Day 42

Australian fashion (or at least the fashion of Cairns) is quite different from American current fashion.  I say 'current' because Cairns fashion is almost identical to what was popular when I was in middle school.  Long peasant skirts, psuedo-combat boots, midriff-baring shirts and waist shawls are all in vogue here.  Between the fashion and the turn-of-the-century American pop I hear everywhere, it feels a bit like I've traveled back to the year 2002.

Since I don't have class on Wednesdays, I figured today would be the perfect opportunity to go downtown and pick up a few new clothes to help me fit in better.  I love thrift stores and garage sales, and around here the closest thing to either of those is an 'opportunity shop,' or as the Aussies call it, an 'op shop.'  A few older Australian women had talked to me about these op shops before, so today Taylor and I printed off a map and went downtown to check it out for ourselves.

We visited three op shops today: Kaotica Vintage & Secondhand, Vinnies, and Endeavor.  The first one was a bust, a tiny little shack with just a few racks of clothing in sizes much too large for us.  Vinnies had a large selection of dresses, but not so much for skirts, and nothing we tried on looked very good.  (Of course, that's not their fault.)  We had more luck at Endeavor, which was much larger than the other two.  I found a long off-white skirt with little silver buttons sewn on, and a cute casual dress.  I also found this interesting piece on the "Vintage/Retro" rack:

This is a denim off-the-shoulders dress.  And when I say denim, I mean thick, jeans-style
denim.  I got sweaty after about 30 seconds, and Taylor had to help get it off because my
arm mobility was too limited to reach the zipper.  Not a keeper, but definitely interesting.

This was found alongside a shirt from Aeropostle, a Pocahontas-style shirt, and several shirts with numbers on them.  I think Australians may not know what the words "vintage" and "retro" mean.

After the op shops we were hungry, so for "afternoon tea" we stopped for noodles at the Japanese shop Ganbaranba.  (There really was tea, so it counts.)  Since coming here I've tried and become obsessed with tonkotsu, which is a broth made from pork marrow bones.  It is delicious!  (For those familiar with Japanese food, this is not to be confused with tonkatsu, which is a breaded and fried pork cutlet.)  The bowls of soup are huge and my tummy feels like a waterbed when I've finished it all.  You might think that's not a very good feeling, but trust me, it is.

Also, sushi comes in WEIRD flavors here.  Good thing it's dirt cheap!

Fried chicken sushi?  Against my better judgement, I vow to try this before I leave the country.

Afterwards we explored the Night Market.  The name is a bit misleading because the Night Market opens at 4:30pm.  As expected it's an expensive tourist trap, full of souvenir shirts and boomerangs and animal bits, plus a large number of overly-aggressive massage booths.

This is the first koala I've seen.

In Australia, honey comes from... kangaroos?

In Australia, the scrotum of a kangaroo is very versatile.

This is a kangaroo scrotum.  Why not keep your change in it?

And why not also use the kangaroo scrotum to crack open a beer?

I really wanted one of these Hello Kitty phone charms, partly because they're Hello Kitty, partly because they're a souvenir, and partly because I've never been able to use a phone charm before.  Sadly, they were $10 each, and I didn't want them that bad.

So cute!

Ohmygosh it's a Hello Kitty SCUBA DIVER!

There were a lot of weird bags for sale.  Many were in the shape of old-school radios, cassette players, and shoes.

This is a shoe-purse?

Jerky!  So many flavors, but so expensive.  A mixed bag of 10 packs cost $100 but was 'discounted' to $63.  Dang.

I sampled the spicy kangaroo jerky: not bad, but nothing special.

Oh hey, these look familiar.  Funny, I didn't think Native Americans lived in Australia too!

And just to be sure, I looked it up.  No tribe in Australia has ever used a dreamcatcher.

There was an entire aisle of massage booths, and since Taylor and I were the only folks in the whole market, they attacked us.  Dozens of beady little masseuse eyes staring me down, beckoning me into their lairs.  It was worse than walking past those kiosk workers at the mall.  I'm pretty sure they were offering 40-minute massages for $15, though, so I might have to go back.  (With a stick to beat them off, those people are scarily aggressive.)

Next to all the massage booths was a woman claiming an ability to determine your health by looking into your eyes.  This practice is known as "iridology" and is considered a legitimate alternative medicine technique by those who believe in that kind of nonsense.

My favorite was the photo (not pictured) that pointed to the area of your eye that
reveals recreational use of hallucinogenic drugs.

There was a fair bit of Aboriginal art sold there--or at least, art listed as Aboriginal, as apparently there's a bit of a problem with people selling fake Aboriginal art--but I didn't think my point-and-shoot would do it justice.  Hopefully I can get some nice photos of Aboriginal art soon!

Tomorrow I've got a field trip to the Flecker Botanical Gardens, and this weekend is an overnight trip to Cape Tribulation, so expect lots of photos in the next few days.  I'm making a solid effort to update this blog at least every two days from here on out, so consider bookmarking it!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton