If Sydney was a city of personal trainers, Melbourne was one giant café – a place clearly designed by a comittee of switched on 27 year olds. Most people work in bars, are grafitti artists or jazz musicians. I am not completely positive how anyone actually makes a living, but the place is marvellous as a result … Like looking at Britain through a 35 degree celsius lens.

The original reason for coming out to Melbourne was to see Beto – a great friend I met while learning to dive in Guatemala at the Iguana Perdida hostel. It was really amazing to see him – and always amusing when you meet people again after seeing them while travelling. Always neater and less tanned… in most cases. Beto, however, was exactly the same. And exactly as amazing!

Contrasting the tourist profile of Sydney, in Melbourne I took pleasure in floating along in the social current. Beto seems to know anyone that thinks they are anyone, especially in the music business, and this meant that I had four days of free entry to the town’s best bars and clubs, and by the end seemed to be cultivating my own friendship circle. It was that frantic. And a real pleasure to get some self-generating urban culture flavours.

Similar to my last trip to Hing Kong, I also seemed to have hook ups with people from all over the world, drafted from different stages of my life. Joannie – one of my old friends from Glasgow, her friend Fiona, Grace – gf of Nick here in Taipei, plus Nelson and Christina from Taipei were all around. It was quite strange but very natural to hook up with Joannie and Fiona. The vibe in Melbourne is very similar to Glasgow, and I seemed to slip into the old routine quite quickly of sitting outside enjoying the sun… the difference was, well, about twenty degrees celsius.

Note to self. Move to Melbourne.

Bird Strike

De rigeur Havaiianas

Beach huts, Aussie style

Rollin’ – the great outdoors really is just that in Australia

Spooky!

Suzie, Beto, a very drunk Jean Pierre and me, narrowly avoiding aesphyxiation (spelling????!)

Grace and I dodge the camera

7-11 – comfort zone