It was approaching midnight on a cold Tuesday. My boyfriend and I were drunkenly trawling the backstreets of Shibuya, leading us to the street of dôgenzaka in search of a Love Hotel (rabu hoteru).
The hotels towered over the street, drawing in cliental with grandiose light displays that looked like they had been plucked out…
On January 26, exhibitions are held throughout Australia’s campgrounds. The central themes of said exhibitions are that of patriotism and its associated behaviours. These grounds present a strange and twisted reality in which decency is substituted for brash lad-culture, extreme excess and environmental abuse.
As a single critic, it's impossible to review all of the…
Because I cannot bear the thought of spending New Year’s alone, I get in a car with a friend and two others I’ve never met before. One of the strangers is driving.
We’re travelling to the other side of Melbourne, an hour and a half away, to a suburb I’ve never been to before, to…
It took 12 months of planning to get me on the plane for my semester abroad at North Carolina State University.
It was four months after I returned to Australia that our nearest school, The University of North Carolina, had a shooting on their campus, leaving two dead, four wounded, three of them critical.
Gun…
I’m halfway through my month-long escape in Bali and my weeks have begun forming a pattern.
Monday morning, wake up early, yoga, green tea.
Tuesday morning, wake up early, journal, green tea.
By the time Wednesday rolls around, I’m dead out of wholesomeness and ready to party. This week is no different, as I prepare…
“Holy crap!” Mum shouts as a bike skyrockets past her, narrowly missing her little feet. “The bikes really own the roads and the bloody pavements here, don’t they?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t stand in the bike lane, Ma.”
“Oh, whoops.”
She hops onto the pavement next to me and grabs my arm. Eventually, we manage to…
During my stay in Japan, I observed a lot of fortune-telling in Tokyo. I write “observed” because I found it difficult to get my own fortune told given that my Japanese extends no further than, “bīru, kudasai” – one beer, please. I write “difficult” because it is a nice way of saying that I was…
The first thing I noticed about Colombo Cornershop was its owner doling out takeaway coffees from the side window. His bowl haircut and baggy red jumper were visible behind the glass, his hands at work on the steaming DeLonghi machine. He moved slowly, economically, with the focus of a sniper. He smiled at customers like…