A Melbourne girl with a few cameras & a notebook, documenting lives around the world.
My family is Italian, which means two things – the food is delicious, and recipes are rarely written down. They’re just remembered, somehow. One of the recipes I really wanted to learn to bake myself and ensure was recorded was my great grandmother’s chocolate roll cake. It’s my dad’s favourite, and he has some really fond memories around this cake. I was really excited when my auntie (dad’s sister) offered to show me the ropes and take me through the whole procedure.
This is a city perched precariously on cliff faces, with never ending stairs to climb, and the most stunning views. It’s relatively cut off from the rest of the world, therefore prices for almost everything are a lot higher than they should be, but it doesn’t seem to stop the tourist hoards from taking over in summer.
We visited just after winter, in early 2014, and it was still beautiful. The cold left only the locals; we were two of the very few visitors to the city, which made me very thankful for the ability to speak Italian – no one much seemed to be bothered with foreigners and their languages. Every day we walked until we couldn’t take another step, and would then spot a tiny little greengrocers up another flight of stairs. We’d find our second wind and take off to buy more food. There were “picnics” on our hotel room balcony, rugged up against the biting cold, giggling away as we ate our prosciutto and Parmigiano cheese, sipping Italian wine, and playing an Italian card game I quickly taught my husband. That’s living.
I’m a huge advocate for living in Melbourne, despite our woeful public transport and ridiculously high cost of living; it hasn’t had the honour of world’s most livable city bestowed upon it for nothing!
But what I love the most, is the Fitzroy/Collingwood/Smith St/Brunswick St area. It’s a place where there are no norms and no rules. It’s now inhabited by a lot of hipsters, but that’s ok. You can understand why, with the insane amount of cool new restaurants and bars opening on what feels like a weekly basis, endless second hand, vintage and pre-loved books, clothes, jewellery and all the rest of it on every second corner, great beer gardens, and all manner of people strolling around. Young hipsters, older couples, families with young kids, try-hard cool teens, crazy cat ladies, ranting hobos, camera-clad tourists and people like me harmoniously share the footpaths and cafes without a second thought.
It’s the kind of are where you can wear whatever you want, be any body shape, listen to any music, and read any book you want out the front of any establishment without fear of being judged. It’s an area where it’s cool not to be cool. And in a society where we, particularly young women, feel like their every breath and movement is being judged against impossible standards, it’s something special. It’s my happy place, my safe space, the area I feel most at home. It’s dynamic and ever changing, yet it always comfortable and familiar. It’s kind of like wearing your favourite, old pair of shoes with a new outfit every time.
Anyway, I recently got onto the VSCO Cam bandwagon, and I took these snaps over the weekend while I was out strolling the streets with the husband… welcome to my favourite place in the world!
If there’s one certainty (or as close to as possible) in life, it’s this: no matter what country or city you go to, Chinatown will always be there for you. Chinatown is a constant in most big cities across the globe, which is really quite phenomenal when you think about it. I always love checking out a city’s Chinatown as well, because you’re guaranteed to find some seedy looking little places with the most incredible food, as well as some real hole-in-the-wall shops that sell stuff you didn’t even realise you needed until you found it there.
Bangkok’s Chinatown is no exception to the rule – a quick and scenic boat ride down the river from the main tourist hub, it’s everything your mind conjures up when you hear the word “Chinatown;” it’s colourful, noisy, busy, constantly moving and bumping into you. It smells amazing and foreign, there’s stuff absolutely everywhere, with shops not merely contained to their physical stores, but with their wares spilling out onto the side walk. It’s tuk tuks and motorbikes masterfully dodging and weaving down the narrowest alleys possible, and making it look as simple as pushing a supermarket trolley through a wide open parking lot.
It’s people + craziness + market + food, which equals my heaven.
Here are some of my favourite shots from my visit in January…
What’s the Chinatown in your city like? Always looking for recommendations to add to my travel bucket list!
Yes, it’s gotten a little too touristy. Yes, there are too many billboards detracting from the beauty of the city. Yes, there are busloads of tourists pouring through buying up all the tacky souvenirs. And yes, everything is ridiculously overpriced (because of the dull tourists who know no better and are happy to pay twice as much for their coffee for the privilege of sitting outside in the piazza to drink it. Twats.). BUT, Venice is still stunning.
(documented) by jess 