i belong in geelong.

As we mentioned before, Ben gets to do some traveling over the next few months, for various work projects. For the last two weeks he's been working in the city of Geelong, about 75 kilometres south-west of Melbourne. Because it's only an hour-long train ride from home, I had the opportunity to come out for a few visits in between various job interviews and appointments. 

I had a really, really great time. And I'm kind of in love with this city.

the Geelong carousel is a popular attraction for children, and a great place to enjoy the sunrise.

The second most populated area in the state of Victoria, downtown Geelong is right on the water, surrounding Corio Bay. This makes for some beautiful sunrises in the morning:

after enjoying a sunrise in the rain, I turned around to see this.

boats and a black swan on a mission.

Geelong is also home to the Baywalk Bollards, created by Australian artist Jan Mitchell in the late 90's. Over 100 of these painted sculptures are scattered around the city, created from the ruins of an old demolished pier. Many of them represent important figures from the history of Geelong, and some of them are decorated with fun props such as bikes and umbrellas.

each bollard is unique, detailed, and beautiful.

The wool industry is an important part of Geelong's history. It was the home of the first woollen mills in the 1800's, and for many years was known as the "wool centre of the world." The National Wool Museum features three floors of detailed and informative exhibits, as well as an actual working loom that makes beautiful carpets (for sale at the gift shop, of course!). The museum chronicles the history of wool in Australia - from the arrival of sheep on the first fleet in 1788, to the living conditions of shearers and mill-workers, to the transformation of coarse wool into colourful fabrics.

 

the still-working Komet Knitter machine, knitting socks with ease.

wool exhibits.

a real, working 1910 Axminster Jacquard carpet loom in action.

A few blocks away from the wool museum is the Geelong Gallery, a free art museum and one of Australia's oldest regional galleries. It holds a large collection of Australian and international paintings, artefacts, and mixed media, ranging from the colonial period to modern day. My favourite works were part of a temporary exhibit called Ex libris, a collection of art inspired by the physical form of books, featuring eight contemporary artists. I had an amazing time here, and highly recommend visiting the gallery.

The Eastern beach is a beautiful area in Geelong, with a large children's swimming pool and a recreational swimming area enclosed within a circular boardwalk. The palm trees give it a resort vibe, and it's a great place for families to relax and hang out.

view from the boardwalk

Finally, I got to spend some time exploring the Geelong Botanic Gardens. Established in 1851 and renovated in 2002, the gardens are a collection of diverse plants from all over the world. There are weekly guided tours given by volunteers every Sunday, and the gardens are also used as a venue for weddings and other functions. 

It's a bummer that Ben is usually hard at work during my adventures. We did have some free time on Saturday, so I was able to show him the Eastern Beach and Botanic Gardens, which he loved.

I had a great time exploring the city, and am so happy that it's only an hour away from Melbourne. Hopefully we'll be able to return for a long weekend getaway, so I can show Ben more of my favourite spots. I can totally see us settling down here - a cosy area surrounded by art, beautiful sunrises on the water, community events, and just a great vibe in general.

I belong in Geelong.

Or at least, somewhere like it.

CK

moomba and the labour day weekend.

This past Monday was Labour Day, which meant a nice long weekend for many in Melbourne. Labour Day is similar to Labor Day back in the States, but in Australia the actual date varies by state/territory. In Victoria (and Tasmania), it's the second Monday in March, while other states celebrate the holiday on the first Monday of March, May, or October - so many days of labour! Ben was happy to have a nice three-day weekend, after working out of town all week.

Labour Day weekend also coincides with the annual Moomba Festival, which celebrated its 60th anniversary this year. Moomba is a fun community event that takes place along the Yarra river, with carnival rides, food booths and performance stages set up along the surrounding areas. There is a parade on Monday morning, a wide variety of water sports showcased on the river, and a fireworks display every evening.

We decided to check out some of the festivities on Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful hot summer day in Melbourne, perfect for exploring the grounds and watching the spectacular Birdman Rally. Primarily a fundraising event, the Melbourne Birdman Rally consists of people attempting to fly across the river in homemade gliders, competing for distance (a combination of physical distance "flown," and fundraising efforts). Each contestant was interviewed beforehand about their costume, charity of choice, and flight expectations. We saw a lot of fun contraptions - someone dressed as a giant drop of water, a glider covered in balloons, a giant insect costume, and an oversized paper-mache dog bone. Very fun and creative, even if all the contestants pretty much just plummeted into the river. Fortunately, there were rescue crafts nearby to immediately assist the drenched participants, who returned to the stage for a post-plunge interview and slow-motion assessment of their "flight." We didn't stay until the end of the competition, but thoroughly enjoyed what we saw.

gliding into the river.

Later, we were able to watch some of the competitive wake boarders, who zig-zagged around the Yarra performing awesome tricks and manoeuvres. One of the competitors was a 10-year old girl from Malaysia - amazing!

We wandered around the grounds a bit, getting some snacks and watching the fun-looking rides.

We weren't feeling up to watching the Moomba parade in person on Monday, but fortunately a local channel was broadcasting it live on TV. There were many elaborate floats, dancers, and even the giant Millennium Dragon we saw displayed at the Chinese Museum. My favourite float was designed by a 5-year old girl, who won a design-your-own float competition with "Daisy the Cow." Adorable!

Festivals in Melbourne are really quite something, and it's so fun to live in a place where everyone comes out to enjoy what the city has to offer!

CK

more adventures with animals and stuff.

Here are some pictures of the Melbourne Sealife Aquarium. We went there about a month ago and now I'm too lazy to write about it in complete detail, sorry/you're welcome!

australian ghostshark/elephant fish (who names these things??)  

the aquarium had these fun domes in a bunch of tanks, probably meant for children but that didn't stop us! 

dance party.

And here are some pictures of the Healesville Sanctuary, the third local zoo covered by our Victoria Zoos membership (which, by the way, was an awesome investment - three zoos in the area, plus entry to various zoos in Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth, if we ever make it there). 

Healesville is hard to get to on public transit during the weekends, so we waited for a time when we had access to a car. It was well worth the trip, and a beautiful sunny day. I decided not to bring our nice camera along, which pretty much guaranteed that we would see a lot of cool Australian animals doing awesome things. 

Like this adolescent echidna pacing around.

And this kangaroo hopping around. 

And this wombat, who kept telepathically begging me to take him home to our apartment. 

"I'm just like a kitten, but BETTER!"

And most of all, this baby and mum koala duo. After I mentally punched myself in the face for not bringing along the nice camera We watched in pure delight as the baby awkwardly tried to disembark onto a branch, and then sheer horror as it ALMOST PLUNGED TO ITS DEATH and then more pure delight when it was able to climb back onto its mum, who brought them to a much nicer destination, apparently. 

such preciousness!

baby koala holding on for dear life!

getting the hang of things.

sighs of relief from everyone. 

naptime in another tree. 

It was so adorable I couldn't even stand it. 

We also decided to randomly visit Mornington, which is about 57 km south-east of Melbourne. Mornington is a beautiful little town known for its wineries and beaches, and we had a great time taking a walk along the water and enjoying some dinner. Here are some snapshots of our time there:

mornington. ton of morning. 

Those are pretty much all our adventure-updates for now. Oh, and here are some pictures of my one-person Oscar party last Monday morning:

I'm still very impressed that I'm able to watch these things live on public Australian television, possibly with better service than some people back in the States! I do miss watching this stuff with friends, though. It's no fun giggling about ridiculous celebrity selfies all by yourself.

CK

the journey.

"You can't jump straight to the end. The journey is the best part." - Robin Scherbatsky, "How I Met Your Mother"

(disclaimer: this blog post contains mild spoilers for the show "Smallville," the general Superman mythos, and early seasons of "How I Met Your Mother." please don't read ahead if you want to watch these shows with total surprise... or if you just don't want to hear me blabbering on about silly American television)

So, I'm taking a little break from our Australian expat adventures to address something important, and near and dear to my heart.

We finally finished watching the television series "Smallville." It took a few trials and errors to figure out the library system here, but we successfully borrowed seasons 7-10 from the Yarra Public Library (the local Melbourne Library system is a lot more convenient for us, but unfortunately rather flawed when it comes to their DVD stock). 

For those of you in the dark: "Smallville" was an American television series based on the origins of Superman - an alien child sent to Earth from the destroyed planet Krypton, raised by humble farmers in the town of Smallville, Kansas, who later grows up to be an invincible superhero based in the fictional city of Metropolis. 

"Smallville" has always been a meaningful series to me. Mostly because of the timing: the show began when I was in high school, making me roughly around the same age as the main characters, and the earlier seasons bring back a lot of laughable nostalgia (dial-up internet! fashionable "peasant" blouses! and of course, that one song by Lifehouse!). I watched it live on my grainy bedroom tv until I went off to college, then got too busy to keep up... then caught up with some DVDs a few years later, but only until season 7... and then last spring after the series had been over for 2 years, I convinced Ben to re-watch everything with me. Because Superman is awesome, and we always prefer watching shows after they've ended/been wrongfully cancelled/are about to become kickstarter-funded movies. 

There is one exception, though: How I Met Your Mother, which is currently on its final season. This is also a nostalgic show for me, and one that Ben and I were able to quickly catch up on with Netflix (which we REALLY MISS in Australia, by the way) because we knew that this year - season 9 - would be the last, and full of surprises with a big payoff.

For those of you in the dark: "HIMYM" is about a father telling his adolescent children the story of how he met their mother. But instead of a simple "at a Super Bowl party!" or "we were classmates in college!" Ted begins the story almost ten years before he technically meets his future love, telling long-winded and often hilarious stories about his four best friends and their legen*dary adventures in New York. I am NOT a fan of most sitcoms. Except for this one. Because it's smart, witty, and has unexpected moments of poignancy that have brought tears streaming down our faces my face. And Ben and I will both be very sad when it ends, in just a few weeks.

In many ways, "Smallville" and "HIMYM" are a lot alike. In both shows, we already know what the general future holds for the central character. We know that Clark Kent is going to evolve into the iconic bumbling reporter/supernatural saviour of the DC comic book universe - which makes it all the more charming and ironic when we are introduced to high school freshman Clark, who doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up: "just as long as it doesn't involve putting on a suit and doing a lot of flying." (in case you don't know, this is exactly what Superman does) We know that architect Ted Mosby has two future children, and eventually meets the love of his life - after dating half of Manhattan and a little of Jersey. And in both cases, we are drawn into love stories that we know do NOT work out in the end. Clark has his heart set on cheerleader-turned-barista Lana Lang, when we all know that he ultimately ends up with another woman bearing the same initials; and Ted spends the pilot episode describing his first romantic encounter with a seemingly perfect woman, whom he refers to at the end of the episode as "your Aunt Robin!" aka not The Mother. Season after season we are drawn into these temporary timelines, often rooting for these ill-fated relationships, when we clearly know that there are other things down the road. And when Lois Lane finally shows up in Smallville's season 4, she and Clark absolutely loathe each other (in a sibling rivalry way, very clever), and also his BFF is some bald dude named Lex Luthor - and you probably know how that one turns out (hint: they don't grow up to become old fishing buddies).

I don't know why, but this stuff really gets to me. 

I love Love stories told in reverse, with splashes of foreshadowing and irony and maybe an "I told you so" or two. Isn't that how life usually goes? It's like that for me. "Smallville" and "HIMYM" have taught me to be cautiously grateful during moments of bliss and accomplishment, and quietly hopeful in times of horribleness and "are we there yet?" To savour the seemingly insignificant moments of the days, and realise that everything does add up, somehow and somewhere into the future.

Hindsight is such a strong character in our lives, and we're hardly aware of it. There are pages of our stories that haven't been written yet, trials we still need to go through, amazing moments right around the corner if we just hold on a bit longer. Often we're so wrapped up in our immediate goals that we forget that in many ways, it's the journey that's worth enjoying, and not just the destination. 

CK

me and ben as clark + lois, part of our wedding reception centerpiece series

*wait for it...