Buns2025: Day 3 – Melbourne > Sydney

Soundtrack: “Best Years of Our Lives” – Richard Clapton

Day started on too little sleep, what a surprise. At least part of the late night was me packing, so there would be no last minute panic there. Fortunately the reason for the early morning was to catch up with one of my oldest pals A, who is very particular when it comes to coffee so wherever he picked to meet would be good. He’s also vegan, so while I was guarded about any food recommendations, at least the coffee would be good. His pick was a little coffee and bagle place called Five Points, where a large coffee comes in a serious sized receptacle, and the Rueben bagel was decent (given it’s not New York, it probably should be called a Ruebenesque bagel). Next stop on the coffee tour was Project Zero, who do interesting flavour-infused beans, including strawberry cheesecake, cinnamon scroll, and lamington; today’s brew was pina colada, though for me it was less pineapple and coconut, and more peach. It was nice, but I wouldn’t drink it regularly.

Farewells said, it was time to take the skybus to the airport and start the next leg of the trip. Got to the airport in plenty of time to write most of the day 2 blog, before boarding the slightly late and very full flight. I’d booked a window seat but let the nice lesbian flying with her mother, who’d already sat by the time I boarded, take that and I took the aisle. At least I think she was a lesbian, she had short cropped hair and a large tattoo that said BUTCH on her forearm, but I could be wrong. The flight was easy and uneventful, just the way I like them, it’s always good when the plane lands with pretty much the same number of parts that it had on take-off.

I figured the airport train seemed the best combination of cost and convenience for getting to the hotel. Unfortunately the trains seemed to be having a crazy day, upon getting down to the station we were informed that we couldn’t go down to the Sydney CBD-bound platform, we had to go to the other platform, take the train there to Wolli (possible pronounced “wally”) Creek, then transfer to the CDB-bound train. While I waited for the Wolli train, I saw a trains arrive at the verboten platform and discharge passengers. Wolli Creek was two stops down the line, so I don’t know why we couldn’t just go one stop down the line to the international terminal and transfer there. Maybe Wolli Creek needed to improve its passenger stats. Us passengers dutifully did as we were told, so when on our return to the domestic airport station the doors opened and people got on the train, there were a number of perplexed glances thrown. What fresh hell was this, some sort of experiment in obedience, a practical joke, or the start of some sort of marketing campaign (“come to Wolli Creek, only 2 stops from the airport, get a workout carrying your luggage up and down the stairs”). Yeah, no idea. On the plus side, while I was expecting the right to cost $15-20, I can only see a single charge of $1, so maybe something somewhere wasn’t working.

Sydney, it’s not a flat city. Getting off at Central Station, the path to my hotel in Surrey Hills was, unsurprisingly, not flat. It’s there in the name, hills. And in this case, most of it uphill, so i got a very good workout lugging my case, while the hotel loomed tantalisingly close, just at the end of the incline that went forever. It turns out that if I’d got off at Museum station, the incline is more gentle. Oh well.

I checked in, finished yesterday’s blog while the sweat dried, then took a wander into the town hall end of the CBD. It was later in the day that I was expecting, so a few shops were closing as I wandered. Stopped by Red Eye Records, a fairly legendary store that has been there for 30+ years I think (i’m too tired to google to be sure, but I think first there was Red Eye Records the shop, then it also became a record label that was an indie offshoot of one of the major labels; at some point the label got subsumed into the parent, leaving just the shop, at least that’s what my fuzzy head recalls right now — I’m guessing this makes as much sense to the casual reader as my train trip made to me). They are one of the few music shops that have still have lots of CDs, though the ones that interested me were a touch on the pricey side.

I stopped for some Japanese food on the way back, a big bowl of chicken katsu and rice from somewhere on Oxford street, and it was definitely decent. I prefer my katsu breading to be crunchy, and this wasn’t but can’t have everything. It hit the spot. From the restaurant I could see the queue forming for the Summer Goddessas show, and noted there seemed to be a few more caucasians lined up for the meet and greet than the Melbourne show.

On the way back to the hotel I passed Minty Fresh heading to the venue, so figured I didn’t need to rush. After a short rest and shower I headed back, bumping into Jardin Rose and Karaine Derya. As we passed some outdoor restaurant seating the patrons heaped praise on how fabulous they looked, but sadly there was none for me. I thought I looked fabulous in my merch t-shirt from last night.

The crowd tonight was a little more diverse, a few more caucasians in the mix which was good to see. I guess it’s double edged, as it’s not a bad thing for the crowd to be full of short Filipinos that I can see over, rather than lots of tall white folks. I’d still like to see more white folks coming out and supporting, and honestly seeing world-class drag. No diversity hires tonight, the supporting queens were Karna Ford and Faux Fur, RPDR alum and damn fierce performers, cart-wheeling and death-dropping across the stage and into the crowd. With the front rows intent on filming every last minute of the show, queens will often playfully take the phones and pose, or pass the phone on to a different person, or otherwise playfully mess with the phone’s user: Faux Fur took the phone, placed it on the ground, and death dropped either onto it or very close to it. Again, Marina Summers and Minty Fresh were incredible, both give amazing face when performing. Just after the interval Cassandra was plugging the available merch, and as I was wearing a Marina t-shirt I got in Melbourne I was spotted and dragged up on stage for my 3.5 seconds of fame, gave the crowd my best “Mabuhay”, struck a pose, and then on with the real show.

Sadly the show finished too soon, and I wandered out onto Oxford St, tired and happy, but feeling a little dragged out from 4 shows/2 cities/2 days. I had a quick stroll, admiring the sheer volume of rainbows crammed into these couple of blocks (even a chain liquor store has “rebranded” its local outlet as BWYASSS). Not only was I feeling a little dragged out, I was also HSP’ed out, possibly also from the rice earlier, so sadly you’re not in for a Melbourne v Sydney HSP duel this trip. I’ll save that for another time.

Heading back to the hotel I was walking behind a guy who was being a bit of a dick, striking a couple of “boxing” poses and tempting a bit on an intimidating lunge at a passing queen, fortunately she shrugged it off and he didn’t do anything else. Passing Universal Bar I spotted two things, It’s Vybe up on the stage, and the dickhead in the queue, so I figured I’d at least check out the show (yeah, I was dragged out to the point of not wanting to wait around for a show to start, but if they are already performing, well who am I to pass up a gift horse like that). I got through security, noticed the dickhead also did, so I let the bouncers know of his previous behaviour and suggested they keep an eye on him — a little later one of them came up to me and thanked me, telling me they couldn’t chuck him out for doing nothing but would certainly keep a close eye. I didn’t hear a ruckass at any point, so hopefully he either toned down or fucked off elsewhere. Caught the end of the set from Vybe and Carmen Geddit, which was more comedy than dance performance, spotted some other DR alum in the crowd, then really did head back to the hotel, bumping into Marina and Karaine on the way (the producers sorted a discount deal with the hotel so a number of attendees and performers are staying here tonight). Had a quick chat about how awesome Phillipines drag is, Karaine extracted a promise from me to come back to next year’s shows, then I was back in my quirky boutique hotel room.

I probably should describe the boutiquey room. Right in the middle is a large orange science fiction transporter column, which is actually the shower. The shower door doubles as the bathroom door. There is a wibbly coffin-shaped huge mirror on one wall, angles everywhere, the safe is in a pull-out drawer, a pale mint SMEG fridge, and soooo many circles in the brown, yellow, green, blue and white carpet. Not a single surface has been painted white. Boutiquey. But the location is great, the shower and aircon are good, there are plenty of convenient powerpoints, and it’s big enough for me for a night (I think two people and luggage would be a little cramped.

There’s also a large screen teevee above the bed, which turned itself on with a message to me that I can arrange a late check-out for a small fee; kind, but a touch creepy. And a bedside digital alarm clock that fortunately has a dimmer cos it’s very bright otherwise.

Tomorrow the international stuff begins, with an afternoon flight to Paris via Doha. Time to repack, make sure my hand luggage has the essentials: medications, change of clothes, all the cables, chargers, etc, and that my water bottle is empty. See y’all in Paris.