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  • November 19, 2019
    Seoul!
    Day one

    After a long flight from Melbourne with a middle-of-the-night layover in Singapore, I made it to Seoul! I took the KAL (Korean Airlines) Limousine Bus from Seoul’s Incheon airport to the Grand Hyatt hotel. The bus was pretty nice, as it does a loop from the airport to major hotels in Seoul, so it’s a easy, inexpensive way to efficiently get to the destination.

    I was pretty wiped out when I checked in, but I managed to walk down to Full Moon where I had a beef bulgogi meal, complete with various Korean style sides.

    Later, I met up with Tiffany & her family to explore Seoul a bit before having dinner at Myeongdong Kyoja, where we had amazing chicken & dumpling noodle soup along with chicken dumplings.

    KAL Limousine bus At first, I had the limo bus to myself, but a few others joined me at the other terminal.

    Three dudes Three dudes marching outside in fun clothes

    City view City view Views from my hotel room

    Beef bulgogi Full Moon: Beef bulgogi & sides

    Me and Tiffany Me and Tiffany

    Pringles These Pringles actually tasted like bolognese.

  • November 18, 2019
    So long, Australia
    It's been amaze.

    For the past four weeks, I’ve been in Australia, mostly staying in Melbourne, but also Torquay and Hobart (Tasmania). It’s been amazing! I’ve been blown away by how nice of a city is, let alone the fantastic food, coffee, & drinks available nearly everywhere.

    Here are a few terms I’ve learned along the way…

    Australian English US English
    Footy Australia-rules football
    Toasties toasted sandwich
    Jaffle also a toasted sandwich
    Take away take out
    Booking reservation
    Return round trip
    Brekkie breakfast
    burger literally anything in a bun (e.g., a “chicken burger” is just a chicken sandwich in a bun)
    Stubbie holder koozie

    And a few places I loved that have stayed on my mind…

    Cafes: Proud Mary, Aunty Peg’s, Grace Cafe, Industry Beans, Rustica, Seven Seeds. (All those are great for coffee, breakfast, and lunch, with the exception of Aunty Peg’s, which just has great coffee).

    Bars: Above Board, Bar Americano, Black Pearl, Byrdi.

    Restaurants: Supernormal, Tonka, Chin Chin, Charcoal Lane.

    Sight-seeing: St Kilda penguins at sunset (get there a half hour early to get a good spot, and walk to the end of the pier), National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), ‘Hands-On’ Street Art Experience (Airbnb – Lukas), Ian Potter museum, Royal Botanic Gardens, the Keith Haring mural in Collingswood.

    Shopping: Original & Authentic Aboriginal Art, Wonderkammer.

    Outside Melbourne: Anglesea Golf Club – Kangaroo tour, Great Ocean Road, Koala Cafe (100% because of the koalas nearby), the beach.

    Hobart, Tasmania: Museum of New and Old Art (MONA, incredible), Pennicott Seafood Seduction boat tour (omfg), Macq01 Hotel, Sullivan’s Cove whisky.

    Next stop: Seoul!

    🇰🇷

  • November 17, 2019
    Johnston street festival
    Lots of dope latinx food

    Just a few blocks from where I’m staying, I happened upon a multi-block street festival that had two stages of various music & dancing, and in between a menagerie of food options. I ended up getting some chicken ‘wanton’ tacos, which were pretty tasty.

    Dancing

    Street festival

  • November 16, 2019
    Mate Fest
    So much beer…

    Today, Taylor & I went to Mate Fest, an international beer fest hosted by Moon Dog Brewery in Melbourne. Our friend Erik from Magpie in Seoul gave a masterclass, which was pretty fun!

    Grace Cafe breakfast Breakfast at Grace Cafe: Chilli Scrambled Eggs, with Lao gan ma chilli, pickled shiitake, enoki and szechuan crunch on toast

    Taylor & me Taylor & me

    Erik's masterclass Magpie’s Erik giving a masterclass

    Pong Moon dog had a dope analog style version of Pong

    Moon dog Moon dog’s crazy keg setup

  • November 14, 2019
    A random day
    Mostly food, some drinks.

    A mostly random sort of day with Erik and Taylor. We ate and drank our way around Melbourne.

    Soft shelled crab 'burger' Soft shelled crab ‘burger’, from Proud Mary’s. (basically, they seem to call anything on a bun a ‘burger’)

    Tempura green beans Tempura green beans, from Byrdi.

    art

    Grau Projekt Grau Projekt: an art opening that a bartender told me about, which had about 8 pieces on the wall, literal tons of salt on the floor, and maybe 9 people there. I didn’t stay long.

    Belles hot fried chicken Nashville style hot fried chicken, from Belles. pretty tasty!

    Swirly house

    ET ET

  • November 13, 2019
    Low key day
    Food and drinks

    I mostly had a low-key day before meeting up with Rob and Erik for a fantastic dinner at Chin Chin, then Erik & I went to Mr West for some beer.

    Earlier in the day, I stopped by my artwork to discover only half of it had been painted over in its first 24 hours of life, which I was pretty happy about! (I mostly expected it to be completely gone by then.)

    Mooninite Mooninite, the day after

    Bacon Katsu Sando Bacon Katsu Sando, from Proud Mary’s. So f’ing good.

    bowie bowie

    Christmas Tree 🎄

    Green eggs and ham Green eggs and ham, from the Dr Seuss gallery

    Hot Chocolate Hot Chocolate, from Hash Specialty Coffee. Epic. So bitter, so dark, so delicious.

  • November 12, 2019
    Street art
    A walk through Melbourne's street art.

    I went on a walking tour of street art in Melbourne that I found on Airbnb. Lukas took me and another guest around to see some cool street art, pointed out various different styles, and put it all into context and the culture around the street art scene here. BUT, the highlight is that we got to make our own street art. It was awesome! I was super nervous to start, but it came out way better than I had hoped.

    I chose to paint Ignignokt, a mooninite from the tv show Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF). Not only is ATHF made by [adult swim] in Atlanta, but the voice actor for Ignignokt is ATHF creator Dave Willis, who went to Wake Forest and while there was Station Manager at Wake Radio (two things I also did). Also, my late friend Trey Tims worked at Adult Swim and worked on the marketing campaign that put LED-based mooninites up in 10 different US cities, most notably Boston (sigh, lol).

    Mooninite Mooninite

    Mooninite & me Mooninite & me

    The rest of these were found in Melbourne.

    mini

    Stencil tree A tree created with several stencils

    asteroid

    balloon

    face

    junky

    lion

    Kasper Kasper

    Kasper Kasper

  • November 11, 2019
    PENGUINS!!!!
    PENGUINS!!

    This afternoon and evening, I went to St Kilda Pier in the southern part of Melbourne. Every day at sunset, a colony of penguins swims back to the rocks to sleep. You can catch a couple of them inside the rocks during the day, but the real treat is right at sunset, when they swim up to the shore and waddle up to the rocks. PENGUINS!!!

    St Kilda Pier St Kilda Pier

    St Kilda Pier St Kilda Pier

    Penguin Penguin

    Penguin Penguin

    Penguin Penguin

    Melbourne city lights Melbourne city lights, as seen from St Kilda Pier

    Pizza I tried the New York style pizza at Shawcross, which was pretty tasty, but the downside was you couldn’t hold it up properly (too flimsy on the bottom half).

  • November 11, 2019
    The Melbourne Zoo
    Animals!

    After a lot of colder, rainy days, it was gorgeous in Melbourne today. I walked a couple of miles over to the zoo, where I saw some dope animals.

    Elephant Elephant

    Giraffe Giraffe

    Wild dogs Wild dogs

    Lion Lion

  • November 10, 2019
    South Melbourne Market & Supernormal
    A morning at South Melbourne Market & an evening at Supernormal

    I met up with Taylor, Maki, Sheena, & Brenda at the South Melbourne Market, where we had coffee and pastries, walked around, did some shopping, and then had a paella lunch at Simply Spanish in the market.

    We stopped by their house for a bit before Taylor & I went to dinner at Supernormal, which turned out to be my best meal in Melbourne (so far at least!). We started with cocktails and the raw Kingfish with mandarin dashi, arame. It was a good start to what would continue to be a great meal. We moved on to the Crisp pork jowl & watercress salad – that pork jowl was not only crisp, but so tender it was like liquid pork. The New England lobster roll was perhaps the perfect form of a lobster roll – a lobster salad ensconced in a brioche roll with a fantastic light crunch. For the main, we had the slow-cooked Szechuan lamb with sesame bread & coriander paste. The spice was subtle and never over-powering, but the lamb was so tender and flavorful!

    South Melbourne Market South Melbourne Market

    Taylor & Sheena Taylor & Sheena

    Supernormal Supernormal

    Negroni Negroni

    Eight Eight

    Kingfish Kingfish with mandarin dashi, arame

    New England lobster roll New England lobster roll

    Lamb Slow-cooked Szechuan lamb with sesame bread & coriander paste

    Downstairs Downstairs

    Chief Wiggum Chief Wiggum

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