mindstalk | Entries tagged with melbourne

Nov 23

Mostly stayed home reading and cooking, then went out to the St Kilda games. The cute girls from last week weren't there. :( But I got to teach people Settlers of Catan, and to my surprise ended up winning after a long game. My expansion sucked but I bought lots of dev cards, got largest army and longest road and manages to break out a bit, then build a sheep port, then get lucky rolls, trades, and the sheep port to build cities and win. Sheep were usually abundant -- rolled on 5, 6, 8, or 9! -- but I think my final trade was in fact to buy an extra sheep so I could port it into stone and build my city.

Then played more Bang! the Dice game. Couple with 5 players, couple with 7. I think the AWOL organizer had a houserule last week for 7 players, where you randomize whether there are 2 deputies or 2 renegades; I applied that and people seemed to like it. Also the one where you deal out two characters per player so people can pick an ability.

Chatted about accents and politics before going home.

Nov 24

Went to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Any actual botany was mostly wasted on me, but as experiences I liked some lake with islands (and a gondola), a rather large fern gully, and a rather small and hot tropical greenhouse. There are also various signs about plants and ecology used by the aborigines.

Went to a Meetup to see that penguin colony at dusk. The organizer messed with the times so I walked in earlier, running into a couple from the stargazing Monday, so we hung out. The penguins don't really come in until half an hour after sunset, but if you wait until it's dark and the people go away, you can have a pretty rocking penguin experience. There are streetlights so you can actually see them, also rangers with red flashlights (torches, here). They swim out before sunrise and return after sunset and spend their time deep in the water, so apparently they can't see red light and have no ability to protect their eyes from bright white light. No flash!

Tram out announced stops, tram home on the same line didn't.

Crossposts: https://mindstalk.livejournal.com/549843.html

Nov 21: hot day, up to 40 C, grass pollen forecast EXTREME, along with warnings about "epidemic thunderstorm asthma", which seems to be something that mostly happens in Melbourne, where storm + pollen = lots of asthma attacks at once. I don't have asthma but going out seemed a good way of 'fixing'. that.

Temperature collapsed in the afternoon, from 40 at 2pm to 18 at 5pm, so I did go out for a game event, but the trams were choked again, and walking + food would have gotten me there well after the start time, so I walked around the nearby park a bit instead, and chatted with my hosts.

Nov 22: Went to the National Gallery of Victory (NGV) which is 5 minutes away, free, and deceptively huge. I did my father's "walk around quickly to see what's there". The first galley took 3 minutes, the second (Asian art) took 9, but the rest (second floor and mezzanine) took the rest of an hour! And that's not even the whole museum, because the Mesoamerican galley is closed for some gala event, and won't open again until after I leave. I am very sad.

Some highlights to return for: Venetian glass, the Asian art (CJK and India, mostly), Impressionist paintings. There's also a lot of modern 'design' stuff, plus some special galleries on 'comme' (ridiculous dresses, AFAICT) which could be worth a look.

Went to Japanese exchange again, got less out of it, people were talking in Japanese more rather than giving free tutoring. Still fun.

Trams were annoying again, several full ones in a row, but I actually took one. I hope they're fine tomorrow, I really want to go to the St Kilda game night again, that was pure fun.

Crossposts: https://mindstalk.livejournal.com/549341.html

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.

Crossposts: https://mindstalk.livejournal.com/548762.html

Most of the trams announce stops like a proper system, but one of the 109s didn't.

I kept having north-facing, meaning sun-catching, Airbnb rooms. This room is finally southwest facing. Not sure if it gets a lot of afternoon sun, I haven't been around, but at least it's not morning or noon.

More Friday

After the Market and dragon tent, had a casual date, talking with a fun woman, about families and dogs and such. She said the buses in Melbourne also don't announce stops. Australia!

Visited St. Paul's Cathedral, which looked rather neat. No photos during a service, and even without that I think they want you to buy a license.

Had some tasty dumplings.

Went to another Meetup event, a Japanese/English exchange. My fear that I don't know enough to get a lot out of it, despite the "all levels welcome", isn't entirely unjustified. Still I learned a bit and met some people. Tried going to drinks afterwards, but the other people were 3 guys and 3 girls pairing off, so I felt like a third wheel and broke off. Extra justification can be that my hosts sleep 9-6 so in theory I should go to bed earlier. This has never happened yet... at least they're quiet in the morning, and I hope I'm stealthy in the night. (As my friend's daughters can attest from many games of 'chase', I'm *quiet* in socks or barefeet, despite my weight -- quieter than much lighter kids who go stomp stomp giggle stomp.)

Unrelated to travel, my eyes keep glazing over when I try to read the D&D 5e SRD rules. I learned on RPG.net that it's not just me.

Today

Took the 96 tram away from the CBD, to St Kilda, actually to the end of the line, and beach. End of line is a nice little carless half-block, full of pedestrians and booming businesses. One stop in is Luna Park, some quaint amusement park apparently modeled on the old Coney Island. I did not go in. Walked along the beach (or boardwalk, socks and sandals don't encourage walking on sand especially if you don't see a shower to wash feet off at), then along St Kilda pier. There's supposed to be a big colony of Little Blue (aka Fairy) penguins, but they're mostly out swimming for fish during the day. I did see two hiding in the rocks, probably molting or young.

Someone told me the curbside parking by Luna Park was $5/hour or $30/day, but when I looked at beach spaces I saw "$13.32" fee, though not sure for how long. By contrast downtown Boston curbside was US$1.25/hour (so like $2 here), unless they've raised it recently.

Yet another Meetup event, another games night, which was lots of fun! More than Thursday's, the organizer is much more friendly and people seemed more social in general. Played three games of Bang! the dice game; I prefer the original card game but it's not terrible. Differences include no way to get a range longer than 2, or to change your range, and no loot from killing outlaws. Then played three games of Hanabi, this time with someone else who'd played it before; we scored 14, 17, and 18. (Thursday we scored 15 and 17.) Another guy there also goes to the Thursday (Gamezilla) event and confirmed that he finds it less friendly, the organizer doesn't do much and people are largely in their own cliques of long-standing tables.

I got asked "so why Melbourne?" which surprised me; I guess she was thinking it doesn't have the nice weather and beaches of Brisbane and Sydney.

At 11 PM the 96 runs every 20 minutes.

Crossposts: https://mindstalk.livejournal.com/548108.html

Only spent one week in Hobart. Small city didn't appeal to me; cold rain made hiking unattractive, as did increasing hay fever; figured two weeks left could be more happily spent in Melbourne, say.

Arrived in Melbourne Wednesday. Once again, the flight involved no ID checks, no shoe removals, no emptying of water bottles... Took 30 minutes to drop off my bag with Virgin Australia, no kiosks and only a few people to handle multiple flights. Also either luggage scales are shit or I've somehow acquired 5 more kg in my luggage.

Magnetized substances are considered dangerous items.

Virgin gives a bit of water and a cheap snack for free.

Like Hobart, there's a SkyBus to escape the airport, costing $19.50. Unlike Hobart, it runs every 8-10 minutes.

First impression: 8 or 10 lane highway, flatness, a building saying "Sexyland" but with high clear windows.

Second impression: mass of skyscrapers, like the Chicago Loop.

Ran into my host on the way there, lol. I'm actually staying with her old Chinese parents who don't speak much English. Friendly, though.

Melbourne transit is a mix of buses (not taken), trains (longer distance and lower frequency, I think), and trams, lots of trams. When I'd checked ahead on a Sunday afternoon they seemed to be running every 30 minutes, but on a weekday it's more like every 10. They have ROW (right of way), but not signal priority, so I'd put them in between buses and true light rail. Fares are high (4.30) but capped low ($8.60), not sure if caps are per mode (tram, train) or global. If you know you really want to travel, a pass is $44. But there's a free tram zone, which I can walk to in 8 minutes.

My host had a spare transit card and lent it to, but I decided to explore my phone's NFC capabilities, activating Google Pay. So in general I can now pay for things just by tapping, and I didn't have to pay $6 for a pre-paid card. I *also* have a Melbourne 'card' on my phone now, though that wouldn't have worked in the other cities. OTOH reading the phone card has been finicky.

Took to the tram to the east of the zone (I'm SW, in Southbank), explored Treasury Gardens a bit, explored Chinatown rather more. Melbourne has drinking fountains on some city corners, which is pretty novel, even Brisbane kept them in parks and campuses. The Chinatown seems mostly linear, along Little Bourke Street; I'd guess smaller than Sydney's but still decent. The gates had Persian title patterns, which is unusual.

Thursday

Went back to the same general area, aiming for FitzRoy gardens. There are botanic gardens but they look annoying to get to. Got diverted by St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is rather large, lots of nooks to explore. A class of small kids was there, I wonder if public and cultural trip or Catholic school and religious education trip. Gardens themselves decent, it's nice to be back with random subtropical plants.

OTOH I haven't seen any ibises or bats. Ditto for Hobart but I figured that was a different climate. I later saw mention of a Melbourne bat colony in the Yarra Bend golf course, relocated from the Botanic Gardens; that's like an hour away by transit.

I finally started looking at Meetup more, and went to a board games night. I introduced some people to Hanabi, and got introduced to Space Base.

Today: went to South Melbourne Market, bought some not exceptional dumplings, chatted with some artist girl with a dragon-shaped 'homeless' tent.

Past things

I'd mentioned all the bikers wearing helmets; it came back to me that Australia started mandating that some years ago, followed by the predictable drop in cycling.

Australian city definitions are weird, there'll be a tiny core like a US downtown, and suburbs right around that. E.g. the City of Sydney is population 200,000 (and density 8000/km2) in a metro area of 5.3 million. Artist girl indicated that housing policy is up to the individual suburbs/councils, but clearly someone coordinates public transit over the metro area much better than we see in the USA.