in hooping news ... and the Northcote festival!

Well I have been regularly doing hooping twice a week. Spending a good 2 hours or so and really cutting loose, experimenting, playing. It's been great. Combined with yoga 3 times a week I am finding myself exhausted at the end of each day yet happy to be finally committing to the 2 things that I love. I hope to get strong, svelt and calm from both practices, with the goal of being a hula hoop teacher next year and a yoga instructor the year after. This journey I find myself on is full of so many suprises about myself. It is liberating.
Well not stopping - Circus Oz have a short hula hoop class on for the next 2 wednesdays so I'm off to check it out. I'm hoping to start making some splits with hoops from this short intensive. Circus Oz are also offering a longer hula hoop course for a whole term, but unfortunately it clashes with my Japanese language class.
I've also been reading a book - "The true History of The Hula Hoop - a novel" By Judith Lanigan. It's a good read - 2 stories told concurrently about circus performance, peppered with facts about the hula hoop.


In party news - had a great time as always at the High Vibes Festival that happens annually in Northcote. I always have such a great day there. Northcote is about 20 mins out of the city of Melbourne and has a funky community vibe going on as well as being a hub of the indy music scene in melbs. HIgh Vibes is full of great music, beautiful, funky people, heaps of gorgeous dogs and cool kids. Of course we mainly spent our time at the dance stage to watch some of our friends play - but as it was attached to the Northcote Social Club I caught a couple of bands. First was an electronic dub band with a big double bass and live singer called Miso. The 2nd was so fun - they're called the Woo Hoo Review - gypsy, balkan, twenties jazz type music. Infectious and so tight. Loved them.

Here's some pics from the day - if you're ever around when it's on - it's so worthwhile to check out.

melbourne bar fun

I know it's been a while. Shocking. Where are all my high principles of being suching a diligent blogger? Between work & home emails and then facebook, the time gets away. In Hooping news - has been happening for me mainly in the living room and I am excited about working on a project to get some collapsible hoops happening. More on that later.

Melbourne in winter seems to say - let's go snuggle up in all the amazing bars and pubs on offer. Here is an adventure on the 79 tram I had one night with Reuben. The 79 tram is one of the old style, wooden floor trams that clatters it's way from Carlisle st in East St Kilda to Victoria st in North Richmond. It started when we went to visit Reuben's cousin who just had brand new baby Bi'lal! He is a gorgeous little baby who was super snuggly and sweet. Those guys live in East St Kilda , so when we left we decided to have a beverage at the Local Taphouse



We then caught the said 79 tram up Chapel st to Richmond where we decided to treat ourselves to a drink at one of Melbourne's top, award winning bars - Der Raum!
It was expensive, yes, but - Oh. My. God. BEST margarita ever!
I love margarita's. They are MY signature drink. They are also my achilles heel because I can't stop once I've begun my lime fiesta fun. I always tend to judge a place on how well they can do their margarita. At Der Raum, mine came served with a glass of sea foam for salt, (yes actual salty foam) an eye dropper of fresh lime juice to adjust personal sour preference and the main drink came in like a soda siphon that gently froze the drink as I squeezed it out of the siphon. Amazing. And top grade tequila of course. Der Raum is famous for it's amazing mixology, rare and top shelf alcohol and all the bottles hanging from the ceiling on occy straps! Excuse the blurry photo but I had no stand for the candle mode it was in.



After that we went to the new tiki bar up the road. Lovely space and though their Margarita was good - it just couldn't beat the one I had at Der Raum. I'd love to have a go DJing at the Tiki bar though. Break out the cocktail tunes and the hoop! It'd be a hoot!



Back on the 79 tram we went to head to Victoria st in Nth Richmond, which is a big Vietnamese area full of yummy restaurants. We went to meet our friend Sandy first for some drinks at the Vic Bar before heading off to eat at Minh Minh



As you can see it all got a bit messy - the rest of the night is a blur with many more bars visited and my camera ended up in the sink at one stage. Thank goodness it works still! Melbourne has so many great bars and restaurants. This is just a little adventure in that big playground.