new chapter

Take a look at the top of the page. The title has been changed. Welcome to

chapter two – United States of America

Yes, that’s right. Having conquered Australia I now aim for the most powerful nation in the world. Or so they say. In Australia I found out that every nation has a secret phrase that renders them defenseless. It’s like a customized “open, sesame” and once I find out what that phrase is for the US, they won’t stand a chance.

Wanna know what the phrase for Australia is? It’s derived from the Borg race’s standard invasion procedure (“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”) and reads:

Resistance is illegal. Penalties apply.

Australian made trash

Note: This entry is a service for those interested in amateur horror movies. Anyone not interested will find this post boring.

My friend HS introduced me to an Australian made movie of the above-mentioned category that goes by the name “Undead”. Although the production team’s budget ran out only days after they started shooting the movie, it looks pretty professional. My personal opinion is that it easily catches up with the German movie “Premutos”. The directors spent countless hours on their home computers to produce the digital special effects themselves and the result is quite nice. From the beginning the story mixes classic zombie and alien invasion elements. Most characters are mere caricatures of themselves, but that’s fine in an amateur movie. Best, the directors managed to come up with a rather unexpected ending to their story. I’m not giving away any further details but I highly recommend this movie to those interested in trashy movies, especially my friend FM in Stuttgart.

THE zoo

Not having seen a single kangaroo or koala when my stay in Australia was almost over, I turned to cheating in order to get a view of some specimen of these. Rather than finding them in the wilderness I paid a visit to the zoo. THE zoo. Australia Zoo near Beerwah, home of “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, the great Australian idol who was tragically stingrayed to death in 2006. Once again, my workmate AS was with me. We could have been a larger group, but HS was ill and MS had left Australia (no, not because of us).

The zoo’s layout was all right. Though some animals lacked space I felt that most of them were treated as good as is possible in caption. Not only did we see the most famous Australian animals but also some Asian and American species.

Kangaroos and koalas were free for padding, as were the tiny little piggies in the kid’s zoo (yes, that’s my hand in the picture). Koala fur is actually quite soft and fluffy, as opposed to that of most wild animals. Plus, the underlying tissue seems to be soft as well, so padding them was a real joy. The keepers take care of the animals not being harrassed too much by the visitors. There was one koala on a tree branch with a sign on the branch saying (rewritten from memory): “I’m having a rest. Please leave me in peace.”

This is the zoo’s largest crocodile, measuring 4.8 m in length. Further iconic Aussie animals are the kookaburra and the wombat. The more obscure creatures we got to see on this day were a komodo dragon, a black-necked stork and an echnida. The latter one was, despite its spikey appearance, a total cutie due to its funny way of walking. If you ever get the chance to see one yourself you will understand.

Australia zoo seems to be quite professionally managed, “professional” meaning “business-orineted”. From the first step we took onto the premises the marketing machinery kept following us. Public feeding would be normal but here they have animal shows in the “crocoseum”, accompanied by huge souvenir shops full of useless crap on several locations throughout the zoo. You may have your photo taken with a python around your neck for an insane price and the food court in the crocoseum rivals that of a small stadium. All this is completed by a bronze statue of the Irwin family holding a crocodile at the entrance. Yuck! But well, zoos need to make a living as well. Furthermore, their intention is to raise the conciousness of their visitors – especially that of children – for nature conservation “by exciting education”. Not a bad goal at all, although I think that environmentalism in Australia still has a LONG way to go. Most people think that environmentalism equals nature concervation. The idea that there is such a thing as industrial ecology is not yet rooted in Australian society.

Sky Pi

Having visited several more concerts during my time in Brisbane I don’t feel like telling you about all of them. However, there is one band that the world should seriously know about: Sky Pi

The well-respected progressive rock band Dream Theater played in Brisbane on the last weekend of my stay. With ticket prices easily exceeding 100 bucks I decided that the afterparty at Club Phoenix would be enough for me. Sky Pi played at this venue and they were definitely the ones making it a true Dream Theater party. Every single band member obviously enjoyed playing and the sound was progressive rock at its best. If I had more than two thumbs I’d rise them all for Sky Pi. I would have liked to buy a CD to play it to my German friends but they haven’t recorded anything yet. Go visit their myspace site for a glimpse of their skills.

All right, there is another band that deserves mentioning: Soulscrape. There is a distinctive Brisbane style of metal. Basically a blend of death metal and metalcore with some nu metal influence, played very accurately. Not bad, quite amusing actually, but the cool thing about Soulscrape is that they are different. Soulscrape teleport their listener back to the early nineties when death metal was emerging. A raw and brutal sound. I would also like to thank them for giving me a free CD. Did they know I would introduce some people in Europe to their sound?

Fraser Island

Some of you may have noticed that I am already back in Germany. Anyway, I will complete my Australian diary just for the sake of completeness.

The highlight of my Christmas vacation truly was the trip to Fraser Island. It’s the world’s largest sand island, covering 1600 km². One of the most common ways to explore the island is a self-drive tour, sharing a 4WD vehicle and camping equipment with a group of other people. In our case the group was relatively small, only eight people. You’d think that camping with six strangers is risky, not only in terms of skill level and camping routine but especially in terms of annoyance. Luck was with us, the group – consisting of four Swiss and four German people – was just fine. Actually, we matched very well.

The whole island is 120 km in length and we drove ca. 100 km up to an outlook called Indian Head. Can you imagine 100 km of perfect sand beach? However, swimming is dangerous due to deadly undercurrents and man-eating sharks in the water. Fraser Island also features largely untouched forests and crystal-clear freshwater lakes, such as Lake Wabby and Lake Lake Birrabeen. Besides the beautiful landscape and flora, there are also animals to watch – in case they show up at all. There are signs all over the island telling the unexperienced tourist about how to cope with dingoes (native wild dogs) but it was not until the morning of the very last day that we actually saw some of them roaming around the campsite.

There are hardly any roads on Fraser Island. People just drive their cars on the beach or on inland dirt tracks. Unfortunately I don’t have any images of these tracks but believe me, there are good reasons for allowing only 4WD cars on Fraser Island. It is quite a challenge to drive a vehicle through the woods and although not a car maniac I must admit having enjoyed it.

It started to rain heavily on the second evening and when everyone woke up soaked the next morning (which was also the last) we decided not to visit any more places and return to Rainbow Beach immediately. Having returned we saw on the news that a cyclone had hit the Fraser coast and the campsites on Fraser Island had been evacuated. If that isn’t luck then what?!

Christmas Eve on Rainbow Beach

This year’s Christmas was for sure the most unusual I’ve had so far. AS (my workmate whom I have mentioned before) and I spent about a week in Rainbow Beach, which is located not quite 250 km north of Brisbane on the Fraser Coast. Getting there was relatively cheap (a little more than 50 bucks for a return ticket by coach) and took about 4.5 hours. The name is derived from the numerous colours of sand found along the coastline, ranging from bright white to reddish orange to almost black. Take a look at these images for an impression of this amazing place:

Rainbow Beach coastline

Rainbow Beach vegetation

We arrived on the 23rd and thus had the perfect opportunity to spend Christmas Eve under full moon light on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. The sheer beauty of the moment was nothing short of deafening. Don’t believe me? Click here!

There’s a lot more to tell about this week on the Fraser Coast but I’m very busy these days. Bear with me, I shall post more stories as soon as possible.

off

I’m off for Christmas vacation. May you, my dear readers, have a good celebration. I’ll be back on December 29th or 30th.

Surfers Paradise

Some places in Australia have names straight out of a merchandising handbook. Surfers Paradise for example is a place located on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane. I’ve been told that it’s extremely artificial and not very beautiful. That’s why we (my workmate AS and me) went to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast instead.

Since we didn’t have a car there was no other way but to use public transport. Bad idea. Public transport sucks in Australia. There are four (!) train lines from Brisbane stretching north, south and west. Going to Noosa means spending two hours on a train that stops at every molehill only to spend another hour on a bus that stops at even more molehills. But once you reach the beach the view of the Pacific Ocean is just…

astonishing.

The perfect sand beach was quite crowded but not overrun. It has been ages since the last time I swam in sea water. Falling against the warm waves was just hilarious – especially when thinking of you guys freezing your asses off in good ole Germany!

We also went for a walk through the nearby national park. Walking through the jungle along the coastline we came across a couple of parrots, a frill-necked lizard and even a goanna. The last one caught us by surprise. We were both a bit shocked when suddenly this large reptile appeared on the path. Obviously it wasn’t interested in humans and continued its way through the bush.

In the end it was a great day. I sustained a mild sunburn (less than I had expected) and probably lost sweat by the litres. Having talked so negatively about Australian public transport I have to add that it was rather cheap. The whole trip was just AU$ 27.

edit: There are more train lines. Can’t remember exactly, seven or eight. Still sucks.

Warholhalla @ GOMA

A few days ago a huge exhibition of Andy Warhol’s works was opened at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art. Since I call myself a person interested in and moderately educated about art I didn’t want to miss it. I expected the place to be crawling with people and a giant line for admission but neither of my expectations held true. Either Aussies aren’t interested in pop art or they didn’t bother going there on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Anyway, the exhibition was great and worth the hefty entry fee. It took me over three hours to see the more than 300 pictures and videos. It was quite interesting, although my respect for Andy Warhol dropped a bit rather than rise. He was talented and creative, but in the end he was just a kid who grew up in a working class family and wanted to be part of the glamorous world of celebrities that started to emerge in the early sixties. He was extremely succesful in pursuing this goal (meeting such people as Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp and Niki de Saint Phalle) and never lost a sense of irony for what he did. My favourite Warhol picture is his portrait of Mao Zedong which became famous for pointing out the striking similarity between the western mass-mediated icon creation and the communist leader cult. I especially admire the way in which he mocked Mao’s authority although Warhol himself probably admired China’s leader’s success in having his image plastered all over the country.

HERU RA HA

I went to The Arena yesterday to see Behemoth. These fellas started out as a black metal band but changed their style to death metal over the course of their career and have recently gained a reputation for progressive composing and a unique sound. As I had expected it was a killer show! They didn’t play the song after which I named this post, unfortunately, but “Conquer All” and “Slaves Shall Serve” kicked ass. There were two support acts, both worth mentioning.

Dawn of Azazel from New Zealand, progressive death metal. Real death metal, not this wimpy metalcore crap that the kids perceive as death metal these days. I was quite impressed and tried to buy one of their CDs after the gig but they were all sold out.

The Dead from Brisbane, also progressive death metal. I had bought their album before and had listened to it a lot but wasn’t aware of them playing at this occasion. It was a pleasant surprise to recognise the songs. Thumbs up for The Dead!

Just when I thought I had to go home without a new CD a guy approached me to hand me one for free. He said it was his own band’s record and he wanted to promote them. Later I had a look at it: People Die, another local band. The CD is spinning in the player in this very moment and the sound is just right. Another fine piece of death metal from Brisbane. I need to find a way to lure them all into Europe when I go back. I’m going to miss this scene…