If Melbourne can have a Lemur Sanctuary (or whatever it’s called now), then it can have a play centre for grown up people. Seriously, this town has become a bastion for everything both weird and wonderful, and I love it, so give me more. Too bad that gigantic moving winter-themed attraction place is currently in Ukraine, because we could’ve used a genius idea like that this summer.
Why do they need a winter theme park in Ukraine, anyway?? That’s just…Ukraine, with fewer Christmas lights all year round. But anyway, Brisbane is now opening a giant theme park where adults can come and enjoy doing stuff that was previous meant for kids, and it’s struck a chord with me. Of course, we have birthday party venues in the Melbourne suburbs, and they’re lovely. Bright colours and long slides and all that. But sometimes I get to babysit my niece, and she always wants to go to the play centre. Of course, I take her because I’m the cool Uncle and I have to spoil her, because that’s just my job. Then we get there, she goes and plays with her friends (i.e. the kids she met four seconds ago and is now best friends with, because kids are just like that, Anita especially) and it just looks so fun. I want a ball pit, and I don’t want to be judged for it.
It’s not like climbing on a frame and pretending I’m a space pirate for one afternoon is going to infect my brain, meaning that next time it comes to doing my taxes I want to feed them into the shredder instead. It’s possible to have different parts or your life that do not intersect, and modern standards of adulthood are garbage.
Nothing like that yet in Melbourne. Open indoor play centres are mostly just for kids…or all just for kids. But next holiday I get, I’m heading up to Brisbane and seeing what I’ve been missing for twenty years or so.
-Tyler