especially off the clouds as they moved over. More stars than you see in a city, but sure not Dark. I did see two satellites (one of which I found), two clear shooting stars, and maybe two more. The organizer took photos. I didn't realize what the multi-exposure ones would be, I thought they'd be superimposed in one place, not 'walking'.
19 Nov
Went to the St Kilda tram stop, which is several minutes earlier than St Kilda beach. It wasn't too exciting, just a modest and not entirely thriving commercial district. Some "New Orleans" ornate buildings. Also a Madame Spaghetti gelato shop, which sounded confused, but is actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettieis
16 is another horrible tram, which I took to go pick up the keys of my next place. But some tram broke down and we were stuck for 15 minutes until the passengers rebelled. There were at least 11 trams backed up head to tail, and apparently everyone rebelled at once, or one tram rebelled and triggered the others. So something like 1000 people marched toward downtown Melbourne, in surprisingly good humor. I almost felt sorry for the cars trying to make a simple turn and having to wait for a human river to pass.
Tried taking another tram after my keys, but it merges onto the tracks of the broken down lines, which were jammed with late trams or something. Remember I said they were only somewhat faster than walking if nothing went wrong? Yeah, if something goes wrong then they are not at all faster than walking... I found that meditating while I walked really did reduce my annoyance levels.
Meetup was a Spanish language thing. A Colombian guy talked faster than I could understand easily, and ended up seeming annoyed with us and reading; he said he was a professor of Spanish literature back home, but is here with his girlfriend and just works as a laborer. I walked with an English woman, whose levels matched mine.
Took a bus home. Yeah, no stop announcements.
Skype call with W. Woo!
20 Nov
New place. Really hot -- 32 or 33 C -- and high grass pollen levels, so I hid indoors apart from a grocery run. I'm in a desert of reasonably priced food: the close market is an IGA which is small and overpriced, and the alternatives are IGA Xpress which are even more so. In the evening I went to a general language thing, running into the aftereffects of *another* broken own tram. The event was loud and disorganized and I fled earlier, getting some Japanese food. A possibly drunk guy walked in demanding chow mein, which the staff hadn't even heard of; they eventually sorted out that that was a Chinese dish and this was a Japanese place, and he left abashed rather than belligerent. I waggled my eyebrows at the waitress, who later asked if I'd been there before, she thought she recognized me. Was pretty friendly, I was trying to weight the odds of 'flirt' vs. 'being friendly'. Bayesian prior is against me.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-20 14:23 (UTC)From:For coping with airborne allergens, I highly, *highly* recommend surgical masks. Wear them as much as possible whenever going outside. It sucks never getting to just be outside and get some fresh air†, but it beats constant allergy symptoms. I used disposables this year, but for my recent birthday I got one of those anti-pollution masks like they wear in the Asian parts of town, and if this keeps being an issue in another year or two I'll upgrade again to a somewhat higher quality one.
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†In related news, a couple days ago I went to my GP and got an allergist referral, because I've managed to acquire spring *and* autumn and now *summer* pollen allergies, and even in an area where the winters last five months this is getting ridiculous.