meet you at The Lui Bar

The Lui Bar - winding down after a long week of work at this bar was such a great end to the week!

The Lui Bar - the view was beautiful!

The Lui Bar is situated 55 floors up in the Rialto Building on Collins St, Melbourne. I follow Vue De Monde on Twitter and they tweeted about this place so was pretty excited to be able to have a look around on a fairly good Friday night. We called up and left our name on their list. You get to the building and they check you off against the list then they set the lift up to take you to the 55^th floor – which I noticed in the lift there is no button for that floor.

It was beautiful once we got up. My photography doesn’t do it justice at all. My camera definitely struggled that night. Lots of reflection from the lights behind me and you can even see my reflection if you look closely.

Very cool place – a must if you are looking for something with a view (obviously) and something to get you that little bit closer to Vue de Monde!

Chasing Cotton Candy Clouds

Pink Fairy Floss - my absolute favourite colour and flavour fairy floss!

I love fairy floss! Who doesn't love this sugary treat?! Stuffing my mouth with fairy floss brought back great childhood memories! Luckily enough I even had a go at making some today! A lot of fun!

It smells really sweet and I ended with bits of pink fairy floss in my hair as I headed back to the office but I really didn't mind! :)

Stupidly as a child I thought clouds in the sky were in essence floating masses of fairy floss. So you can imagine how devastated I was when I found out that it's impossible to catch a cloud and keep it in a jar LOL (if only!) 

I had grand plans as a child to get on a plane open the window and catch a cloud, which i would keep suspended in  a jar. What an imagination! I thought I had it all figured out - clearly not LOL.

Anyways back to fairy-floss - so much fun whether you are eating it or making it, great subject to photograph basically because of the colour and the spinning motion :)

West end of Adelaide CBD

This is a photo from the Hawke building at UniSA on North Tce
(my old Uni wadup?! lol)

Foyer of the Hawke Building - sadly didn't get to checkout the SAMSTAG museum (wasn't open)

Shot from inside the Adelaide Convention Centre - where I had my UniSA Graduation Ceremony. Lovely Curved interior wall - love the sunlight peaking through too.

Took this photo looking up from the foyer of the Hawke Building. Stairs are incredibly packed almost makes you think you're going to bump your head but there is room :)

Photos from the west end of Adelaide. There is some good design going on - on a very small scale compared to Melbourne. It was nice to visti my old Uni as well - ah the memories!

Home is where the heart is

In my last entry I whinged about Melbourne trains so in the interest of keeping it positive I thought I’d blog about my beloved home town Adelaide. Affectionately known as Atown and rAdelaide it was where I was born and grew up until two and bit years ago.

Some snaps one of Adelaide’s main streets North Terrace. Nice wide footpaths and public spaces for people watching. The design of Adelaide makes sense for the pace at which this city moves. No trains on this side of the city and most areas of Atown are serviced by buses not trains.

Running the Rat Race

Sorry black and white photograpy addict! Shots from Southern Cross Station. It is architectually interesting and has that wow factor for such a diesel smelling place.

The biggest noticeable difference about Melbourne is its public transport system. Trains and trams. There’s this thing where it’s meant to be easy to get around through the train system and tram network. It does seem to work well but seriously has anyone who has been on a train in Melbourne thought to themselves – this is life sucking nonsense! The next time you get on a train look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and listen with a fresh pair of ears.

It makes this sound like you’re in a vacuum being sucked out into the ether or something. A one way passage that never deviates from the tracks already set – a bit of a metaphor for the way some of the passengers must feel about the daily rat race. How do you get off – what if you want to deviate from the ‘path’ already set?

I personally hate the train. Last time I got on a train was to get home from the airport after visiting friends and family back in Adelaide. It was such a stark reminder of how I don’t get Melbourne sometimes? People sit in silence under the worst possible fluorescent lighting. The inside of a train is lifeless – yet it’s purpose it to carry living beings to and from destinations. Clinical is how I’d best describe it. They could learn a lot from department store lifts that are more pleasant to travel in. It’s not like taking a train across the European countryside with snow-capped mountains and fields of green to view for kilometres on end – it’s far more dark, serious and listless.

Harsh perhaps – but I couldn’t wait to get off that train. You know something isn’t quite right when laughter seems out of place in an environment. You’d be shocked to hear laughter on a train I think. They’re not comfortably quiet and calm like libraries say. They’re just soulless places. Neither old world charm nor new age slickness just the worst possible mechanisation of life sucking and positivity zapping transport.

Big Brekky

Abstract photography?! Well not really my intention to get into abstract photography but I really like to shoot photos looking directly up to the ceiling. In this case the roof of a recent brunch gathering at Axil Coffee Roasters. The place reminded me of a tin shed – plenty of room for big groups (huge plus especially in Melbourne were the oh so trendy thing is to make everything small and pokey!). Was an ok breakfast, food wise - nothing worth raving about and no real complaints and great conversations flowing that morning!

I'm not a coffee drinker though so can't comment on that :)

Hello Hwaro & new found friends... ;)

he toughest thing about moving to a new city is having to start over and build new friendships. Especially when most people around my age are settled and finished uni they seem to have quite stable and tight knit friendship circles that there can be little room or need to expand on. Uni is probably a better time to make new friends in my opinion but hell I’ll keep at it! I don’t think people really get how isolating it can be moving to a new place. I still miss my friends and family back home a lot even though I’ve been away from Adelaide for two and half years now. The friends I made in Canberra were great too so miss them as well. It does take me a while to find my feet –at least a year I would say.

None the less - my wonderfully funny and good friend back home from uni days introduced me to a friend here in Melbourne recently. It’s really awkward at first to make friends with strangers but eating out and sharing a passion for food is always a great bonding experience!

Had a great night out on what I won’t refer to as a double date but kinda was (eeew!). Great time at Melbourne Hwaro Korean BBQ (read Hwaro restaurant review here) was awesome! Definitely worth taking your family and friends to experience. The couple we dined with are real foodies and know their restaurants well. They always pick great places and know what to order off the often perplexing menu and choice available!

Such a gorgeous couple – really genuinely nice people! They even invited us back to their place and we seriously went to woollies and bought vanilla ice cream and then they proceeded to whip up some homemade butterscotch sauce (with actual scotch). There were 4 really happy campers that night! So yum!