Bye bye Balaclava.

Aradhna and I have been packing, moving and settling into our new place in Ivanhoe for over a week. Oscar (shown inspecting boxed items in our Balaclava place, above) is just now growing comfortable with his new surrounds. Theo spends most of his time beneath a blanket in the bedroom, imagining that nothing's changed and he'll find himself in the old place when he peeks out. Tough to leave the bohemia of Balaclava for a more sedate and, quite frankly, lily-white section of Melbourne but we snagged a lovely apartment that's a short, leafy walk from the Ivanhoe & Eaglemont train stations. It's also less rent. Most importantly, Ivanhoe is in Melbourne's northeast (Balaclava was south) which means we've got many new neighborhoods to explore and, for me, dozens & dozens of new cafes to discover.

Snapped a few photos along Carlisle Street before shoving off ...Carlisle from beneath the train overpass.
The much-ballyhooed Wall Two 80.
Typical traffic madness.
Big Matt at Gattica, far & away the best barista in Balaclava and fellow gearhead/hip-hop fan. His familiar cap-topped cranium is moving to Geelong, however, leaving Carlisle St. bereft of Orange County cool.
I'll have to make do without fresh challah bread w/sultanas from Glick's every Friday. Then again, Balaclava isn't that far from Ivanhoe ...

Fiji Redux: Trip to Ovalau part II

31 Oct - 3 Nov: More from Levuka, Fiji's laid-back colonial capital on the island of Ovalau. It's a small town with a population of 1500 and takes only a few hours to explore, yet every vista is cluttered with ghosts murmuring its history. The building above is one of the town's many remaining 19th-century structures.
Marist Convent School, built in 1891.
This Freemasons Lodge, built in 1913, was destroyed in the aftermath of the 2000 coup by villagers from the inland village of Lovoni who believed they'd find tunnels running to Suva and Scotland -- yes, Scotland, as in the U.K. -- beneath it. Why? Freemasons were seen as a devil-worshiping cult plotting the demise of Christianity worldwide. 'Jesus is my saivor' (sic) is spray-painted on the side of the ruined building.
Fijian boys make the most of tires and mud.
The Ovalau Club dates to 1904, several decades after Levuka's reign as Gomorrah of the South Pacific. The tiny town once had 52 hotels to liquor up sailors, drifters and pirates who landed on Ovalau's shores. Modern-day Levuka is as docile & friendly a place as you'll ever find.
The Royal Hotel sits like a land-locked battleship in a tiny port. It's the last of Levuka's colonial-era hotels.
Morris Hedstrom is Fiji's most prominent retailer. This original MH store is now home to a funky collection of Levuka memorabilia.
A stand of monuments at Levuka's southern end commemorate Fiji's ceding to Queen Victoria in 1874 and the country's cessation from the crown in 1970.
Prince Charles represented the crown at 1970's cessation and stayed at this odd amalgam of colonial architecture and traditional Fijian bure.
A little local plays peek-a-boo at the entrance to Mary's Holiday Lodge, where I stayed for 2 nights.
Mausi, owner of Mary's and several other hostel-like accommodations in Fiji, holds his great-grandson.
Hospitality, Levuka-style: A friend of Mausi's named Kevin offers a bilo of kava in his home, where Mausi and I were invited to watch an international rugby match on satellite TV.
Sunny morning on Beach Street.
Shy? No.
Privately owned Wakaya Island as seen from the hillside above Levuka. Bill Gates honeymooned there. A bit pricey ...

The whole "Shhhh ...." BANG!

Philadelphia's a tough city, so this tale of movie theatre rage is less surprising than it could be. I do like my headline, though ......

Happy Hot Holidays

Supposed to reach 34 C (93 F) today but 'White Christmas' still plays in department stores and carolers hail Jack Frost's habit of nipping at their noses. With a belching accordion & angelic voice, a woman in a Christmas tree dress (above) prowled the aisles of Dandenong Market like a serendipitous mental patient.
Reindeer, schmeindeer ... Aussie Santa uses 'roo power.
Chaddy Santa warily eyes a potential lap occupier.
Man-sized Menorah atop a cafe in Caulfield.
Who needs poinsettias when bougainvillea flower everywhere?
Furthermore, who needs chestnuts roasted on an open fire when mangoes burst with such juicy goodness?

Better in Brooklyn.

Melbourne's blessed with an unblemished sky and civilized breeze on this perfect summer day but I'd opt for a pre-Christmas snowstorm (above) anytime. Blazing flora (below) along the sidewalks of Balaclava & Elsternwick offers marvelous compensation, however.

Fiji Redux: Trip to Ovalau, part I

31 Oct - 3 Nov: From Suva I took an hour-long bus ride north to remote Natovi wharf, a Patterson Bros. ferry to the island of Ovalau, and another 45-minute bus ride to Levuka, Fiji's colonial-era capital (shown above, from a bluff above the town).
Leaving Natovi wharf. Never actually disembarked there -- the bus simply backed into a waiting ferry's cargo hold.
Looking south toward Viti Levu from the ferry's deck.
Father & son enjoy a tiffin on the ferry's top deck. Most of the passengers live & work in Suva during the week and return to their Ovalua villages on weekends.
Ovalua Island. Volcanic in origin but now jungle-covered, it's only 13 km long & 11 km wide.
Approaching a tiny wharf on Ovalau's mostly unpopulated west side.
The bus ride to Levuka passed through a dozen or so peaceful villages along a dirt road that skirted Ovalua's rocky rim.
Levuka storefronts on Beach St. The town reeks of 19th-century colonial ambiance. Stringent zoning laws maintain Levuka's architectural integrity; the town eagerly awaits world heritage designation.
More storefronts in the shadow of Ovalau's lush & rugged bluffs.
Hundred-year-old steps snake throughout Levuka's steep hills.
My homey accommodation for 2 nights in Levuka.
Vivid frangipani.

A Cousins Christmas in Tigerland.

Santa left a gifted, drug-addled and enormously controversial athlete named Ben Cousins under the tree of every Richmond Tigers fan today. Its reverberations are still being felt as Tigers fans celebrate, AFL old-timers ring their hands over the state of the game and the Melbourne media cry 'Hallelujah!' for such a magnetic story during the year's slowest news cycle.

Cousins has been the object of obsessive media speculation for weeks: Would any club gamble on a high-profile, high-risk player whose drug use got him suspended for the 2008 season? A limited number of clubs with draft picks for the 2009 season have been passing on him like roseless suitors on a reality TV dating show. Cousins-mania erupted in Tigerland when word leaked that Richmond was showing last-minute interest. Not surprising, as dangling an established AFL superstar like Cousins in front of long-suffering Tigers fans is like waving jugs of tainted tap water before hoards penned for years in the desert: Far from perfect, but good enough to quench a brutal thirst.

If the shoe nearly hits ......

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Aradhna and I saw a new Shah Rukh Khan film called Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi yesterday (watch the trailer, above). It's the third collaboration between writer/director Aditya Chopra and Khan. The previous two, 1995's Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and 2000'sMohabbatein, are modern Bollywood classics. While RNBDJ is a pleasing love story with great performances, its sagging plot and too-obvious-even-for-Bollywood conclusion will prevent its ascendancy to Classic #3 for the duo. The 5:00 show at Chadstone drew a packed crowd that laughed and applauded throughout the 3-hour spectacle, however, meaning RNBDJ will surely be another in a long line of hits for King Khan.

T-shirt prose.

Books are published in Australia touting an entity known as the 'underground t-shirt culture'. I've been wearing printed t-shirts for over 3 decades. Little did I know I was part of a cultural movement.

Anyway ... sitting beside a second-story window of a Borders shop in what locals call 'Chaddy' -- my usual spot while Aradhna wanders its labyrinthian tunnels of marble, glass, underpaid salespeople & cash-strapped consumers -- a man just drifted below me wearing a bright yellow shirt that read:

Being vague is almost as fun as doing this other thing.

Clever.

Beloved Balaclava blasphemy.

Aradhna and I will soon be moving out of Balaclava and nostalgia for its bohemian spirit (and Jewish bakeries) is already sinking in. This poster went up before the US election and has remained, relatively unscathed, on a wall just off Carlisle Street. To juxtaposition Obama's image with the words 'Second Coming' is enough to detonate the brain stems of holy rollers back in the States. Woo-hoo!

I've yet to meet anyone in Australia who isn't optimistic about soon-to-be-President Obama. Especially as The Miserable Failure goes out in a final blaze of ignominy:

• A bipartisan Senate report confirms what the world has long known: Rumsfeld was responsible for detainee abuse at Gitmo. The Miserable Failure has never spoken an ill word about his former Defense Secretary, and I'm sure Rummy will be a welcome guest and confidant at George & Laura's new home in a segregated Dallas suburb.
  
• His administration has rushed through a new gun law that legalizes loaded, concealed weapons in nearly all US national parks. Gives camping at Yellowstone a sorely missing element of mayhem, don't it?
  
• Bush administration stooges at the EPA have decided against ridding drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that's fouled public water supplies around the US.
  
• The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz invasion-on-the-cheap of Iraq sent countless soldiers to their graves and left many more limbless by not taking steps that would have protected them from roadside bombs, according to the Pentagon's Inspector General.
  
• Then there's that 'aimless war' in Afghanistan ...
  

UPDATE: The Bush administration has just revised endangered species regulations so that the developers & federal agencies responsible for dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects do not need to consult federal scientists about their possible harm to vulnerable plants and animals.

It's weird. Bush never hesitates to profess his sanctimonious Christianity, yet also never hesitates to eliminate one of his god's creations when it suits business interests. So which is his one, true almighty?

Fiji Redux: Suva

30 Oct: After returning from Navala village to the farm in Sigatoka to celebrate a sweets-filled Diwali, I embarked on a 2-week trip to eastern Viti Levu and Fiji's larger islands. Began with a 90-minute bus ride to Suva, home of Government House (above).
Bus made its first stop in a dusty riverside town called Navua. As is common throughout Fiji, men rushed to the bus's windows, hawking homemade rotis & savories.
Driving in Suva is either a madcap demolition derby or inexplicable slow crawl.
Downtown Suva is choc-a-bloc with colonial buildings bursting with shops, restaurants, banks & after-hours clubs.
21st-century shopping & dining startles the senses in Suva's new MHCC mall, which is as modern & shiny as any found in Sydney or Melbourne.
Cumming Street, once Suva's red-light district but now referred to as Little India.
Treated myself to a forgettable Bollywood film called Heroes at Suva's Village 6 Cinemas. Hand-painted murals ring the cinema's exterior and include this one of Hrithik Roshan, Rani Mukherjee & Aradhna's childhood fave, Shah Rukh Khan.
Stayed at a shambolic hostel called Suzy's Colonial Lodge in the Suva neighborhood of Toorak. Fiji's capital was relocated to Suva from Levuka in 1882 when a self-proclaimed Tai Viti (King) named Cakobau cut a deal with two Aussies who owned land in the Suva peninsula. The Aussies named a chunk of their parcel of land after one of Melbourne's poshest inner suburbs. Sadly, Suva's Toorak palls in comparison with its upscale Melbourne counterpart.
Met several interesting people at the hostel and once again found myself shadowed by a fuzzy feline, shown here peering outside the Colonial Lodge's gated front door. Unlike most of Viti Levu, where only Indian-owned homes are protected by window bars & high fences, all homes & businesses in Suva are heavily fortified.