Ben+H's+Blog

City Experience blog

Day 1: Shrine of Remembrance and Urban Seed

On the first day of city experience we had to meet the teachers and everyone else at Federation Square. My day started at Joel's house, we walked to the station and then continued onto Fed Square along with Christian and Jarrod. The first day of our city experience started well. After arriving at Fed Square we quickly made our way along St Kilda Road to the Shrine of Remembrance. The Shrine hasn't changed one bit since I was last there, it is still amazing!!! The stories that our tour guide, Burnie told us, were inspirational. One of the stories that stuck in my mind was when we were in the Crypt. He told us a story of when a old man was in the Crypt and was standing there nearly in tears after seeing the Battalion flag he fought under in the First World War. When Burnie told us that story I think as a group we understood how much small things like the flag meant to the diggers. Unfortunately he has now passed away but just that one story got the message across how much of their lives were dedicated to the wars that they fought in.

After the countless stories and the amazing sights that are in the Shrine we had lunch around Flinders Street Station.



After lunch we walked our way from Fed Square to Collins Street. The Collins Street Baptist Church was where we met up with a representative of Urban Seed. Urban Seed are a non for profit organisation. Urban seed are here to help the homeless and the less fortunate. They complete small community based projects around the city of Melbourne. Urban Seed's goal in their existence is to eliminate the hierarchy between business men and women and the less fortunate and the homeless. On our tour we visited a couple of places that Urban Seed are using to achieve their goal. One of these places was an alley near the Burke Street Mall. In this alley they play what they call lane way cricket. This couple of hours spent playing cricket is a chance for everyone to forget about what their life is whether that is being homeless or being wealthy. When standing in alley way listening to this story some well dressed people in suits walked pass saying that it smelt and wasn't a place for anyone to be in. After talking to a teacher and the representative of Urban Seed we decided thats what Urban Seed is out there for, to stop people judging people and places on appearances rather than what they mean or are actually like.



Day 2: The Scavenger hunt and Art walk

Day 2 starts much like day 1 at Federation Square. We are given maps and told to make groups for the hunt. "Off you go," our teacher yells. We started to head up to Etihad Stadium and Flagstaff Gardens. This race gave me a different perspective of Melbourne and the backstreets, alleys and laneways. The couple of places that remain in my mind are China Town and the Windsor Hotel. China Town was just breath taking, the amount of restaurants and technology shops. These two things are sort of what China is famous for food and cheap technology. Continuing around the CBD we came across a piece of aboriginal graffiti that was created as a protest to how aboriginal people were treated in Australia. From spending a couple of hours walking around the lesser known parts of Melbourne you get a different perspective of the stories that Melbourne holds, new and old stories. Some of the graffiti have stories that are political protests and some that are showing how someone feels about a certain topic and some are just cool artworks.

Day 3: Self Defence and Police talk

Today I didn't think I would enjoy but it was surprising. We started with a one hour self defence lesson. This lesson was a lot of fun and gave us a few helpful hints of how to get out of situations and avoid them completely. These tactics would be very useful in undesirable situations.

Later that morning, we had a long talk, to some local police about the dangers of modern day technology like mobile phones and Facebook. They informed us through a dvd how one action can affect a lot more people than first thought. The police also showed us how something like sexting can turn into a criminal conviction or a court hearing. I found it quiet confronting how easily things can turn around for the worst.

Overall the City Experience has been a great adventure and a chance to understand how our city is set out and how it functions.

Ben Hillgrove