Youngs Around the World

Our first night sleeping in the dorm was pretty rough. There was a Japanese guy snoring relentlessly about three feet from my head and my bed dipped in the middle. As the events of the day continued to spin my wheels, I couldn’t sleep; then I got a scolding from a bed-faced Bear who peered down from his top bunk penthouse to find me playing online at 2am. I’m sure that I responded with a muffled, snide remark but I knew I was busted. I resigned myself to the fact that the next day would be impossible without a steady flow of caffeine coursing through my body. Hi. My name is Tina Young and I am hopelessly addicted to caffeine: the means of doing twice as much on half the sleep.

I managed to drag myself out of bed around 8:30 the next morning, mostly because the Bear was already dressed and shuffling around impatiently. We fueled up with a cup of free instant coffee from the hostel kitchen and set out on another day of exploring, starting with Kinkaku-ji (Golden Temple) in northwest Kyoto. The three-story temple was plated in gold and set on the edge of a tranquil pond. It was originally built in 1937 as a retirement villa for a Japanese Shogun and later converted to a temple by his son. The grounds were secluded and buffered from the noise of the city; the sublime gardens were so serene that we felt as if we had stepped into an oasis of tranquility.

After walking the perimeter of the temple grounds, we took a break from temple-viewing to check out Nishiki Market – a long, covered alley lined with stall after stall of local handicrafts and colorful arrays of raw fish, bulk spices, sweets and other specialty foods. We are continually intrigued by food markets around the world. The colors, smells and crowds overwhelm our senses as we walk from one shop to the next, checking out the merchandise on display. What is unique about Japanese markets is geometric precision employed by the various proprietors in displaying their wares. Rarely do you see even bulk items in a pile but rather fish, spices and produce are neatly arranged in rows and geometric shapes. The individual shops are small and personal, usually attended by the owner.

As we walked through the market, which spanned several city blocks, all of the food displays naturally sparked our hunger so we stopped at a kaiten-zushi restaurant – a sushi bar in which individual servings of sushi, tempura and sashimi are rotated on a conveyor belt passing by each table. Patrons pull the plates that they want and, at the end of the meal, a waitress tabulates the bill based on the number of plates stacked on the table. We ordered some drinks and watched a few rotations before grabbing one little plate after another, accumulating a respectable stack. The sushi was of mediocre quality but we were tickled by the conveyor belt experience.

Our last stop of the day was at Nanzen-ji, which is one of the finest temples in all Kyoto. We walked the beautiful, expansive grounds and through a few of the historic buildings in the temple complex, marveling at the architecture and gardens. The Japanese have definitely mastered the art of tranquility. The dark wood inspires a feeling of engulfing softness, despite the straight, clean lines incorporated into all of the interior designs. The rooms are simply decorated with tatami mats on the floor. The walls are most often plain though occasionally adorned with muted paintings or lattice screens. Sliding panels of wood or rice paper invite the breeze on a summer’s day. My favorite room in the Nanzen-ji complex – the Hojo Hall dining room – had a simple, elegant dining table over a pale pink, floral-design Oriental rug; the exterior wall encased a floor-to-ceiling window framing a seemingly mythical view of an idyllic Japanese garden. It looked like paradise.

The Japanese gardens are brilliantly designed to invoke relaxation, meditation, prayer and contemplation. They all seem to incorporate a water feature – you always find the calming sound of trickling water in the garden ambience. Many also include a rock garden with a wave-like design raked into it, which strangely inspires you to sit and stare across it, allowing your undeterred thoughts to flow. As I walked the grounds of Nanzen-ji, I was overcome with feelings of contentment and harmony. Amid the chaos of endless distractions that dominate our normal daily lives, an oasis of quiet solitude often seems impossible to find. Centuries ago, the Japanese perfected the art of creating that oasis and, while the modern Japanese population seems to have succumbed to the Western frenzy of work more, do more, buy more, I hope to bring home the wisdom of the early Japanese architects. It is admirable to create something aesthetically beautiful – like a finely furnished room – but it is endlessly rewarding to create or find an atmosphere that inspires prayer, reflection, and manifests the beauty within the beholder.

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Arriving in Kyoto on the morning train from Osaka (a thirty minute ride), we lugged our load for what seemed like an hour in search of the Kyoto Cheapest Inn. Kyoto, a former capital city of Japan, is one of the nation’s richest cultural cities and a definite hotspot for tourism. After several fruitless attempts to secure private accommodation, we agreed to try a dorm-style hostel room. The eighteen-bed dorm room was on the second floor of a converted office building. Our designated bunk beds were situated next to the single sink and toilet. Each bed had a privacy curtain made out of a bed sheet. The small kitchen area and shower stalls were located on the ground floor and the only stairwell was outside, like a fire escape. We had booked in advance for four nights, planning to use Kyoto as a home base for day trips via train to the surrounding cities. The accommodation was pretty awful but it would encourage us to stay out longer, seeing as much as possible in our two-week sprint through Japan. With our packs stowed snugly under our lower bunk, we headed out for the day.

The macro-level cityscape of Kyoto is quite drab and unimpressive but the city is full of cultural treasures, including seventeen UNESCO World Heritage sites. We rode the city bus to Southern Higashiyama, Kyoto’s premier sightseeing district, and set out on a walking tour, as recommended in our guide book. From the bus stop, we walked up Chawan-zaka (Teapot Lane), a pretty, narrow lane lined with food stalls and souvenir shops. At the top of the hill lay an ancient Buddhist temple called Kiyomizu-Dera with a large pagoda and beautiful blossoming cherry trees. We paid 100 yen (about $1) to descend into the Tenai-meguri, which is a narrow, pitch-black stairwell and corridor descending to a dimly luminated stone engraved with Japanese characters. In the blackness, we had only a strand of rope strung with large wooden beads to guide us; it was disorienting but I found that, when I closed my eyes, I became more steady and sure. When we reached the stone, I gave it a gentle spin, as is the custom, and made my humble wish for healthy babies, healthy babies, healthy babies.

Back in the light of day, we continued on, stopping for a soft serve ice cream cone of green tea and cherry blossom swirl. We walked down Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, two charming streets lined with traditional wooden homes, teahouses, and shops. We then took a brief detour onto Ishibei-koji – arguably the most beautiful street in all Kyoto – which was a cobbled lane lined with elegant traditional inns and restaurants. There were many people out for a casual stroll and many of the women donned the traditional Japanese kimono. The atmosphere felt a bit like stepping back in time in some exotic place, almost nostalgic but a familiarity existing only in our imagination.

The narrow streets led us to the Kodai-ji Temple, renowned for its beautiful design and exquisite craftsmanship. The extensive grounds around the temple include two sixteenth-century teahouses and a Japanese garden designed by famed landscape architect Kobori Enshu. We followed a narrow stone walkway around the grounds. The landscape was utterly breathtaking with old, twisted trees protruding from moss-covered mounds of earth, glassy ponds bordered with boulders, soft flowering shrubs and a small bamboo forest. A narrow wooden bridge crossed over the pond to the Kaisan-do (Founders Hall). In the center of the bridge was a four-pillared pavilion with a Chinese-style bark roof, designed to allow viewing of the moon’s reflection on the pond. The entire temple complex was peaceful and exquisite. One can easily envision Buddhist nobles of earlier centuries contemplatively traversing the garden and attending elaborate tea ceremonies.

From Kodai-ji, we continued on to a beautiful city park called Maruyama-koen. We crossed a bridge that arched across a large carp pond and walked along the meandering path to the upper reaches of the park. A young, shirtless martial artist exercised in a grassy clearing while two giggling girls looked on. Picnickers and casual strollers smiled in the sunshine. We walked happily, taking in the scenery that spread out beautifully in all directions. The pond fed a shallow brook, speckled with tall swamp grasses and contoured stones, which curved through the park. Dreamlike Maruyama-koen would have been the perfect place to take a rest but the excitement of all that we had seen fueled our momentum; our legs carried us on as though the Energizer bunny was pounding out the beat of our stride.

We found our way to Gion, a famous entertainment and geisha district with modern architecture and crowded sidewalks. We were getting hungry and cold and walked along bustling Shijo-dori in search of dinner or a hot coffee to sustain us through the sunset chill.  We stumbled upon an interesting side street with traditional buildings, the two-story facades dimly lit with Japanese paper lanterns. Since entering Gion, we had considered ourselves to be on a “geisha safari”, determined to catch a glimpse of the notoriously elusive icons of enchantment and elegance. As we would later learn, our coincidental detour was the street where geisha are often spotted on their way to and from appointments.

“Behind the closed doors of the exclusive teahouses and restaurants that dot the back streets of Kyoto, women of exquisite grace and refinement entertain men of considerable means. Patrons may pay more than $3,000 to spend the evening in the company of two or three geisha – kimono-clad women versed in an array of visual and performing arts, including playing the three-stringed shamisen, singing old teahouse ballads and dancing.” (Lonely Planet Japan 2007)

Your first glimpse of a geisha or maiko (apprentice geisha) on the street stops you dead in your tracks. Swarmed like Hollywood celebrities by fascinated tourists and their flashing cameras, the geisha walk with their eyes downcast in short, quick kimono-restricted strides. Their powdery white faces and brightly-colored kimono stand out among the crowd. At one intersection, two young maiko stood on the corner, posing for photos and creating a diversion for the more senior geisha to slip away in the back seats of chauffeured black sedans. As the cars passed, the maiko and geisha gracefully bowed to one another, as evidence of their artistic respect and flawless etiquette. The whole experience was surreal and we glided away giddily to resume our quest for sustenance.

Our first day in Kyoto was richly diverse and immensely thrilling. There is so much to see here, so much intriguing culture to absorb. We are like two kids at Disney World for the first time, amazed by everything we see.

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Arriving at Kansai International Airport in the late evening, we wearily endured an hour-long line at Immigration, a frustrating scavenger hunt for an ATM, and a two-hour train ride to Osaka. It took us about ten minutes to figure out the train system, since all of the signs and schedules were in Japanese and our hostel, J-Hoppers, was another ten-minute walk from the train station. We were both exhausted and running on fumes so we dropped our bags in the room and walked to the convenience store down the road for some late-night provisions: water and ramen noodle cups.

We had done little in the way of research and planning prior to arriving so, the next morning, we stopped for breakfast at Mister Donut to discuss the day’s exploits. Very few Japanese people speak English. “This difficulty is largely rooted in the country’s appalling English education system, and is compounded by a natural shyness, a perfectionist streak and the nature of the Japanese language itself, which contains fewer sounds than any other major world language (making pronunciation of other languages difficult).” (Lonely Planet Japan 2007) Since we speak about two words of Japanese, this is a challenge but smiles and hand gestures seem to go a long way. Still, it can be intimidation when, everywhere you go, people speak to you in Japanese, a language so dissimilar to English that you have no chance of picking up a key word here and there. We smile and nod and say “Arigato” (thank you), which is one of our two words. So we pointed out our donuts and took a seat, chuckling over the thought of eating at Mister Donut in Japan. It is always interesting to see which Western franchises thrive in foreign countries. McDonalds, Starbucks and KFC are everywhere, often appearing like an oasis in the desert, but Mister Donut definitely caught us by surprise. The place was packed; apparently, the Japanese like their donuts and coffee.

We decided to start the day with a visit to the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, boasting the world’s largest (holding 5,400 cubic meters of water) aquarium tank, which in turn houses a member of the world’s largest fish species – the whale shark. Two of our recent scuba destinations – the Red Sea and Tofo, Mozambique – are known to have concentrations of whale sharks but we had yet to see one. The aquarium was beautifully designed with habitats from the “Ring of Fire” (the ring of geothermic activity which surrounds the Pacific Ocean), such as Antarctica, the Aleutian Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, Monterey, Panama Canal, Japan Deeps and the Cook Strait. We spent hours wandering through the corridors of illuminated tanks full of seals, sea otters, sharks, rays, iridescent jelly fish and scores of other creatures of the sea. The main tank was three stories high and housed at least ten different species of sharks, a manta ray and other types of rays in addition to the whale shark.

 

I hadn’t been to an aquarium in years. While I feel disheartened by the thought of wild animals in captivity, I cannot deny that I was mesmerized and thrilled by the experience of viewing such unique wildlife species at close range. When you see them in the ocean, they are not as clearly visible or vibrant as they are in the illuminated tanks but they are so beautiful and free. Visible colors are lost underwater, at varying depths, so images tend to appear muted. The color red disappears in a mere three meters of water; orange is lost at five meters and yellow at ten. Green and purple begin to fade around twenty meters, leaving only blue at depths of thirty meters and beyond. This means that a beautiful fish or coral garden on the ocean floor under thirty meters of water may contain all the colors of the rainbow but, to the natural eye, it will all appear blue. In the Great Barrier Reef habitat inside the aquarium, a reef was displayed in shallow water and all of the colored coral was amazingly vibrant.

Just outside the aquarium sits the world’s largest Ferris wheel and keeping with the day’s theme of “world’s largest _____”, we decided to give it a whirl. The single rotation lasted fifteen minutes and, from our enclosed glass car, the highest heights opened up beautiful panoramic views of the city and Osaka Bay, including a small grove of blossoming cherry trees. We disembarked from the Ferris wheel and giddily raced toward the cherry blossoms.

Cherry trees are indigenous to Japan and, for a few weeks each spring, the cities are brightened with breathtaking displays of snowy pink blossoms. The centuries-old Japanese custom of hanami, or blossom viewing, is thriving among the current population as evidenced by the throngs of picnickers, families and large groups of teenagers out enjoying the beautiful view on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We strolled along the paths with clouds of blossoms overhead and a carpet of fallen blooms under foot. It seemed as though everyone around us was smiling and happy. The ubiquitous sensation of joy was intensely contagious and we marveled at our good fortune in witnessing this treasured and ephemeral season in bloom.

Our next stop was the Osaka Castle, a concrete reconstruction of the original granite castle, which was destroyed by war in 1615, rebuilt, and then destroyed again 1868. This seems to be a recurring theme among many of Japan’s castles, temples and shrines. The castle is striking in appearance, standing five stories high above a stone wall foundation and surrounded by a moat. The original castle was erected as a display of power but my first impression was of stupefying beauty and opulence. It was our first glimpse of Japanese architecture and it left us wanting more. We walked the perimeter of the castle without going inside (trying to pace ourselves for the numerous temples and shrines throughout Asia) and wandered the surrounding grounds. The adjacent park was beautifully landscaped and we discovered another large grove of cherry blossoms in which no less than a hundred young men and women were casually gathered. As we leisurely passed by, we remarked on the Rock ‘n Roll fashion of Japanese adolescents and young adults. The hairstyles are trendy and layered – especially the men who undoubtedly use more hair products than their female peers. The girls’ attire is artistic and feminine with a lot of cinched waists, high heels and knee socks.

From the castle grounds, we hopped on the train to Dotombori, Osaka’s liveliest nightlife area, and walked the arcade, a long street illuminated by colorful storefronts and flashy neon signs. The narrow streets were packed with people out for a night on the town. We ducked into the sanctuary of Starbucks to recharge and absorb the scene outside from a table by the window. The baristas at Starbucks did not speak English but, thankfully, a “skinny white mocha” is still a “skinny white mocha” even in Japanese. When we were sufficiently warm and caffeinated, we hit the streets again, walking through a covered shopping arcade which spanned several city blocks. It contained high-end boutiques, specialty food stalls and a variety of basic mall stores. The Japanese, comprising the world’s second largest economy after the U.S., have definitely fallen victim to Western consumerism.

At the end of the evening, we were thoroughly exhausted. After a series of wrong turns onto darkened streets left us completely lost, we gave up on walking and hailed a cab. We collapsed into our respective bunk beds and fell into a deep sleep. So far, Japan has exceeded our expectations. The language gap has proven to be our biggest challenge but one that we embrace with an adventurous spirit because it makes every exchange – ordering donuts, asking for directions, navigating public transportation systems – a little more interesting.

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Sunday

We flew into Cairns in the late morning and checked into Caravella Backpackers – a far cry from our Melbourne penthouse but conveniently located across the street from the Cairns esplanade. Despite its coastal location, Cairns does not have much in the way of a beach – the tide goes out extraordinarily far, leaving a muddy, swampy shoreline. The esplanade is a beautiful area along the water’s edge comprised of walking paths, playgrounds and a park area with shade pavilions and a public man-made lagoon which, on a Sunday afternoon, is packed with swimmers, picnickers and bikini-clad sun-worshippers.

Behind the esplanade are several streets packed with restaurants, bars, and dive shops and stalls selling mostly souvenirs, beach attire, and tours. We immediately noticed that Cairns caters to the Japanese tourists – most of the signs and menus are in both English and Japanese. Eager to do some diving on the Great Barrier Reef – the seventh wonder of the world – we stopped into a few dive shops to make inquiries, pondered the options over lunch, and booked a live aboard dive trip departing on Tuesday evening.

Monday

Coincidentally, our good friends from Texas, Amy and Eric Arnold, were to be in Port Douglas for a few days. After spending the morning poking around the beach shops in Cairns, we rented a car for the day and drove about an hour north along the coast to squeeze in a visit with the Arnolds before our dive trip. We met them at their very posh resort – the Sea Temple – and spent a few sunny hours catching up over poolside cocktails. They were in town in a semi-business capacity so we kept our visit short but it was wonderful to see them again. We miss our friends in Fort Worth!

Tuesday

After checking out of our hostel and returning the rental car, we puttered around town until it was time to pick up our rental dive gear. We went with a dive company called Taka Divers but rented our dive gear from another shop (because it was cheaper) so we had to carry the heavy gear a few blocks from one shop to the other. Along the way, we saw huge swarms of flying foxes soaring through the trees overhead. A shuttle bus collected us from the Taka Dive Shop and dropped us off at the dock, where we and our gear were efficiently loaded onto the boat. Some of the best dive spots on the Great Barrier Reef are along the northern outer reefs, called the Ribbon Reefs, so our ship cruised all through the night, about twelve hours in total, while we ate, relaxed and snoozed comfortably in our cabins.

Wednesday through Friday

The morning began with an introduction and safety briefing over a big breakfast. Our first two dives of the day would take place at one of the Great Barrier Reef’s best known dive spots, called the Cod Hole. Since I only had 30 logged dives under my belt, Aaron and I were separated on the first dive and I went down with a small group to do a checkout dive with an instructor. It is a common practice for less experienced divers to do a checkout dive when diving with a new company. You basically go down and demonstrate a few skills such as flooding your mask and then clearing it and also tossing away your regulator (mouthpiece) and then locating, replacing and clearing it. These skills are crucial in the event that some oblivious diver’s flailing limb knocks your mask and/or regulator off your face. Panic is not an option 15-30 meters underwater.

So my little group descended to a spot of ocean floor, surrounded by a vibrant coral garden, and kneeled in the sand to begin our exercises. Less than a minute after we’d gotten situated, two giant potato cod (and when I say “giant”, I mean four feet long and about a foot wide) nudged their way in between us and hovered there for the duration of our stay. They were so friendly and curious that they kept getting in the way of our exercises. One of the cod hovered between another diver and me, resting its big fish lip on my arm for about five minutes. The instructor kept nudging them out of the way but they were enjoying the camaraderie with the bubbling aliens in space suits too much to be moved. It was adorable and amazing!

Our second dive in the Cod Hole was a cod feed wherein the entire group of divers – eighteen in all – knelt in a big circle on the ocean floor while one of the dive instructors hand-fed a couple of cod with chopped-up fish parts, which he had brought down from the boat in a plastic container. The instructor moved around the inside of the circle, stopping in front of each kneeling diver to release a few fish parts so that everyone got a close-up view of the feeding frenzy. What made the cod feed most interesting, however, was the school of red bass (a.k.a. rats of the sea) that competed for and often won the prized fish chunk. The bass, which are not small fish, have sharp little fangs that stick out vampire-style from their fish lips and, when the feed is commencing in front of you, the swarm of fanged bass and giant cod darting in all directions less than a foot from your face is mesmerizing and intimidating. When the last chunk of fish was gone, the divers paired off and went exploring.

In the Great Barrier Reef, divers are encouraged to dive without a guide because the sites are notoriously easy to navigate and the conditions are mild. This was the first time that I went diving without a guide – just Aaron and me – and I must admit that I was a little apprehensive at first, mostly because of my prima donna mentality. Theoretically, if I have a problem down there, I want as many people attending to me as possible. What I learned, however, is that diving in pairs is the way to go! You can move along at your own pace, unhindered by the weakest link in a group dynamic. You can choose to linger longer if you see something cool or move along faster in search of better coral or more action. Also, I recently obtained a little contraption called a tank banger, which can be used to create an obnoxious racket if I’m feeling particularly neglected by my cheeky little buddy. And, as it turns out, I prefer diving with Aaron as an independent pair.

The corals that comprise the Ribbon Reefs are stunning and diverse. I am usually content to hover around the walls, mounds and pinnacles of coral and admire their beauty, regardless of the fish life. However, the Great Barrier Reef is known for its shark population. Being a victim of the Jaws phenomenon, which caused millions of terrified viewers worldwide to develop an instantaneous and intense phobia of ocean swimming, I was naturally nervous about diving in shark-infested waters. Most avid divers will tell you that, when it comes to underwater exploration, seeing a shark is the ultimate experience. It equates to seeing the big cats – lion, tiger, cheetah, leopard – on a safari. There is always a chance that a shark could attack a diver – they are wild animals after all – but it is a very rare occurrence. Despite the Jaws implications, sharks are not coldblooded killers. Humans are not their food source. In most recorded incidents of shark attacks, the unfortunate victim was either mistaken for food or the victim of a shark’s curiosity. That is why most shark attacks involve a single bite rather than a full consumption. The shark takes a bite, realizes the person is not food, and swims away, leaving the victim to seek emergency medical attention or bleed to death. At least that is what we are told by scuba professionals, Great White Shark cage diving guides and everyone else in the shark tourism business. While the words of these experts certainly reek of bias, the experts do have the greatest interest in educating themselves in shark trivia.

I kept reminding myself of the low odds of getting attacked by a shark in order to overcome the Hollywood-inflicted Jaws phobia of my youth. I’ve never in my life stepped into the ocean without thinking of sharks. I was afraid but often the danger in something is what makes that it exhilarating. As Aaron omnisciently predicted, I developed an immediate obsessive fascination with the sharks. We spotted sharks on more than half of our dives over the course of the trip. On one dive, we hovered behind a pinnacle while three sharks – two white tip reef sharks and one larger, more intimidating grey whaler shark – patrolled back and forth on the other side. Their sleek, grey bodies moved powerfully and gracefully through the water. Their eyes were black and merciless…soulless. When a shark comes into your sights, you stare intensely – your eyes widen, your pulse quickens, you remind yourself to breathe – until it swims away and disappears into the blue. You exchange little cheers and underwater dance moves with your buddy and then resume your study of the reef.

We dove ten times over the course of three days, including two night dives; following the second night dive, I vowed never to do a night dive again. I did one in the Red Sea as part of my Advanced Open Water certification and it was the only Red Sea dive that I hated. I vowed then never to do it again but decided to give it another chance since so many people swear by night diving. After three night dives, I have determined that I hate everything about them. I get disoriented in the dark and hate that I can only see what is directly in my torch beam. I can’t see all of the beauty that surrounds me which, in my opinion, is the reason to go diving in the first place. I don’t care about lobsters, crabs, free-swimming eels and whatever else only comes out at night. Also, it is colder at night and, after a full day of diving, I would rather drink beer than struggle into a wet wetsuit for a night dive. And that’s final.

All in all, we were very satisfied with our dive experience on the Great Barrier Reef. The crew on our boat was young, fun and professional; the ship was well-equipped and comfortable; the professional chef dazzled us with decadent buffets at every meal; and the diving was superb! It is always a little sad when good times come to an end but we disembarked with ear-to-ear smiles which remained on our faces until the excitement of the four-day adventure melted into fatigue.

And now our Australian exploration has come to an end. After spending a month Down Under, we have barely scratched the surface of this enormous country but we are nonetheless pleased with our experience. The Aussie culture is so similar to American culture that we found ourselves under-stimulated at times, though the splendid scenery, the wine lands, the wildlife and the diving have been spectacularly thrilling. We have enjoyed the Western comforts but not the Western prices. We must admit that we are eager to return to Asia where the culture is a bit more interesting and the travel a bit more challenging; where we can be minorities again.

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We left the Great Ocean Road behind and drove into Melbourne through a fierce windstorm. Our lightweight Hyundai Getz rental car was manhandled by Mother Nature for most of the journey but Aaron kept us on the road. There were two reported fatalities caused by the collapse of construction scaffolding. Motorcyclists were discouraged from riding during the storm. The 140 km/h winds had stirred up so much dust that thick orange-brown clouds obscured the buildings and trees on both sides of the highway. News outlets later reported that it had been one Victoria’s worst wind storms in more than a decade.

The city itself was a gridlock nightmare, exacerbated in part by its shocking contrast to the peaceful, easy beach towns from which we’d come. We fought our way through the narrow streets of downtown Melbourne, congested with pedestrian and auto traffic, to inquire at a few hostels and budget hotels, all of which were full on account of several special events that weekend. We finally secured the penthouse of all hostel rooms at a place called Urban Central Backpackers. Despite the “factory-esque” ambiance of the common areas and the throngs of twentysomethings, the hostel was top notch. We were somehow upgraded from a regular double to a “family room”. It was a wonderfully spacious top floor “penthouse” with two walls of huge windows framing a view of downtown. We could have held a small yoga class in the space left over from the bed and sitting area. We giddily settled in for four nights of suburban comfort.

We decided to return the rental car a day early (since driving in town had proven to be a nightmare) and tackle Melbourne the same way that we took on Sydney – à les pieds. Central Melbourne has a grid like structure with outlying parks, botanic gardens, public art galleries, high-end shopping, Chinatown, classic European architecture and yet a distinctly American feel. The areas along the narrow Yarra River, which runs through the city has been masterfully developed into a chic promenade lined with trendy restaurants and luxury hotels overlooking the cityscape and its sparkling nocturnal reflection on the water. There is a prominent café culture and we spent a good part of every day sipping lattés at sidewalk tables while absorbing Melbourne’s eclectic mix of locals and tourists. The streets always seemed full of people playing music for coins or selling jewelry or drawings from a small table or tarp on the sidewalk. The downtown streets are swarmed with people, the young and hip, both day and night. If you didn’t know where you were, you would probably assume that you were in some big American city – a fact that disheartens Australians in the same sort of way that many Europeans condescend to American pop culture and politics.

Since we were fairly certain that fields of kangaroos and koala-filled trees were not an option in the big, bright city, we decided to dabble in a few of the activities that give big cities their urban charm. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the second largest in the world, was in full swing. We had stumbled upon a booth at Town Hall that sold half-price tickets to comedy shows on the same day so we indulged in three performances over the course of two nights. It felt wonderful to laugh uncontrollably for hours on end and it must be good for the abs because mine were certainly sore after each evening’s hysterics.

And both nights, after the show, we walked back to our penthouse along the glittering promenade, entranced by the city lights, soft, romantic music playing on golden lit patios, clinking of bulbous glasses, and the purr of dinner conversation. The promenade at night was one of my favorite backdrops in Melbourne. You had only to stroll along it to feel as though Van Gogh himself were painting you as part of an idyllic scene like Starry Night.

On our last evening in the city, we went to an Aussie-rules football game (Aussies call it “footy”) at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (MCG). Needless to say, this activity was Aaron’s pick but I found myself equally exuberant as we followed the colorful crowd toward the entrance. Watching sports on television has never really tickled my fancy but I love tickets! The whole spectacle at the arena/stadium/field – the obnoxious couch potato fans, little kids sporting their team’s colors while eating hot dogs as long as their arms, the roaring crowd, the overpriced beer and salty finger food – charges my senses into an adrenaline-infused frenzy. There is so much more to the experience than the game itself.

“Footy” was born in Melbourne and nine of the Australia Football League’s fifteen teams still represent different areas of the mothership. Aaron had read the rules online and relayed the abridged version to me as we waited in our seats for the match to commence. The game seems to share rules with both soccer and rugby and is surprisingly easy to follow. It is high-impact and fast-paced since the “footy” is almost always in play.

In true Aussie style, we drank beer from large plastic cups and ate meat pies while cheering for our chosen team, the Carlton Navy Blues (chosen because I liked their little white shorts). The two teams were evenly matched and it was a close game, but the Essendon Bombers came from behind to win in the fourth quarter. MCG, which seats over 100,000 spectators, was packed with rowdy, roaring “footy” fans. We stayed through the end and then walked back along the promenade – it was bustling with activity on a Saturday night. We might have joined in the revelry had we not booked a flight to Cairns at “oh my God” early the next morning. It’s hard to make choices when there is so much to do, especially in a vibrant, thriving metropolis like Melbourne. I find myself wishing that there were two of me so that I wouldn’t have to miss anything. Every day is a new adventure and, while I felt a twinge of sadness as we left the penthouse the next morning, I was bursting with excitement about the new day’s possibilities.

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