121 – Melbourne

Melborne is a big city. My uber driver thought it bigger than Sydney, but he did not know for certain. The internet says it is the second biggest city in Austraila, which compared to big cities around the world is not saying much, but it is big enough for me. Too big.
They have a free public transit system here within a certain radius of the city. It is a tram, or trolly service, which is again, free. That is very nice.
A short history of the city. 20-30,000 years people were living here, 6 tribes made up the Kulin Nation and called the area Naam. And that is all that anyone I met up with knows about the history of Melbourne pre 1835… which is when the Europeans invented history in this area.
Born in Sydney as the son of a convict, John Batman had a plan. He lived in Tasmania for a bit, but in 1835 came to the area as part of the Port Phillip association, which was a group of farmers looking for places to put sheep runs. John Batman came upon the bay and decided this was the place.
Except John Batman, who is today considered the founder of Melbourne despite everything, did something unusual and unheard of at the time. He made a deal with the aboriginal people to purchase the land.
That did not sit well with the Brits. Probably because they either did not think of it first, or more likely they had no idea why anyone would pay for the land when they could simply take it. Then there was the fact that Batman purchased the land… for himself, not in the great name of Brittan. That really cheesed them off.
So, the Brits axed the deal right away. Told the natives Batman did not have the authority to act in the name of the crown. It helped that the people Batman made the deal with were in a similar predicament, in that no one was sure which tribe they were from, if they had the authority to sell the land and such, so here they sat with no deal, no trade, and apparently Batman and his counterpart who made a historic deal that nobody recognized.
And thus was born the city of Melbourne. Or kind of.
Things puttered along until 1851 when 2 things happened. First, as the Brits do, they claimed the land, moved in and in 1851 Melbourne officially became a colony of the state of Victoria (one of the 7 states of Australia). Have no idea if the natives agreed with their new guests moving in, but the European version of history is very one sided.
The other thing that happened, in the same week as Melbourne becoming a colony was… yep… gold. What an odd coincidence. A lot of money and people flooded into the area and Melbourne went from being around 70,000 to 300,000 in a couple of years and in 10 years was around 1 million people.
So, if Batman founded it, and the natives had already named it Naam, where did the name Melbourne come from? Not a huge stretch… Lord Melbourne was the British Prime Minister at the time. They were kissing up. No, really, the Brits wanted to put their stamp on Batman’s deal so he couldn’t claim spoils of the deal he made. Effectively made his deal null and void, except to say ‘thanks for the land’ and named it Melbourne to accent their point.
It is said, if Batman – which is cool to think a town was founded, even secondary founding – by Batman, but I digress. Anyway, he admired Abel Tasman, who founded Tasmania, so he wanted to call Melbourne Batmania. I like his thoughts.
There is also a very large colony of bats in Melbourne so it would have been a good name,
Other than that, Melbourne is about 100km wide and 100ish im north to south, and that is what I know about Melbourne, or Batmania. Or Naam. Whatever.

Beyond that, my first night was a little concerning. I arrived at the airport, where they have assistance to help you get to an Uber. You book your ride, Uber gives you a code, and you give the code to the driver so he knows where to take you.
A man is standing at the ‘uber pickup point,’ and sends you down the line to a certain space, I was to go to number 12.
No problem. Except when I got in the car, the driver’s ap was working, but he could not input codes, so I said I had no other way to pay him and I asked if he was an uber.
He said the ap had a glitch… anyway, I got out of the car, got my stuff and returned to the nice man who was directing people to ubers. I got a different uber, who could take my code and all was well.
I have not had that experience before, and it did not sit well with me, but surprisingly, I let it go.

The next stop was my hotel, which is very nice. I asked the lady when I checked in if there was somewhere open where I could pick up something quick to eat. It was around 10 pm so she considered choices and said if you go right and walk a few blocks, then turn right, there are a few fast food places. McDonalds, KFC, that kind of thing. Okay, that was easy until she said. “Do not go left. Since you are a woman walking alone at night, do not, for any reason, go left. Make sure you go right.”
O…kay.
And that was the first time I felt unsafe on this entire trip.
I ended up at McDonalds. The one to the right, not the one to the left and was finishing using the kiosk when a man approached with a sign saying he was starving and he wanted me to add to my order so he could have some food. I said no and moved to a corner to wait for my food.
Got the food. Easy peasy, and headed back to the hotel. 2 blocks away. I was approached by 2 other people wanting my food. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I would have gone to the left. Needless to say, I returned to my room and did not go out again until the next day.

First full day in Melbourne, I was up early so I got some work done. Paid bills, tried to research things to do here and on the next steps of my journey, but the plan was to go out and wander around.
I did not want to do that after last night. I will say, I have heard more sirens here since I arrived than I have on most of my trip. That did not add to my confidence, but with a couple of walking tours lined up, and a boost of certainty from my New Zealand buddy Mimi who is here for the next few days, I did venture out into the city.
There is construction everywhere. Especially around sidewalks where there appears to be a lot of new buildings going up or being renovated.
Street art is huge here, and Mimi indicated many of the arcades (the shopping kind, not the gaming kind) are free and interesting to look at.

I met up with her after a bit of wandering at the Queen Victoria Market, which is only open certain times, and is an outdoor market under a roof, not unlike Wororot was in Chiang Mai. Except smaller, on one level, better organized and entirely touristy.
We had a bite to eat, arranged to meet for our tour tomorrow morning and parted ways for the day, so I went to find some of these arcades and street art.
I did not get far when a lot of sirens went by. Apparently someone had fallen out of a building, or that is what one witness was telling someone. They had part of the street closed off because of… splat or something. I did not investigate.

I came upon a woman in a wheelchair sitting in front of a phone booth. They have those here. Phone booths. A lot of them to be honest, and the nice thing is they serve as WiFi hotspots if you have that company for your cell service. Anyway, I did not pay any attention to the situation other than to notice a woman in a wheelchair was apparently on the phone.
Until a woman walked by with her child and quickly pulled the child to the other side of the sidewalk.
That is when others noticed the woman, the fact she was not on the phone but slumped over and not moving. I was a few steps beyond by that point and by that point someone was calling for help and others had taken note of the situation. I do not know how to call for help here, do not know the situation and others were taking care of it, so I moved on.
Sounds cold, I know, but I am not a doctor, nor a paramedic, nor even someone who knows the emergency numbers, but I do know the last thing all those people who do know how to help need is a large crowd of onlookers making it difficult to treat the person. Yes, uber curious about what happened and such, but I moved on.

I wandered by a corner that had a big sign saying ‘come learn about the bible’ and a man and a woman in front of it eager to share their knowledge. I moved on.
I encountered a man sitting in his wheelchair on a median insisting I buy tickets to… something. I did not know what it was, so I did not buy tickets.

I walked through what is apparently China town. The only way I knew it was Chinatown was the fact the signs, which looked like all the other signs, changed from coffee house names to Chinese restaurants and names. Other than that nuance, from the street, to the people, to the storefronts looked just like they had everywhere else.
I did find several things along my path that did not involve ambulances. Chinatown, as I mentioned. Korea town was another area I wandered through.

I found the Royal Arcade, walked the “Melbourne Golden Mile”, went through the Block Arcade, the Palace of Intellect, the Centreway arcade, Flinders street station, Degraves Street, Cathedral Arcade, Howey Place, and just a lot of stuff I could not identify.

Until I wandered by the Immigration Museum.
I read it was interesting, so I decided to look into it. I wandered quickly, too quickly through the regular exhibits, but I was intrigued by what an ‘interactive, immersive’ exhibit could be.

They had a special exhibit on Notra Dame Cathedral and the fire; and the exhibit was said to be immersive and interactive.
In this case, what that means is they give you an ipad to carry around. You wander up to a kiosk and scan the circle, which brings up related content. The related contact on the Ipad is how you relate to the display. There are no words or explanation, or even artifacts in this part of the museum. Just big pictures, a couple of models and a couple of statues, all of which are obvious reproductions.

So, I scanned the circle, and found a 3d image you could move around with your finger, and as you did, dots would appear that lead to content. Videos, pop up windows, animated images showing how something was done, that type of thing. The entire exhibit was on the ipad, with a few cues to guide you through the content standing in the room.

I was slightly impressed, and slightly disappointed. I probably learned more than simply looking at an object and reading a fact, but none of it was real. It was walking around the room watching the History Channel. I used to like the History Channel when they had non ‘reality’ based programming and actual history, but I do not go to museums to watch the history channel. I do that at home in my underwear and comfy chair. I also go to a museum to interact with people and discuss objects. That was excessively hard to do with everyone’s head being buried in a screen. Again, could have stayed home for that.
Still, it was neat. I do see where it would bring in an audience. I learned some stuff. I was simply disappointed and impressed. I do not know how to put that into a thought, so I will just let it go.

By that point in the day, my hip (the original, not the upgrade) was bothering me and I needed to lie down. So, grabbed some food and returned to the safety and comfort of my hotel room. As I was leaving the grocery, a woman stopped me with a loud “excuse me miss! Do you have any food?”
It was obvious I did since I just came from the grocery. I just moved on. I am a cold hearted bitch sometimes, but enough is enough. Mimi said she had no indications of danger, trouble or anything here, and I believe her, but for me it has been a continuous, in my face, presentation of urban poverty and high alert.
I’m guessing I have some giant target on my head where I appear to be a generous person.

I’m not, just so you know. Although that is quite obvious. I am a spoiled, selfish brat at heart.

Since I returned to my room and have been writing this, I have listened to an almost constant chorus of sirens, accompanied by the ‘ding ding’ of the trolly going by. I heard nothing but rave reviews of Melbourne from others before I came, and where I have only seen a small part of the city, that small part might be jading my experience.
My overall opinion of the city is still neutral and might improve before I leave, but another round of sirens have just started, and I am not going to leave this room until it is light outside. Especially to get food, even if I do the right thing and go right instead of left.