Job Searching and Sydney Sea Life

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” –Thomas Jefferson

We wanted to make a head start in Sydney and get on with applying for jobs straight away. We updated our CV and cover letter and printed out a stack of them. We updated our details on job sites such as seek.com and we were ready to roll. A lot of places did seem to be hiring, we noticed various job vacancies in shop windows. We would always check that the places we handed in our CV were actually taking on people with a Working Holiday Visa as to not waste their time and ours. We covered a lot of ground in one day walking the CBD and asking around. At sunset it was no rest for the wicked as will filled in numerous online applications and emailed a whole bunch of places. It’s not just something you can do for a day and then hope one of the companies get back to you. It was a constant pain in the arse! Day after day of applying for jobs…

In-between applying for jobs we took advantage of our Merlin pass and spent the day at Sydney Sea Life centre at no cost. Considering it was in Sydney you’d think the aquarium would have been the best if not one of the best Australia has to offer but Melbourne and Hillary’s aquarium are both a lot better. The highlights were seeing Dugongs and Platypus.

The kitchen area in the Wake Up hostel was always very busy. There was not enough hobs and if you were lucky to find a spare one you’d then have to sell an arm or a leg to find a pan. Due to this and the price difference we booked a twin room at The Maze hostel.

Goodbye Melbourne

“The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye, the story of love is hello and goodbye…until we meet again”

Jimi Hendrix

Unfortunately time had come to say our goodbyes to Melbourne sooner than we had anticipated. We were sure that we were making the correct desicion for the long run. We wanted to be in Sydney for New Year and we needed to find work.

We were leaving behind our French buddy Antoine so seeing as it may be the last time we cross paths me and Ash arranged to meet him for fair-well drinks. We went out in Fitzroy with a few drinks to wet the palette in Little Creatures. We then headed to Naked For Satan a cool bar that I had previously read about on the Timeout and Urban Walkabout website. It was pretty busy and we soon found out why, when we stepped out onto the rooftop area with perfect views of Melbourne’s city scape. The bar area inside was also pretty cool and the walls of the corridor leading to the toilets were covered in posters of retro porn-like photos of scantily dressed men and women. We had a good laugh, so much so that one drink led to another and another… we still had to pack for tomorrow. We said our goodbyes to Antoine and started walking back to the city. We passed a bar called Black Cat and before you know it, the three of us had a drink in hand again!

We awoke the following morning hangover free and packed up the last of our bits. We had until 8pm to kill time before our Greyhound coach left for Syndey. We left our luggage at Space Hotel and hit the city. We went to the National Gallery of Victoria NGV. Ate a tasty burger at the much loved Grilld before watching Gravity at the cinema. I enjoyed the film, I liked the way suspense was built throughout. The film finished just in time for us to collect our luggage and to get our coach. We were both very disappointed to find that the coach had no WiFi as stated on the Greyhound website. It was going to be a long 12 hour journey. Predictably I couldn’t sleep at all.

Meeting the icons of Sydney

So we were in Sydney, it hardly seemed real as one minute we were in Perth The next in Melbourne and then boom…straight to Sydney with only a second thought.
This city is busy, streets filled with every culture you could imagine. It’s the first port of call for most travellers so expect a lot of backpackers which means expect hostels to be $$$ and fully booked. New year’s was pretty much impossible to get accommodation and we were concerned, had we made the right choice to come to Sydney at such a busy time?

To take the stress off that question we gathered ourselves and decided to jump headfirst in to Sydney life by checking out the harbours. We approached the busy metropolitan and squeezed through the crowds, of which were many.

We had arrived and what we saw can only be described in one word, wow. The harbour bridge is only a bridge I know but we were taken aback by its sheer size and structure, it is such an icon of Sydney’s skyline and to be stood in front looking up at it was such a great feeling and I think it was then that I realised how far we had come and now we were here together.

I couldn’t wait to get up close to her and take a zillion photographs although we had both decided I needed my own camera as Sean had his SLR and I only had my phone I really wanted this bridge all to myself and my HTC just wasn’t going to do the job.

Camera shopping = stressful

I had a few cameras to compare, Nikon, Canon and Lumix.

I looked around at a few shops in sydney and online, ending up at Ted’s Camera’s. To cut to the chase I ended up buying the Canon IXUS as it had WiFi, had a great range of effects for photography creativity, the picture quality and my mother who is a keen photographer uses Canon so like mother like daughter. The lumix apparently does not ha great results I was told and if your travelling you do not want to risk all these great memories. I ended up getting a good deal on my camera too paying $140 with a camera by thrown in.

I now was snappy happy, taking photos of the bridge and of course the opera house. She was quite an impressive building and it looks quite different up close, from tv she just looks a plain white colour but up close you see her thousands of tiles and the iridescent/pearly colouring which was great to see. Her peculiar shape meant photographs came out very nicely with the sharp lines and arches. I couldn’t wait to see her at night and all lit up for new year.

St Kilda beach, The Nunnery, Fitzroy

Sadly Space Hotel was fully booked so we had to hunt down new accommodation. We booked some nights at The Nunnery, it was a bit further out than Space but only a 15 minute walk to CBD. It was a nice little hostel, we stayed in a 6 bed dorm ($34 each) but unfortunately apart from an American girl the other guys sharing the room were very annoying. Sleep was a blessing, as two nights in a row we were woken up numerous times. One of the guys from our dorm was a bit of a party animal and would come and wake us up in the middle of the night. “Come out!” He’d say “We’ve got goon! Come get some goon!” Another guy loved to walk in the room and turn all the lights on and then walk out leaving all the doors open. What a douche! Everyone was very clicky at the hostel so it was very hard to interact with them. At a free BBQ at the hostel we did manage to speak to a friendly guy from Argentina called Francisco.

That day we had a house to view not far from Carlton Park. We knocked on the door and Jess greeted us and let us in. My first impressions weren’t great, the room we walked into was her bedroom, mattress on the floor and clutter everywhere. She was a nice girl, a bit hippy looking wearing an oversized jumper and she had dreadlocks. Her friend was sporting a little pencil tash and to be honest seemed a bit high. His eyes were red and he spoke very scatty. The house overall was very cluttered, the bathroom had vines growing from outside, into the window and down the inside of the bathroom wall which did look cool but neither of us fancied sharing a shower with a load of spiders. After looking around the house we returned to Jess’s bedroom to find that tash-guy had the munchies. He found a bag of nuts amongst the clutter and began to munch away as Jess reminded him that he had a nut allergy. We sat there asking a few more questions and talking about Melbourne in general. Tash-guy stopped eating his nuts as he was feeling sick, which was our cue to leave.

During our stay at The Nunnery and in between the rain we had a nice day were it was 28°C so we went to St Kilda beach. It wasn’t the best of beaches but it was nice to be by the sea. Near the beach was Luna Park with a massive face as the entrance. We checked out some of the markets, walked in the sea and relaxed on the beach.

We managed to book more nights in the much loved Space Hotel. For our last night at The Nunnery we avoided the noise and the two of us headed to Fitzroy. It was similar to Northbridge in Perth, plenty of quirky shops and bars and a few good graffiti spots. We found a Little Creatures bar which we had missed since leaving Fremantle, we chilled out with a few bottles of pale ale discussing our plans and future trips.

Settling into Melbourne life

So now we were in Melbourne it was time to try getting a job until we were ready to move on to Sydney. We were finding lots of jobs were going and lots were looking for casual Christmas staff so it was just a case of printing a tonne of resumes out and scattering them throughout the city like mad men.

Printing isn’t really that cheap but we found the library in Melbourne to be an easy place to do it and 15¢ wasn’t too bad but later we found a cheaper alternative was office works at 8¢ a page. We planned out where we were going to hand our resumes, like a strategic plan of attack. We tried the obvious shopping centers due to amount of stores they have inside. Westfield is a good one and Melbourne central, a glass dome building built in the 90s which has encased an old shot tower from the 1800s we got a few great pictures of this unique contrast in construction (to be added). Check out Melbourne central

With our resumes we stuck to retail areas but I did try a few cafes and bars due to my experience in hospitality but a lot of the time they want minimum experience of 2-3 years and if the company sells alcohol or has any gambling machines then you need an RSA/RCG (responsible service of alcohol/responsible conduct of gambling) license and for this you have to have it within the state you work so if you had an RSA in WA you would need to get a new license in NSW and they vary in price but aren’t cheap being around the $80-100+ mark.

A lot of employer’s seemed ok with working holiday visa travellers but you should ways check before handing your CV in as it’s just a waste, we did bend the truth slightly to help us get more of a chance by saying we were staying for the 6 months but we really needed work for 2 months and then it’s Sydney for Christmas and New Year. This isn’t great and it probably does effect travellers reputations when looking for work as they are more likely to not hire but we were in need of work.

Enough of the job stress we took a break and headed over to Carlton Park where we went to Melbourne museum, they had outdoor rain forest area which was cool but very humid and a Skeleton of a blue whale – standing next to that made me realise just how small we are and especially me. I got in free for concession which was great as it wasn’t really worth the money Sean paid ($10) however they do have exhibitions on regular and I think they are (or have done by the time I write this) having a James Bond exhibition. Check out Melbourne museum.

After a long depressing day of job hunting we packed it in and snapped back in to holiday mode, we booked another 3 nights at space hotel since it was so good and we didn’t want to be moving just yet. We checked out the blue moon bar connected and they had a good vibe, cheap drinks and good food so we chilled out watching surfing on the big screen to further our taste for Australian life before heading back upstairs to our dorm to enjoy a great nights sleep..zzzzzzz

Hello Melbourne

Above our heads the seatbelt light was flashing, everyone buckled up and shortly after that it was touchdown. We had arrived in Melbourne! Due to it being a domestic flight everything went pretty quickly in the airport we were reunited with our luggage and jumped straight onto a shuttle bus which dropped us outside our accommodation.

For the next two nights me and Ash were staying at Space Hotel. This is the best hostel style accommodation we have stayed in to date. It was $85 a night for a double room, very clean and modern. The toilet and shower facilities were shared but very clean and there was plenty of them. The shared kitchen was very spacious with plenty of cooking utensils and cooker hobs. There was also an outdoor balcony and indoor dining tables. Within the building there was also a nice little gym and movie lounge. To top it of there was a nice area on the rooftop for kicking back and enjoying the city view as well as a jacuzzi. We dumped our luggage in our room then went out to explore Melbourne.

Hosier Lane was a short walk from Space and enticed us with its graffiti covered walls. It’s become a very popular tourist spot due to the ever changing artwork covering the walls. It would be a great place for a fashion shoot, everywhere you look there is colour. Some of the graffiti had been freshly done and the smell of spray paint was still lingering. Our first  impressions of Melbourne was “cool” it was certainly a quirky, hip place to be. We already had an idea of the size difference compared to Perth, it is a much bigger city. Bigger buildings and bold statements everywhere, some of the architecture was awesome. There’s a mix of old and new such as the abstract shapes of buildings surrounding Federation Square and the older buildings such as Flinders Station.
We chilled out in Fed Square and watched the sunset behind Flinders Station. The sky had a beautiful pink and orange hue to it.

Perth and WA is always going to be special to me. I’m glad we spent nearly 5 months there as we experienced so much and met some great people. We have so much more yet to see and have not regretted anything.

Goodbye Perth, it’s been awesome!

So here we are, an end to our adventures in WA. This post was one we were sad to make. We had enjoyed our time spent here in WA and have some treasured memories that we will not forget. Here’s how it ended.

Our last weekend in Perth and we had planned to have a goodbye meal with Sean’s relatives. Marie and Drew had put on a nice spread for us. It was good to catch up and see everyone but sad to leave not knowing when we would see each other again. We want to thank them for all their help, advise, visits and will stay in touch. Same goes for our housemates Kylee and Ian, good friends couldn’t have expected any better. We had leaving drinks in town, going from a chilled out bar and ending up in a few clubs. It was nice to let our hair down after a jam packed week. We must have danced all night cause I was aching all over the next morning.
Early start too at 7am we had a trip planned to York, about an hour away from Perth. There wasn’t much to see and do especially since it was a Sunday but we made our own fun. Stopping off at a cafe to soak up the alcohol and regain human life, I opted for spaghetti on toast, which tickled kylee and Ian.

Soon after we left and checked out a few shops, found a sweet shop as Ian wanted some ice cream. We all had a selection including bubble gums with a tattoo just for old times sake. The shop keeper kinda freaked us out a bit with her hairy top lip and boggled eyes, I think it was time to get out of there. We then found a cool vantage point up in the hills where we sat over looking the town, a graveyard and vast amounts of nothing but it was a sight none the less.
Later we paid a visit to Ian’s family home where he showed us around, checked out his family photos, his figurine Dragon and even saw our first wild snake out in the garden – not sure what snake it was, Brown with yellow stripe along its side but it was a fast one.

Perth has been a great city to start our trip, we have adjusted to the weather easily, it was not over run with backpackers during our stay in winter, beaches are beautiful and there are plenty of them to choose from, lots of events going on but at the same time if you just want to relax, surf or enjoy the scenery it’s a nice laid back city. Employment was an issue and only I managed to find work and that was a telemarketing job but I can see summer being a better time for work as the tourism industry will probably pick up.
We have bumped into a lot of people that seem to have chosen not to go to WA and many just stay in one state for the majority of their stay in Australia, we can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to explore and see what the rest of the country has to offer. From our 4.5 months in WA we have truly lived as Australians, staying with family, getting a paid job, living with a couple of down to earth Aussies that have become friends and exploring both sides of the state – from the dry lands of the out back up north, city life and the beautiful wine region down south.

Sadly we didn’t get to do everything during our stay. We missed out on visiting Rottsnest Island due to winter weather we were told its much better to visit in summer, it’s a must see place to spend the whole day or even a weekend in the accommodation provided on the island and I’m sure it’s amazing this time of year now since Perth has temperatures of 30°+.

Penguin island in Rockingham was another we didn’t get to visit although we got close, viewing it from the beach.
Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef was one place we were gutted not to see as it has some of Australia’s beautiful coral reefs attracting a lot of sea life. The cost was a bit too much and we want to see the great barrier reef in Queensland most of all.

With our flight booked to Melbourne (pre paid through STA) we had a 3.5 hour journey, flying with quantas. The flight was long enough for us to watch a film but Sean did have technical issues with his headphones so after speaking to 2 flight attendants who frankly didn’t seem to know what to do, we had to make the lady in front of us switch seats which was very embarrassing but we finally could watch something. I watched the hilarious animation The Croods, a great family film about a family of Neanderthals in the stone age and Sean watched a film starring Sam Rockwell. After a few mediocre bites to eat and refreshments we had finally landed in Melbourne and on to our next adventure…

If there are any questions you would like to ask us, maybe about Perth or maybe just about travelling in general then leave us a comment : ) We are sorry for lack of photos, Sean will be uploading a load so if you haven’t subscribed to our blog already then do so now to receive our updates.

X x

Graffiti and Street Art – Perth & Fremantle

I’ve always had a soft spot for street art and graffiti when done well. A few years back when me and Ash went to London we had a little Banksy treasure hunt. We managed to find quite a lot of his work including a fresh one which had only been there for a day or two and sadly is no more, but made it an even better find.

Since being in Perth we’ve both noticed a lot of street art whilst wandering around various suburbs. The Yok and Stormie Mills are two of my favourite street artists whose work can be found around Australia.

PERTH CBD Area

The above pictures were taken on Grand Lane in Perth. The first 3 images are by Timothy Rollin’ I love the different characters. The next 3 images are of a mural by Bonsai and Twoone (Scott Neoh and Hiroyasu Tsuri).

The above photo’s were taken on Howard Lane, Perth. The first 2 images are by Stormie Mills. The others are by The Yok.

There is another Stormie Mills on Prince Lane. Ololo in Northbridge. Wolf Lane also has some great street art.

Street Gallery can be found in Northbridge with various street art covering the outside of the building.

FREMANTLE

More from Stormie Mills and The Yok in Freo.

VARIOUS

Here’s a few more from various places. The first image is by the artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers another of my favourites. There are plenty more graffiti spots around Perth just need to keep your eyes open.

Checkout some of these websites of named artists:

Kyle Hughes-Odgers http://kylehughesodgers.com/
Stormie Mills http://stormiemills.com/
The Yok http://www.theyok.com/
Timothy Rollin’ http://timothyrollin.wordpress.com/
Twoone http://twooneelephant.com/

While your at it if you want to see some more awesome street art checkout my board on pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/elvishendrix/street-art-graffiti/

Exhibitions: Mekel Fashion Illustration & Beyond The Pale Rock Posters

Mekel: Perths Fashion Week @ Tu, Northbridge

30th August-12th Sept

Found out that one of the illustrators I follow on instagram, Mekel aka Kelly Coates, was having an exhibition in Perth to celebrate Perth’s fashion week. I was tempted to go check out the opening night but decided on viewing her work minus the big crowd.

It was all based in a boutique store called Tu (French for you/yourself & Mandarin for painting/artform). The store itself is great, selling unique fashions and cute accessories that if I had the money I would buy. And out the back past the exhibition is a tiny cafe called Tea for Tu, which sells some nice food and coffee at a good price. These guys took part in the Northbridge Makeshift activity day (we shall post pics and a post about the Makeshift day).

The exhibition was small but the work amazingly beautiful! Her style, strong with clean lines and amazing washes of water colours bursting out of the paper. I really like the positioning and quality of her pieces and would love to have one of these up in my home.

The photos I took were not so great but I shall put them up to show you her work, but I would recommend either checking out her work online Mekel Illustration or follow her on instagram @mekel_illustration. Little did I know until after writing this blog that Kelly Coates has done artwork for a number of big branded companies, this is very impressive. Her clientele, to name but a few are: American Express, Cosmopolitan & Betts

Anarchy Rock & Ink Posters, Beyond the Pale @ Fremantle Arts Centre

Sat 27th July-15th Sept

Beyond the pale was formed in 1996 by John Harris, an established group of Australian (and one American) artists,  who have since created artwork for some of the worlds biggest bands including: Kiss, The Rolling Stones, Queens of The Stoneage and Kings of Leon.

The artwork taking influence from the 1960s to the rebellious careful punk approach. Artists in this exhibition include: Rhys Cooper, Pat Fox, Daymon Greulich, Chris Grosz, Vance Kelly (USA), Ian McCausland, Craig Phillips, Graeme Webber, Joe Whyte and mine and Seans favourite, Ken Taylor.

We took as many photos as we could take to show everyone what great work these guys created over the years for some iconic bands. Ken Taylor has a great design style and his imagination is on fire. I especially liked the Eagles of Death Metal, The Black Keys and Kings of Leon posters.

Some great work and a great day for me and Sean. If you want to check them out and buy yourself some great prints click this link–> Beyond The Pale and why not check out more exhibitions at Fremantle Arts Centre

Also at the Fremantle Arts Centre that day was a collaboration from Black Cat/Gato Negro, artists, anarchists and activists from 1978. There work very aggressive and definitely makes a statement for example one of the posters against abortion depicted a stick drawing of a lady with a coat hanger between her legs and the words ‘This is the enemy’.

That was about all we could handle and so on we went to Little Creatures for a pint.

Out and about in Perth

Been a while since we last posted but me and Ash are both well and still having plenty of fun. Only 1 month to go until we leave Perth and head for Melbourne. Before we leave Perth there are still a few places we want to visit such as Rottnest island, Margaret river and Exmouth to name a few.

So what have we been up to since our last post?
Been out and about enjoying the sun although it has been a bit wet the past few days. It is winter here!
We’ve been to Fremantle yet again. Fremantle is probably my favourite place in Perth. We went to a few art exhibitions which Ash is currently writing about so watch this space.
We jumped on the train to Rockingham for the first time with a stroll along the foreshore. Nothing beats eating fish and chips looking out to sea.
When the sun came out me and Ash had a beautiful picnic in Kings Park enjoying the views. I also got a chance to try out my new camera lens and got a couple of cool close up shots which I will upload in a post soon.
On the weekend we went to Perth upmarket at Winthrop Hall. A great little market that happens every 3 months with plenty of quirky handmade goods and food stalls – tasty mini pies!

We have a few posts currently in the pipe line:

• Ash’s Art post
• Australian Tattoo Exhibition
• Camera and close-up picture post
• New Recipe post
• Graffiti around Perth

So stay tuned! I’m going to stuff my face with brownies now and catch up with Dexter and Breaking Bad as it’s raining very heavily outside. Tonight we are off out into Northbridge with our housemates to eat WAFFLES!  It’s a hard life 🙂