If Texas were a sea of cowboys and pickup trucks, gators, bulls and ranches, then Austin would be a tiny island of liberal hipsterdom. We stayed 5 nights and about 4 full days there with Peter, a friend from Japan.
We started out the first day with a bang. We took the bus down South Congress to a little neighborhood where a man has erected a shrine in his backyard called "The Cathedral of Junk". Imagine if Elsewhere had a welder and then got kicked out into the suburbs. The guy was nice and let us climb to the top of the tower. Here are some shots of the place.
Afterwards, we worked our way back down Congress Blvd, and checked out all the antique shops along the way. There was pretty much everything from taxidermy rams heads, to jewelry, to old watch parts, to giant vintage lightbulbs. "Uncommon Objects" is pretty much the antique Mecca on congress and they set up all their wares in little vignettes of color all around the shop.
Then we headed downtown, had a few margaritas, and checked out "The Museum of the Weird", which is really just a cheap souvenir shop with a curtain in the back. They have silly things like a fish with fur on it, the Fiji Mermaid, two headed chickens and the like. I opted for an additional tarot reading by a kid dressed right out of the movie Swingers. He said a lot of things, but none of it really seemed cohesive. If you go there, I wouldn't recommend getting it done.
After that we rushed back to the bridge running throughout downtown to watch the grand exodus of bats at twilight. Austin is home to one of the largest urban populations of bats in the United States. It was not disappointing. I'll post a video of that right after this post. The one thing that struck me about them was the strong smell. The little girl next to us thought that they smelled like a copy machine.
As we returned back to Peter's neighborhood, we checked out a sweet toy shop called "Toy Joy". You would like it. They sell everything from 20 sided dice to hello kitty, to Double Bananagrams. We thought that you would like the latter.
We finished off the night by heading to Conan's Pizza which is, in fact, referencing Conan the Barbarian. Their specialty is deep-dish pizza served with a side of Conan comics. If you ever go there, choose extra garlic as one of the toppings you won't regret it.
That's all for now. We'll let you know know more about Austin after we blog on San Antonio.
~Mario
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