Days Two, Three, and Four - Exploration

Disclaimer - The following posts were written on a previous date. Day one was 29/12/11. I have just now gotten reliable access to internet as the library has been closed since the 25th. Also just in case you don't actually read all of this. This will not be a daily update once my project/work starts, probably closer to a weekly update.

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Walking, walking, walking. Lots of it. It’s all we’ve been doing for the past few days. That or standing that is. A new city, lots of new places to explore and walk around. New Year’s was pretty cool too. Just hustling and bustling just like any of the other Melbournians. Going to all the different shows and performances they had on. Yeah. Don’t really know what to say, just lots of new experiences flooding in.

Also I’ve discovered that I absolutely suck at having a camera. It’s always in my pocket and I just kind of stare in awe at things thinking they’re cool and then I don’t take a picture. And then the pictures I do end up taking I don’t think are too stellar. Pretty boring in general, but I guess that’s cuz there’s no one in them except the occasional Gaffey as he stands there.

I really supposed it helps to write these on a daily basis so I kind of remember what I did that day, but I mean, who’s really going to read all of these? But then again I guess it can’t really hurt to write them for me. A way to reflect on my time here in Australia, remember and document all that’s going on. Let’s see… Arrival and I wrote about that… OH HOW COULD I FORGET. Yeah totally writing stream of consciousness here, deal with it.

Day 2 we went to the St. Kilda beach as our hostel had a free shuttle there in the morning. Unfortunately when we went to sign up for it there was only one seat left so we had to pay $7 for an all-day tram pass not too exorbitant considering all the other expenses Australia has to offer. Yeah, we walked all day for that and I got sun burnt. Not too badly as I did put on SOME sun block and caught the burning as we were chilling and then applied sunblock to prevent it from getting worse. But when we go to St. Kilda beach we totally found a trail and just followed it down the coastline taking in the beautiful scenery and whatnot. Ate lunch at some nice café type deal.

All the restaurants seem to be pretty classy. There are two types of places to eat, or that I will allow myself to eat at. There’s the “cheap” $8-12 place where there’s usually no service of any kind and you just walk up to the counter order your food and they either bring it to you after your order number or it’s handed to you. Then there’s the $14-22 place where it’s almost like a sit-down restaurant with waiters and everything, but from our experience so far bringing you the bill is something they don’t really do. Maybe it’s seen as rude as it’s almost like asking you to leave their restaurant? But Gaffey and I have totally finished a meal and had the waiter clear our dishes and sat there waiting for the bill and observing how other people pay. It’s definitely different here, a lot more relaxed and laid back. Not as busy as the east coast. For the most part a lot of businesses seem to actually shut down over the holidays of Christmas and New Year’s.

Also as a random side note, these will not be on a daily recap as soon as I started my project. I’ll be at work from ~8-5 so there won’t be a whole day’s worth of exploring to do. Maybe it’ll be a weekly thing once my project starts. Who knows? I sure as hell don’t. At the moment I’m just kinda kickin it in my room at the hostel, with no internet. Munching on some grilled chorizo and caramelized onion crisps and Tim Tams, relaxing, putting my feet up, and writing this diary/blog entry.

Well enough random thoughts. I guess this is what happens when I have no internet to keep my occupied.

Day 3, NYE

We slept in a bit to compensate for the last little bit of jet lag left and needing to stay up to welcome in the New Year. Spent the afternoon walking around the various gardens a short distance away from the city, along the Yarra River which runs along Melbourne and is why it’s a city in the first place, a large trading port. The big thing we were trying to get to was the Royal Botanical Gardens which has tons of different plants from all over the world. It’s really pretty amazing walking 20meters and being in a different country plant-wise.

Welcoming in 2012 was never a really big celebration in my past with my family. Asian families just aren’t really too big into holidays once the kids grow up. So spending it in a different country along with around 100,000 other people is pretty… err… different. A lot of hustle and bustle and more walking, which my legs and feet are in no way accustomed to by the way, but I’m manning up and my legs are strengthening. It’s kind of sad actually that I can’t walk all day. It kind of gets me thinking that if society were not as advanced as it is, I’d be screwed. Little to no athletic ability and can’t even spend the whole day walking without being in immense pain. I’d totally get eaten by a saber-tooth tiger in a heartbeat. But yeah, probably the first New Year’s Eve ever that I haven’t watched the ball drop, even if it is just on TV… Instead we had a pretty amazing fireworks display. There were spread out all along the river on different roof tops around the city and synced up so around 10 different roof tops were all shooting off the exact same array at the exact same time.

Day 4

We slept in again with regards to the fact that we’d been up til probably close to 2 or 3 the night before. Went to the Immigration Museum. It was actually fairly interesting seeing all the immigration history of Australia. See that they had their own anti-Asian period and all the tragedies of history. Definitely something I don’t see the rest of our group doing. That’s really the name of the game here. Find things to do as a pair that the rest of the group probably won’t do and if some people do end up going it’ll be likely that something else will be going on as well. Don’t exactly wanna shoot ourselves in the feet and do things now that we’ll likely do as a larger group. The more the merrier.

Then with much of the evening left we explored the city some more, walked some of the streets we hadn’t walked before on the first day and actually *gasp* went INSIDE some of the buildings!

I miss internet. Though we did grab a little free Wifi inside the McDonald’s we went to for dinner. I just emailed my parents and took care of some email business. Connect with the world. I also had a McOz sandwich. It was quite interesting, just a standard burger but with a large slice of beet. Apparently it’s back by popular demand so I thought I’d try it. Portioning here is much smaller as well. I can finish almost every meal I order and the medium value meal was the same size as a small American value meal. Oh and the daily value is 8700 kJ. Which I guess is pretty damn close to 2000 kcal. But I think the recommended amounts of fat and protein and everything else is a little lower because a double quarter pounder with cheese is over 100% daily value in a few categories while in the states it just hits 98% in the fat category.

As amazed as I am to say it. I kind of miss home/school a bit already. It’s just fleeting thoughts here and there, but when they were mentioning it during IQP Orientation I kinda just brushed it off cuz I normally don’t experience it, but I guess being here with just the two of us in a completely different environment is something I’m not used to. I’m sure once everyone else gets here and we move into the Milano I’ll be fine.

Cuz you know. You just gotta man up sometimes.