Vanishing Tattoo --
Trip Updates
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| Tom wants me to see the other side of Sydney. Not just Kings Crossing and
the tattoo shops. He wants to give me a grand tour of Sydney Harbour. He
rhapsodizes about the beauty of Sydney Harbour so much, you'd think he was a
native son. But first Thomas informs me that you can't go to Australia and
NOT buy a hat. So before we can start acting like tourists we have to go to
this little shop he knows of and get a hat. Thomas, in case you haven't
already figured it out, has a thing about hats.
Now I'm already carrying around my ever-faithful-Tilley-Endurables-World-Famous in it's own right hat, but Tom is adamant. In Australia, get a hat. Should be an Akubra hat. But Thomas, I already OWN an Akubra hat, I exclaim. Yes, says Thomas, but you didn't get it in Australia did you? Now how the hell can a man argue with that? I know I sure couldn't. So for the next three weeks I got to nursemaid a beautiful Akubra hat through another half a dozen flights and three more countries as I tried to preserve the pristine curl of it's brim. As Tom would tell me endlessly in the weeks to come, "That's a damn fine hat you've got there, Vinnie." We head for a Harbour Tour. We see the Opera House, the Bridge across the harbour. - We wander about - Tom and Trish have calls out to tattoo artists all over town. We sightsee and then try and contact someone by telephone. This goes on all afternoon. It isn't going well. Every lead we do get turns into a dead-end. Thomas is worried that we're going to be landing in Samoa and New Zealand without even any good leads, never mind someone we've been given an introduction to. We want any leads we can get for Samoa and New Zealand. At this point we'll settle for a friend of a friend of someone's sister's second cousin. But we don't even have that. What Thomas really wants is a one on one contact. A good friend of a friend. We go to House of Pain to meet Kergie - a tattoo artist Tom has known for 7 years who fronts his own Heavy Metal Band. Some of the work that's come out of this shop is fabulous. HOUSE OF PAIN TATTOOS Kergie is a great guy. Shows us pictures of his latest European tour. Supplies us with endless cold beers. But he doesn't have any leads. Two days in Sydney and we're no further ahead than when we landed. One day more and then we're leaving. What next? |
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