Pumped up kicks

The day of the worst Sydney rain, I wore my running shoes out. They're a minimalist shoe which means there's not much to them. Even the material they're made of is thin and mostly mesh. I've had them for two years (too long for running shoes) and have washed them countless times. They dry quickly. I washed them before I packed them and they smelled like lavender Tide. 

After that rainy day when I was stepping in puddles to my ankles, sloshing through sidewalks never having a chance to dry off, my shoes were put through the wringer. Or they should have been, in a literal sense. 

The next day I wore my flip flops out because my shoes didn't dry overnight. Imagine my delight when I opened the door to my hotel room that evening and was greeted by a smell so overwhelmingly bad I slammed the door shut again to collect myself. 

There is a dead animal in my room!

No, it was the stench of a dying, rotting New Balance shoe. Fine. I can solve this with Tide. I dumped some packs of detergent in the hotel sink and washed those kicks and let them soak in suds for awhile. I wrung them out and left them to dry. 

Problem solved. I wore them to the mountains. That was fine until I got on the bus and the driver turned the air conditioning on - and it was blowing out of floor vents. The smell of my shoes was now being shot into the air in a small public space. I attempted to bury my own feet under a few bags and wished that my sense of smell was overly sensitive. 

That's not the case at all but helped momentarily. 

Those shoes did not make it to Melbourne. I double bagged them and threw them in the garbage in Sydney. If I put those in my luggage I would have had to light all my belongings on fire upon arrival. 

I was thrilled to find a New Balance outlet in Melbourne at the DFO (direct factory outlets, not a branch of our fish federal department) and got a pair of new kicks for $60 all in. Steal! They aren't my favourite colour but they don't smell. 

Melbourne/Montreal?

It doesn't take much time in Melbourne to sense it's the Montreal to our Ottawa. This is the city with more than a handful of it spots, where people get glamorous for Friday night dinner and drinks, whether you're 25 or 65. I was walking along the wharf with greasy hair and a dirty hoodie last night and looked like I accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up there. 

Which is what happened so at least that's authentic. 

You know when you see something or hear about it and you don't know if it's "cool" because it just is, or if it's "cool" because it's ironic-cool?  Melbourne is all about that. For example...

These are legitimate adidas shoes in an adidas store.  The bear has arms. Or how about this, Cookie Monster playing bagpipes on the wharf?

I could post another ten examples but you catch my drift. If you think there are a lot of bearded guys in Hintonburg, you should see just one lane way in Melbourne. 

Today was a day of lane ways (terrible segue, sorry) as I toured through the arcades and countless shops. This city is a shopper's paradise! Melbourne seems to support its local talent, whether designers or artists or craftsmen, in tangible ways. The little pop up shops around the city let people rent out space temporarily to sell their goods. It's like a cooler farmers market that isn't just on a weekend. 

A random collection from today's tour...

Worth a special mention is this chili hot chocolate.

 We stopped at Koko Blacks mid-tour for a "morning tea break" which was actually a morning chocolate hit via truffles and liquid cocoa. Koko Blacks has become a bit of an Aussie institution. I finished this drink no sweat, only to hear one woman say "just a few sips is enough for me, that's so rich!" and the others nodded in agreement. Umm. If I'm given a mug of chocolate I'm going to have all of it. Chocolate should not go to waste. 

My favourite street art. 

The trees have knitted sweaters in the city square!  See, only in Melbourne. Instead of cutting down all the ash trees in Ottawa that were killed by ash borers, we should knit them outfits. 

Im fighting a cold so my plans for a great run along the Yarra were squashed. It was more of a lazy plod. But the new shoes are great and don't smell. 

The highlight of today (or the first, I'll get to the second) was dinner. Rice Paper Scissors was on my hit list for the trip. I showed up an hour before it opened so I checked out a couple shops in the meantime. I didn't want to be the guy who shows up the minute a restaurant opens, so I waited until 6:01 to arrive. Good thing I did because in one whole minute, the place filled up. 

I was squished in at the bar where the food gets handed to the wait staff. It was a perfect spot for a solo diner, almost awkwardly close to the chef. I was stealthy with the picture taking. 

Oh, but the food. The food! 

For you Ottawa person(s), if Supply & Demand and El Camino had an Asian baby, this would be it. 

Every bit of it was perfect in the truest sense of the word. Several times I thought, I wish so and so, and so and so, and so and so were here, because they'd love this spot. 

The place is co-owned by two head chefs, both of whom were working like animals. I was tired just watching them. The less chefy-chef said they normally have a third guy in the kitchen but not tonight. 

I left there happy. The food was just so good it made me laugh. 

The second highlight of the day was getting on the right tram the right direction, for free! They have a zone where you can hop on and off the tram system without paying. That zone covers a good chunk of the city so it's perfect for tourists - and locals living and working downtown too, I'm sure. 

Before I called it a day, I watched a couple street performers. I generally don't watch these shows for long because I have a true fear of being called onto stage/forced to help/audience participation. Shudder. But this guy was funny. 

Tomorrow is koala/penguin/wombat day!  Yes!  All three better show up to the party - with friends. 

Love-Love

#wishIpackedmyracket

But let's do things in order!

The flight from Sydney to Melbourne was quick and I was in my next temporary home around lunch time. It's a beautiful but cool day and I walked along the Yarra River to my destination...

(Rowers!) Can you make out the stadium lights?

I bought a grounds pass to the Australian Open.  I spent a few hours walking around, checking out all the different zones, eating stadium food and soaking in the tennis buzz. 

Found my next tennis outfit, too. Classy and understated!  The kangaroos add the je-ne-sais-quoi. 

Without tickets to the big Rod Laver stadium, you can't see the big players battle it out (men's semi-final tonight... It's getting close to the end!) on the real court, just on the big screens around the stadium.  I did my best Harry Mertin and made friends with the older door fellow taking tickets for the match. He let me poke around the stadium and take some pictures while giving me trivia about the place, which I'll share with you to make this less boring to read:

- the roof takes over twenty minutes to close, unlike the smaller stadium next door which only takes four minutes

- the stadium will be getting a facelift (it's over 20 years old!) with a finish date of 2026ish

- when Elton John played there, he demanded the roof stay open for the concert despite staff warning him of bugs. After he was swarmed by moths, he demanded the roof stay open only 4 inches. 

- the ticket collectors/ushers make "very good" money according to buddy: he seemed offended when I asked him if this was a volunteer thing for people who wanted to see the tennis.  "No! I don't do anything for free!"  Got it. 

The set up is great. I've seen various sports live but this was my first tennis experience and the whole event feels more polished and professional. Or maybe I was just there too early for the true tennis shenanigans. 

I didn't get any photos but one match that was incredible to watch was between Lucas Sithole and Dylan Alcott.  These guys play wheelchair tennis. The speed of their backhand without twisting their body is nuts. Sithole's biography is something worth mentioning, too. He lost his legs and an arm in a train accident when he was 12 in his hometown in South Africa. He didn't pick up tennis until after the accident, loved it and was competing within a year.  

Shout out to our hometown favourite!

I left the Open and hopped on the tram that loops around the city and got off a quarter of the way through the route. I needed to stop at a shopping spot to buy runners (story to follow). I didn't find a decent store and managed to get back on the tram the wrong direction. No shoes, no full tour. 

Turning on the tennis...

.... and just heard the news anchor say this is the coolest summer they've had in fifteen years. I'm buying a lottery ticket as soon as I get home. 

Blue sky for Blue Mountains

Ahhhh. Smell that?

Fresh moutain air with a side of sunshine. 

I can't tell you how great this was. There are few things that bring some sweet soul quenching like the outdoors on a beautiful day!

The bus left for the Blue Mountains early this morning and it took about 2 hours to get up there. We walked down 1000 steep steps (for real) to the base of Wentworth Falls. We were grasping the metal cable pretty tightly so no one bailed and took out the ten people in front of them. The legs were a bit wobbly after I looked over the edge a couple times. 

To give you a sense of size, if I were standing under the waterfall in this photo, I would look very tiny. 

The climb back up was like doing a three-hour, squats-only Greco class. What goes down must go up!

We left the falls, grabbed lunch in Katoomba and headed to see the "Three Sisters". How appropriate! It was a gradual walk down thorough the rainforest. Beautiful spot to visit. 

See the "sisters" on the left?

At Wentworth, the climb back up was a good workout but not scary. At the Sisters, the climb back up was lazy and frightening. Enter the world's steepest railway. 

Those wood steps are the platform where you load the train and it takes you back to the top. Where you see the track end on the right is actually where it ends. It stops at the edge of the cliff. 

Here's what I didn't realize: it goes super fast and you sit backwards. I can't ride the Otrain backwards without feeling ill. Luckily it only takes a minute to speed back to the top!

Quick facts: the railway is 415m long and has a vertical drop of 206 metres.  

I took a video of the ride but it doesn't look like I can add videos on the blog.  The best part of the clip is hearing my worried British seatmate. 

Speaking of Brits, there were several on my tour today. Most of them are taking a few months to travel around Australia. Two blokes, as they'd say, Martin and Matt, were the oddest and most amusing friends I've met so far. They've been mates since they were little and provided a lot of free entertainment for the rest of us.  A few travellers were from France, one fellow from China and a girl from Calgary rounded out the group. 

Everyone slept on the ride back to Sydney. Must have been the mountain air. 

For my last night in the city, there were only two things I had to accomplish: eating Lucio's pizza and Messina's gelato. The pizza place was only ten minutes away in the Darlinghurst 'hood. Unsurprising, it took me 45 minutes to find it. 

Pizza on the patio was followed by salted caramel + double fudge/hazelnut/orange marmalade heaven. If this place were back home, Stella Luna and Pure would no longer be in business. This was overwhelmingly delicious. No wonder there's always a line up. 

I board the plane to Melbourne tomorrow for my other Aussie stop. Sydney is a place you could easily spend a month in and still find more to do. That said, I can't wait to run along the Yarra River, check out some unique shops, catch tennis fever and if all the stars align, see the baby wombat I've been talking relentlessly about for weeks. 

Hang ten

That sunny bit I squealed about lasted me long enough to get back to my hotel before it poured again. That's considered a Sydney victory! I had a couple ideas in mind for Wednesday night and decided to go with the one that I was saving for the hot day I wasn't destined to have here...

A ride over to Manly. 

The ferry ride takes half an hour but goes by so quickly. The views of the harbour are stunning. 

Very happy I went! This beach must be jammed on a hot summer night. There were joggers everywhere (side note: loads of men run here but have only seen a handful of girl runners. Also, in ottawa, serious male runners tend to be quite lean and narrow. Here, the guys who run are tanks. Not sure what running guys eat over here.) but only a few people on the beach - all in jackets! It was fun watching the surfers practice. 

You can't go to the beach without chowing down on fish and chips. Fishmonger is the hot spot for take away (not take out) fish so I grabbed a box of their best seller and dined seaside. 

Even their greasy food looks pretty here. 

I counted over twenty seagulls staring me down for this. The only one who came and sat next to me and begged for a bite was the guy without a foot. Go figure. 

I polished off a Copenhagen ice cream while I strolled a relatively deserted boardwalk.  Only in Australia do you see tons of Billabong stores. 

I waited to board the ferry back until after sunset so I could see the harbour at nighttime. Pictures really don't do it justice (especially mine). 

The walk through downtown was quiet. A nice end to a busy day. 

Next adventure - mountains!