The thing about holidays, is that they lift us up out of the everyday. From out there, it’s easier to get a better view of life, from a different perspective. Another way, is to get to know new perspectives of the city by joining experts for a walk.

Find out how to use mushroom fluff on a Vietnamese in Victoria Street walking tour. If orange blossom’s more your thing, step in with the Secrets of Sydney Road tour. There are architectural walks (Laneways & Arcades, Art Deco, and with a general focus), galleries tours (visiting artist-run spaces, commercial and public galleries), more food-related walks (from Footscray Market to a Foodies tour with Allan Campion) and self-guided graffiti walks. There may even be a spot left to join this weekend’s Literary Melbourne walking tour, part of the Writer’s Festival.

Two major Australian cities, two major international acknowledgements. This week, Melbourne was officially dubbed a City of Literature and Sydney was included as a ‘red’ property, along with London and New York, on the international edition of Monopoly. Which carries the greater kudos?

For Melbourne, being a City of Literature means the State Library will have a Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas added to its already impressive list of services and events. Events like the Bedside Book Club at Mr Tulk where readers exchange what’s on their bedside tables. Services like the use of chess boards and, of-course, the treasury of books available to read in exquisite surrounds.

Drop into the Library sometime soon to ponder whether we drew the short international-kudos straw. We’ll be there, reading Monopoly: the world’s most famous game – and how it got that way.

Australia has a patchy reputation overseas, at best. But Melbourne's another story...

It’s an inversion of that poignant image of a weeny plant breaking through asphalt, representing nature triumphing over the manmade. In this instance, nature still wins, but it’s the concrete that yields to the plants in the first place.

Melbourne Uni’s South Car Park features champagne-stem columns, which act like giant plant pots – designed to hold enough soil for the trees growing above. Framing the pedestrian entrance are two classical figures originally belonging to the Colonial Bank built in 1880 and demolished in 1932. Want more? It was in this car park that Mad Max's V8 interceptors were garaged. Hire the DVD (Number 1), you'll see.

It's Melbourne's birthday on 30 August. Melbourne Day, as it's known, is officially acknowledged with a flag-raising ceremony, when the Melbourne flag (featuring a fleece, a bull, a ship and a whale; representing wool, tallow and oil - the chief exports - and the means by which they were transported) gets hoisted aloft at Enterprize Park. This little-known patch of park (opposite the Immigration Museum) was where Batman moored his Enterprize. (Geddit.)

You could just pay your city a compliment on its birthday. Adore the way the sunlight filters through its elm trees on St Kilda Rd. Wink at Chloe. Walk through the gates in Chinatown. Skip pebbles on the Yarra. Watch the Forum's gargoyles watching you. Find a laneway commission. Buy a bag of barbecued chestnuts from a street vendor. Listen to a busker. Spend an hour at Degraves with a coffee. Talk about the weather...

Clothing swap meets, op shops and eBay rock – all keeping better-quality items in circulation and in good homes. But, there comes a time in every girl’s life to clean out the wardrobe. To let stuff go, without expecting anything in return. Enter Fitted for Work. This little organisation redistributes your unwanted suits or work clothes, giving them to disadvantaged women entering the workforce. Along with clothing, volunteers equip jobseekers with interview and general presentation skills in order to build women’s self-confidence, leading to financial independence.

As well as donating clothes, you can donate time, which they’ll put to good use. And if you’re on the other side of a clean-out, and your wardrobe’s looking a bit skinny, go to their clothing sale: Sat 16 & Sun 17 Aug – 130 Barkly Street, Brunswick.

Our Slow icon, the donkey, has a newish friend – Ambiguous Horse.

Creative types with an idea or product can ride the Ambiguous Horse through the culture industry, rather than legging it alone. AH acts as an agent for designers (see the online shop, and see Small Town’s mini macramé jewellery – cute, very cute), as an event manager (as for the Bicycle Film Festival) and as an inventor and facilitator of fine projects like the Don’t Sweat Shop workshops for 12 to 18-year-olds to create clothing made from recycled materials.

If you think you’ve thought of the next-big-thing, or you’re just thinking about buying something nice and local, have a look.