Brunswick Baths Sauna

I finally had a chance today to visit the refurbished Brunswick Baths complex. I have been sick for a couple of weeks, and this in combination with the teaching semester has meant that going to the gym has been on the back burner lately. So because I'm still a bit sick I just went today to use the spa area, and to have a look around at all of the changes.

This is the newly renovated indoor pool area. The best thing about the changes that they've made is that there are a lot of new facilities for those with physical disabilities and for elderly citizens (a new ramp entrance into the pool, some lifting/lowering equipment for the spa area, etc). The spa, sauna and steam room are right at the back of the picture above, I didn't take any photos in that area because photography is not allowed there.

The fact that there is a sauna is great, in the old Brunswick Baths there was only a steam room. It's all brand new panelled wood, although the door is hard to open, which will probably freak out a few people who use it. The new steam room smells weird... it has a plasticky, new smell that I don't like at all (it reminds me of being inside a nebuliser), hopefully that odour will go away soon! The spa is not that great - the water temperature is quite cool, it's not really much bigger than the old one, and it does not have the great prominent raised position that the old one used to. Of course the spa was already filled with old male dudes! The spa jets are quite little and not that forceful. Also, what happened to all the old plants that used to be in the old spa area? I liked those! Everything is very clean and a little bit generic now.

There is one shower installed next to the sauna/steam room, but it is automatically set to warm so there is no way of having a non-chlorinated cold dip after the sauna. I find this very annoying - Brunswick Baths people, please add a cold setting! Even a cold shower in the absence of a plunge pool would be OK! Some of my friends are really into saunas and they would never expose their opened pores to chlorinated water after a session, and I don't want to either... although today because it was my first time there I did have a go on the kid's waterslide in the kiddy pool area, which was admittedly pretty fun. Next time I will actually check out the new gym area facilities, but I didn't go upstairs today. There are now auto card check-ins at the entrance and the locker area is very high-tech. The female change room is much better than the old indoor one (I just remember how cold the old one used to be with the high ceilings and open windows), albeit small. Everything is smaller than I expected! I guess I have been going to Northcote Aquatic Centre for too long.

Manicure

Yeah.

Barkly Square Excursion

Barkly Square has almost finished all of its major renovations and design updates, and because the new JB Hifi opened there on Friday I thought I would have a look around today and buy a cheap DVD. It's good that the sparkly bear renos are almost done - I'm sick of all the 'coming soon' signs and lack of parking and traffic funnelling and all of that. It's still the place where I normally do the majority of my grocery shopping. Barkly Square are aiming for a new market, according to its website:

The circa $17Million development aims to deliver a centre that provides the daily needs and services of its gentrifying catchment with a focus on convenience, a new Fresh Food Market Hall, Café precinct, Services and Lifestyle offer. Barkly Square will captivate its customers both new and old.

Don't you hate the expression "gentrifying catchment"? I am teaching a subject on the city and cultural studies at the moment and in the last few weeks I have been teaching a module on gentrification, mall space and themed space, so I am thinking about making Barkly Square a case study in this week's classes too. Looking through the new Barkly Square, I was a little disappointed by the changes. There is certainly a move to push out all of the small gift store and $2 junk stores and make it more like a "Victoria Gardens" shopping centre, but I liked those places and I would certainly prefer looking through these then all of the new storage stores and kitchen stores et al. But really, how is the introduction of a JB Hifi a movement toward serving its 'gentrifying catchment'? Wouldn't it be better for the shopping centre to introduce a new Readings chain or something a little more bourgeois?  And the movie section of the JB Hifi store was a big disappointment, all I wanted was 1.The Truman Show or 2. True Romance and both were out of stock. I have no desire at this point to visit the centre beyond my usual supermarket shopping visits and occasional Kmart side trips.

Frontage of the new JB Hifi in Barkly Square, next to the new Specsavers. I'm hoping the new "Cafe Precinct" outside is going to be the saving grace of the centre.

For a moment, I considered what kind of impact watching this Andy Samberg/Adam Sandler vehicle would have on my life. Maybe it would lead to a profound life change and a new, mature approach to handling business and personal relationships. Maybe it is the greatest comedy film of all time. Maybe, after watching this film, life can only be judged by 'before I first watched That's My Boy' and 'after I watched That's My Boy'. But the moment passed - not today will I have such revelations.

And these are cheap DVDs I ended up buying:

Edwardes Lake Boating Trip in Reservoir

I'm not sure if you're actually allowed to go boating at Edwardes Lake or not. There is a boathouse, but apparently it's been vacant since the 1990s and is just used for Darebin City storage or something. There used to be a lot of boating in its history, but these days the lake water is considered to be pretty toxic. Swimming was allowed from 1919-1939. There is a master plan for the area to actually restore the water quality so that you could even swim here again - that would be amazing! But how toxic can this lake be - after all, the lower part of the Yarra is not exactly a clean waterway and is filled with stormwater and industrial waste but it is still a very popular rowing space. So, in the absence of signs about banned boating - plus a perfectly good boat ramp! - I went out on the lake on a little Saturday afternoon excursion, and to make the most of a 25 degree day that may not happen again until September.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself at this point - it was the perfect afternoon for relaxing in the middle of a tiny lake in the middle of Reservoir.

Here is my inflatable boat being inflated. It is an Intex Seahawk 2. It takes under ten minutes to inflate with a foot pump. Greta was the inspired friend who first suggested that you could use an inflatable boat to travel through Melbourne's waterways - as she says, why should all the rich people with their own private boathouses and jetties on the Yarra have all the fun?

A view of the disused 1970s boathouse and the power lines at the southern part of the lake - there used to a much older boathouse here that was burned down in a fire once.

It was a sunny, perfect afternoon for this kind of thing.

A brief stop off to pick up my boating companion!

I got a great lakeside view of this man catching a big fish. So, I am not sure if fishing here is banned or not. It looks like there are a lot of people that do this though (and also on nearby Merri Creek and Coburg Lake). There are signs up about not fishing in some places, and I'm also not sure if the fish would be polluted as well?

But this did not stop this family from a lot of celebration about the catch of the day!

There is a lot of birdlife here at this lake - perhaps the water quality has improved a lot since the original work to fix this space. I am not a local so I can't tell what has changed since the improvements have begun, but it seems like the lake has become pretty popular for the avian population.

A crew of gulls.

This is when people used to use the lake for boating in the eighties (photo from here)

Just Driving

No time for much of a break this Public Holiday, I did have time for a leetle drive in Brunswick and Parkville though (first time in over a week)...

US Vogue May Edition 2013

I have a subscription to Vogue on my iPad, I love the whole "Harry Potter" experience of reading the issue with animations and videos and sounds. I once downloaded a one-off issue of Australian Vogue and I was disgusted - it's like downloading a PDF for a uni reading or something, it's mediocre, extremely unprofessional and ruins the fashun experience. 

So I've 'relaxed' today with some idle reading of Vogue in my spare time (today is lecture day, and first tutorial day, and screening day... phew!). I've only read a little bit of it, so far I've come across a really exciting article about weeds and salad by a really talented food writer called Oliver Strand  (for some reason Vogue has really good food writers), and it's making me want to get out my Melbourne weeds guide book and search for purslane. I usually find most of the writing pretty uninteresting in Vogue, especially the panegyric interviews. I read the Carey Mulligan interview, which was... as expected. Her clothes were amazing! I am really really really worried about the new 3-D version of The Great Gatsby. Because I was obsessed with Luhrmann's first two films in 1992 and 1996, I have been waiting for his comeback... and that means for 17 years! Moulin Rouge made me really angry, while Australia was just OK and pretty forgettable. To right my personal view of the universe I need  this film to be thrilling and magical... I am willing this film to be good! However, because I love the Fitzgerald novel too, I will be even more critical when I watch it. The idea of making the novel into a 3-D film is an inspired idea.  I am nervous thinking about the film screening at Cannes in a few weeks and it being a spectacular flop. Let us hope that Baz has been working on his Bogo Pogo.

Extended Period of Unconsciousness

OK, so I'm not doing so good on the 'present to myself' today. I'm tired, I have a cold that's dragged on and I also have a lecture to finish. I guess if anything was a present today it was the fact that I slept in until late morning, which prepared me for the rest of the day flipping through books, online articles and research. I haven't even procrastinated that much today, I've been very much on the straight and narrow. And I forgot to eat lunch. Boring.

Plates

I got these two oversized asymmetrical plates... courtesy of my street! Thanks, street!

Gin 'N Juice

I just went outside for the first time this weekend! I didn't realise it was so warm... I've been 1.sick and 2. marking assignments for the last couple of days. I still have around 80 to go. This is my present for today:

Gheorghe Zamfir and Marcel Cellier Listening Party

The other day, the Gheorghe Zamfir record that I ordered from the UK finally arrived. I think I was waiting around three or four weeks - I'd forgotten about it, really. The record I bought is "A Theme From Picnic at Hanging Rock". So, Zamfir's music repackaged because it had become so popular from the success of the film. This afternoon I played it really really loudly at home. Zamfir is a Romanian pan pipist, I think the first and the only to become globally popular. He was discovered by an ethnomusicologist called Marcel Cellier who actually plays all the organ on the album. Predominantly, the album is mournful pan pipe alongside funereal organ - and I have to say, Cellier's organ work is my favourite part of the album, it lingers magnificently on a lower register behind the faster pipe-work. Because of the movie, my favourite track is "Doina, Sus Pe Culmea Dealuilui" (Miranda's theme), which if the internet can be believed means "sad song way up on the top of the hill", which is so perfect for Picnic!

Doing a little online research, the "doina" is a Romanian peasant genre that is influenced by middle-eastern scales, drawing from regions such as Arabia and Persia.  According to the wiki, "doinas are lyrical in aspect and their common themes are melancholy, longing (dor), erotic feelings, love for nature, complaints about the bitterness of life or invocations to God to help ease pain, etc". Apparently they were traditionally often meant to be sung or played by oneself, so it was an introspective and highly personal genre. Listening to the album by myself reminds me of when I was around fourteen (around the time that I first watched Picnic), and I used to play minor chords over and over again on the piano at home. I guess that was my own form of doina too - I definitely had a lot of sadness and anger to sort through by myself on the piano back then, it was a therapeutic zone. That is one of the reasons why I often find it hard to play the piano today, it brings back a lot of strange memories. And the film and the music of Picnic at Hanging Rock feels very much a part of my own history and adolescent development.

Wearing Snuggie and Doing Nothing

I updated my winter lounge wear at Kmart the other day and I bought my first ever Snuggie. It is so much better than a dressing gown for lounging and watching TV!

Melbourne Bathhouse/ Melbourne Bath House

On Thursdays I only have one class that finishes at 10am, so my Uni day starts and ends pretty damned early. After the noted crazy week and a half of non-stop work, I was more than ready to leave campus at ten and reward myself with a little mid-morning break. I have been planning for ages to go and have a bath at the Melbourne City Baths (basically for a year!), but for some reason there is always something that has held me up. I had heard that you could bathe in claw-footed baths that were original to the old building from the turn of the twentieth century. I have a bath at home, but my hot water cylinder is so small that there is no way to fill it with hot water unless you were to boil twenty pots of water on a hot plate. So today was the day that I would make it the Baths, regardless.

I turned up and met the lovely owner of the Melbourne Bathhouse, Mari-Ann. She is basically the visionary who realised the opportunity in the rusting old baths in the storehouses of the Baths complex. So she has worked with the Melbourne City Baths people to renovate and update all of the old baths and facilities. There was a tiered class system at the old baths, back when the complex was not actually a 'swimming' venue but a place that could service the hygienic needs of a typhoid-friendly city that was colloquially known as "Smellbourne". The contemporary Bathhouse is located in the original '2nd class' bathhouse area.

I am so impressed. In a large open wing of the building, there are all of these private chambers, each containing a clean white claw foot bath. There is beautiful tiling on the floor, and a chair to put your clothes and things. You can either have a simple bath without additions or else a 'wellness soak', which is the bath infused with giant bags of herbs and flowers. Mari-Ann described the experience as being immersed in a giant cup of tea. I went for the cheap option today (it was incredibly cheap!), and spent the next half an hour escaping a cold wintry day in a happy warm zone. It was exactly what I needed to do today.

Also in the bathhouse is a beautiful and deep Jewish baptismal pool in a chamber called the Mikvah Room (original to the bathhouse), which has been renovated and is still used for its original purpose from time to time. Mari-Ann mentioned today that the old first class bath quarters is currently being converted into a Turkish hamam! So I am filled with excitement about the future of the Bathhouse. Afterwards, I floated through the inner city life of the CBD as if I was in an altered state of consciousness. I am going to come back to this place very quickly - I have literally booked an appointment for Monday!

After Work Chillin' With Rosie

It was so nice to hang with Rosie this evening and switch off for a few hours and drink wine and eat vegan food and tawk.

And now I'm going to sleep, because it has been some day.

Tabet's Bakery

You may be beginning to gather that I do not have very much spare time at the moment. I spent all of the weekend working on my preparation for an important Skype interview and also in preparation for all of my uni work that I need to do for this week. I didn't really leave the house at all. I had enough time for a Burrito break at lunch yesterday, but I worked all day otherwise. Today I had the Skype interview at 1pm, finishing at nearly 2pm. I woke up early and kept preparing up until 12:50pm. I had a banana for breakfast and a coffee, but I wasn't very hungry. After the interview, I felt drained, empty. I didn't know what to do... although I knew that I had little time for feeling empty, given that the uni work still needs to be finished for tomorrow's classes. I wanted to take a ride somewhere, but I couldn't go far. So I got in the car and drove to Tabet's.

Tabet's is a middle eastern bakery on Sydney Road that is universally renowned for making the best spinach and cheese triangles in Melbourne. I think that they use at least two different kinds of cheese, and onion as well, and also perhaps the use of some herb that I cannot identify.  Their secret is that the spinach and cheese mix is salty, but it is not too salty and there are elements of sweetness from the onion. Also the dryness of the pastry contrasts perfectly with the moist green interior. They have a large oven that is permanently on all day to warm up your pre-baked pastry.

And then I had a can of Coke. I sat at the bakery and relaxed for ten minutes, watching a US talk show (sound down) on the TV set in the corner. And then I drove home, to get started on the next work deadline.

Burrito Lunch

Today I had a burrito for lunch, and went 'surfing' on the internet in my office while I was eating it. Again, today is a busy day, so there is not much time for extended fun and excitement between all the work parts. Finally the Uni here has a Mexican restaurant on campus, it makes me very happy. This is my third burrito since it opened at the beginning of the semester. It is actually called a 'Chikito' - I guess this means the feminine version of the burrito? Other than its tubular shape, it has nothing to do with the classic Australian 'Chiko roll' may I add. It is 10 inches as opposed to the 12 inches (LOL) of the burrito. I selected the vegetarian chikito with extra rice, jalopenos and chipotle sauce.

The decor of the restaurant is typical, uh, relaxed Melbourne-Mexican 'hipster'. Succulents and minimal colour blocks. But let's not kid ourselves: this place is still basically a fast food restaurant, and the kids working there were working damned hard on what looked like a factory line. Each worker was in charge of putting on a different splodge of food product like beans or corn, or else ringing up the sale. I didn't take a photo of this. I did take a photo of the decor though:

The lunch 'present' in full:

Reading Walden

Today, it being a Sunday, I allowed myself to sleep in reading Henry David Thoreau's Walden until well after midday. I have a lot of work to do today, but I had also worked all day on Saturday on top of the regular work week and I needed a break... before Monday starts the whole cycle again. I am reading a downloaded copy from Project Gutenberg on my iPad. I don't know what Thoreau would say about the iPad though. Or the non-stop work thing I'm up to either. I have never read this book before - watching Douglas Sirk's All The Heaven Allows last week inspired me to look at the volume.  I am surprised by how many pages of accounts and figures are published in this book, it is a lot more prosaic and less romantic than I was expecting it to be since first hearing about it in Dead Poet's Society as a kid. Agent Cooper is a spectral reimagining of Thoreau too, of course. It is definitely making me reassess the 'essentials' in my life as well - reading Walden makes me want to have a massive clear-out of all of my things. It is having the same effect on me as watching Hoarders. What would Thoreau think of my book collection though? And my record collection? And my random pieces of paper/notes collection?

I would like to swim in Walden Pond if I ever have the chance to go back to Massachusetts during the summer time. I was nearby in 2010 but it was October/November. It is also more of a lake than a pond, I think. I am adding it to my swimming holes wish list.