St. Kilda, Melbourne

Enjoying every bit of my last piece of Toblerone on bed, I decided to walk over to my desk, then turned on my laptop and thought I should probably fill up this category with some more experiences that I had as I traveled than to keep filling up my ���Journal Entry��� with crap.

���This isn���t going to be the most recent news and for that you might probably find it rather irrelevant but for me it is definitely worth writing as a blog post, for it helps recall and hold those memories I had while traveling around some other parts of Australia that I had never been to,��� I typed as I started this post. Took a sip from my Recharge by Sprite bottle, I then continued, ���For this case, it is a bit contradicting to say ���had never been to��� though cuz the Melbourne Airport is one place I used so often for flight transits, but never really did step out of it cuz I was just not quite curious to discover the city.���

I arrived in Melbourne on a Saturday afternoon, a couple of months ago (on the most expensive airfare���erm, not deliberately), picked up by my Swiss cuz, Anita, who arrived a couple of days earlier (who was also the sponsor of all of my expenses in Melbourne including a return airfare), who then brought me to St Kilda where we were lodged for the next 3 days. My plan in Melbourne was to accompany her for a very short while as it was a usual uni day and I didn���t want my studies and assignment plans to be interrupted. But familial relationship had it that I would be expected to go out of my way to welcome relatives who came from abroad on a social visit, particularly to see me, so I (sort of) had no choice but to join her at least briefly in her travel in the country.

I continued to type my story as I recalled bits and pieces of what i felt about the place when i was there.

���As soon as I arrived, I found Melbourne a bit outlandish. Because unlike home, Melbourne was a place so odd to me as there were so many Asians and I was no longer the only foreign-faced around :( Sounds very conceited? Maybe, or maybe not���I was probably just too accustomed to being the only odd one out after having lived for years in this island commonly referred to as the whitest state in Australia. And because of that I probably find it hard to live in Melbourne (luckily i don't have to), and at times so odd that it contributed to an air surrounding the environment making it so uninteresting as I walked around������

���As I was typing this, I was interrupted by the noise of bottles clanking outside my room. Must be my flatmate, removing bottles from the kitchen onto the black recycle box placed outside the front door, busy cleaning the house. I stopped to listen. And from where I am at the moment, I could hear him walking to the front door many times to discard beer bottles from last night���s party. It���s 3pm on a Friday afternoon now. He has just had all his friends left the apartment. Sigh. Finally, I thought. They were all very drunk last night. Small Bitch even spewed on our clothes��� line, soiling some of my washed clothes with some brown stuff and bits of rice grains. Shame on her; spewing up just like a 17-year-old girl new to alcohol, I thought. I just felt like telling her to grow up, know her alcohol limits and control herself as a guest. It was a good thing she didn���t stay here overnight or I will have her clean her puke on both our as well as the neighbor���s verandah (downstairs) as soon as she got a bit sober.

Well, so much of an aside, the distraction must have extensively interrupted you as much as it has to me, so sorry, I shall come back to my 'Melbourne post' now...




���Anita and I did the usual girl-y thing that we didn���t get to do much in Tas: and that is, shopping, of course! When I arrived, we went shopping right away for some very light clothing ��� I wasn���t prepared with not even one (light clothing), thinking it wouldn���t be so warm that walking around in a bikini seemed to be more than appropriate! Then on Sunday we went shopping again but this time it was at Melbourne���s Sunday markets where there were so many interesting things to look at and they were all so cheap that it was very tempting to just buy anything even if they were unnecessary. It was fun. We took the famous Melbourne trams (pic on left with cuz) to get to these places, and that was when I found out that most of the tram drivers were not Australian-born because of the different yet distinctive accents that accompany their English each time they made announcements and funny comments to passengers onboard.���

I stopped typing...flatmate still busy cleaning, and i took another sip of the Sprite drink. Was that all that we did, i asked myself. Sounded boring. I couldn���t quite remember much by now anyway as I didn���t spend such a significant amount of time in Melbourne. But I should say I clearly remember this one,

���I was supposed to go for Jack Johnson���s gig on one of the days I was there. My friend, Tempei, was also in Melbourne at that time to catch JJ���s live performance. I was supposed to meet up with him (he was also in St Kilda at that time) to go together but changed my mind in the end as he was going to be high on weed, and relying on him to get me home safely that night was not such a good idea. I let the evening pass without regret, enjoyed myself in my own way and soon that night I forgot all initial plans, kept myself occupied in our all-girls dorm by writing ardently on this American boy���s geopet passed to me by Josh Woollan. The next day however, I thought I really should have gone for JJ���s gig ��� I simply forgot that he (JJ) was an American and the coincidence of the date and time of his performance and my presence in Melbourne shouldn���t have taken for granted!!��� Yes, that then became my biggest regret ever since.

No other significant things that took place, I decided to conclude my 'Melbourne post' by writing down a significant yet surprising thought that had accompanied me the whole time i was on board the plane.

"I just couldn't wait to be back in Hobart. Was over the moon when i saw big pieces of green land and yellow patches of low-lying plains as the plane flew over the central land areas of Tasmania. Yes, I have never been happier, and felt so glad to once again be back in the place i call home."

That afternoon, i arrived safely at the Hobart Airport after an hour's journey from Melbourne with Virgin Blue. I was welcomed with open arms by my beloved boyfriend who actually reluctantly permitted me to go to Melbourne to accompany my cousin as she did her another round of travel in Australia. But I was glad I went. I saw what Melbourne has to offer, but home is still the place i like best...