Our friend Nicky, who we met at the southbound festival, linked up with us after Australia Day. Art museums were the agenda of the day. First was the Sydney art Museum, pretty wicked collections and the Aussie drawing exhibition was insane. Second was lunch and a delicious glass of wine from Odyssey Wine Bar (graciano from barossa valley). It's one of those joints were you can taste with a card by inserting it into the machine and hold your glass as the wine pours from an automated spout. {side note: clare is heading back to Sydney after NZ and will hopefully pick up a bottle because I forget the name.... It was bomb}.
Afterwards was the highlight of day at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art
RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER: RECORDERS
16 December 2011 - 12 February 2012
"This summer the MCA is delighted to present Australia’s first solo exhibition by one of the world’s favourite interactive artists, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer."
It was a super fun, each piece involved participation from the viewer making every experience unique to that person.
That evening Clare and I took the ferry to her dad's good friend's home in Old Mosman. We had a great meal with Ramesh and his family. Our new favorite way of eating corn on the cob began that night, a wedge of lemon dipped in cayenne pepper/salt and squeezed over the corn. So spicy and tasty! Later on Lucy, Ramesh's wife and yoga instructor, offered Clare the sweetest opportunity to nanny for their 11 year old daughter, Rebecca. So Clare will be back to Oz and extending her travels till June. Good on ya ;)
We flew out the next day to finish the Aussie leg of the trip in Melbourne. Pang, aka Steven, from Southbound met us in the CBD, where we were having lunch at Chin Chin. A definite must, the Thai inspired menu was superb. Clare and I sat at the food prep bar and got to see a bit behind the scenes, they know what they're doing for sure. Pang had just moved across the country, from Perth to Melbourne and needed to research the restaurant bar scene for job prospects, so we gladly volunteered to help him on his quest. It was the finals if the Australia open so the city was hoppin and we bounced from restaurant Cookie to Rooftop Bar to Madame Brussels.
Our flight was early the following morning so Me and Clare's genius plan was to stow our luggage at the hotel and stay up all night while enjoying the Melbourne night life. We started the day having breakfast in St. Kilda at a local fav, Galleon... so good. We both ordered the smoked salmon, goat cheese, spinach, poached egg on Rye. It was raining a bit so we ducked into a Salvo to browse their book sale and then ventured in the free tram (well it was free cause we didn't pay, whoops).
We hit up The National gallery of Victoria. And then what followed was a bar tasting spree. We started at Murmur with Clare's new found love, a shot of mezcal chased with Sangrita! This recipe is definitely coming home with us, it's a blend of fresh chillis, passionfruit, pink grapefruit, cucumber, oj, al-rabih pomegranate molasses, & chipotle Tabasco. This would also make a killer Bloody Maria/Mary base. To be continued we went downstairs of the laneway bar to a Spanish tapas restaurant. Ordered a tortilla and pomegranate glazed quail. Next to wine bar, Deanery, where our server recommended some Otago /Marlborough wineries for our upcoming trip. Trunk was sort of a miss but we loved Seamstress and ordered some gourmet chips (french or freedom fries depending on your political views) to soak up some of our "research." The night was still young and we returned to Murmur to take the bartender, Matt, up on his offer to make Clare a pineapple margarita. A little smokey (he used mezcal as it was the flavor if the evening, "Tequila Monday") but good. I think we had 2 more rounds of sangritas as the afterhours crowd rolled in, our server from dinner and the bartender from Deanery included, and then said farewell.
Around 3am we scurried thru the rainy streets if Melbourne, collected our backpacks and traveled the bus to the airport. Sleep came easy and we passed out in the terminal chairs until check-in time.
Next stop, Christchurch via Auckland.
(documentation will follow shortly)
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