Melbourne - Day 4

We planned to visit the city today. Mctc was excited. This was his first trip to a Mat Salleh's country and he was curious about the lifestyle here.

Mctc's bro-in-law, BV fetched us out to the city. We left the house slightly after 8am, and reached the city by 9am.

We went to Starbucks for breakfast. I can't remember how much Mctc's cup of coffee was, but it was cheap (if you don't convert to RM lah). Probably AUD2-3 only. I ordered something similar to vanilla creme, but they gave me vanilla-flavoured coffee.

After breakfast, we went to look for the Flinder's Street Station. I made plans with Christina to visit her on Wednesday, and probably stay a night at her house. I wanted to know how to catch a train from the city the Geelong, where she lived.

With a map in my hand, we started walking towards Flinder's Street Station and at the same time, got to check out the retail shops along the way.

Very few skyscrapers here. The city centre is very well planned. Any tourist can come alone and not get lost. The people here are friendly.

We walked so much.... because I read the map wrongly (Just like me to do so). Mctc had to rely on my eyes to see the small print of the map. Occasionally I will point where we were on the map and where our destination was.

Oh, we made plans to meet up with David Yeow, a church friend in Seremban who was studying in Melbourne. We met at Melbourne Central, just opposite the state's library.

David took us to his apartment. It was located in the city. We just had to walk a little bit more than usual.

David was here to get his Architectural Degree. The picture above was one of his past projects made entirely out of corrugated cardboards.

Yes, we got the see the autumn trees. :)


This is a sundial.

Just stand on the number which marks your height level and look at your shadow. The sun dial showed slightly after 1pm when I stood at the 150cm mark.

We wanted to try the Italian pizza here. Bro Chow told Mctc that if he tried the pizza here, he wouldn't want to eat the pizzas they served in Malaysia. We walked so much, that when we reached the pizza shop, Mctc had to take off his jacket.

We went to a nearby park to have our pizzas. 2 large pizzas. Looks good, smells good, tastes good too. We bought some drinks from a 7-11 nearby.

David took us to his Uni. Melbourne University and from there we parted. The autumn trees really looked beautiful there.

So much of walking... Mctc said he wanted to have another cup of coffee. So for the 2nd time that day, we went to Starbucks. This Starbucks was on another street.

After that, we started walking back to Flinder's Street Station to catch a train back to Nunawading.

The Federation Square, located opposite Flinder's Station.

Lots of birds.

The Yarra River just after the Federation Square.

We left the city at about 5pm and reached Nunawading by 6pm. BV came to take us back home. We had home-cooked Chinese dinner cooked by Mctc's sister.

At night, we spent time with the family and later after 11pm, I was with my laptop till past 1am.

Melbourne - Day 3

No more contact lenses episode, Thank God.

We woke up at 9am to get ready for church. Te Shing (Mctc's 6 year-old nephew) had Sunday School at 10am - 11am, while the adults attended the 11am church service. We had breakfast at MacDonald's while Te Shing was in Sunday School.

Just before 11am, we stepped into the church, a Baptist church called Calvary Baptist Church. It was Mother's Day, and each mother was given a corsage.

The choir gave a special presentation to the mothers.

We sang hymns. We were given a book of hymns each and sang 3 hymns that day. I kinda enjoyed the singing session, something different from my church.

After service, we picked Po (the brother of Te Shing) from the Wesley College and had lunch at Box Hill. This time we had Shanghainese food. Really love the dumplings and noodles there.

After lunch, Bee Wee, Mctc's brother-in-law, took us to Geelong to meet Eddy and Christina, our Malaysian friends who emigrated to Australia 3 years ago. It was about 1 hour 20 minutes to Geelong and I slept off and on in the car. Mctc drove all the way to Geelong. He wanted to have a feel of what it was like to drive in Australia.

This is Eddy and Christina's house. A big house, I would say. Love the design. Made me wish I was living here too. The thing I love best in cold countries (apart from the weather) is the pantry. We never could have one here because of the cockroaches, house lizards and ants.

Christina prepared dinner while Eddy took us to Gee Long's water front. It was really beautiful. The sun was setting. It was about 5.30pm.

We saw a lot of all these statues. There's a name for it... starting with B. Let me check it out.

There's a Thomas train too. A good place to bring your family and have picnics here too.

We had dinner at 7pm, chit-chatted till 8.10pm and headed back home. Didn't sound as though I did much, but it was a long day for me. I slept at 1.35am and set the alarm to 7am the next morning.

Melbourne - Day 2

We only arrived yesterday, and by the time we went to bed, it was already almost 3am in the morning. As usual, when I woke up, I checked my mobile phone for the time. It was slightly after 8am. I told myself, "not bad, can still wake up early". And then I realized I didn't set my phone time to the local time. Melbourne is 2 hours ahead of Malaysia. It was already after 10am. I quickly got up and washed up.
Being in a new place, I had to do a little adjustment. I think everyone does when they are at a new environment. I put on my left contact lenses first. Brrr.... it felt cold. After putting on the right contact lenses, I washed my hands. I thought my vision was a little bit blurred, so I blinked a few times and to my horror, I realized that I didn't put the right eye contact lenses properly, and it probably was still stuck onto my finger when I washed my hands. I panicked and looked everywhere for it. In the end I gave up. Thank God I brought a spare pair. :)

We left the house at probably 12pm to take Po (Mctc's older nephew) to school for his High School Musical practice in the Methodist College.

I thought this was nice, the tiled murals, painted by 6 year-olds.

This Wesley college campus is the biggest of the 3 in Melbourne.

We went to Springvale and had Vietnamese food for lunch. Uncle Chow had been promoting Vietnamese noodles every time he comes back from Australia. The portion was big. It was about AUD8 per bowl. I didn't manage to finish all the meat. I love the noodles though.

We didn't do much today. After lunch, we went to a Christian bookstore, and then back home.

It's autumn over here, and some of the trees were getting colourful. :)

Just before dinner, Te Shing (Po's younger brother) wanted Mctc to play some games with him. I think Te Shing won all the games. Shame on you, Uncle Mctc.

We had dinner at home. Mctc's sister is a great cook.

At night, Po set up my computer so that I could be connected to the WIFI here. He is only 10 going on 11, but he is really smart. He showed me a club, something like Facebook, but this is for kids called club penguin. He got his 6 year-old brother to get online too and both of them met in a "room". Both of them had msn so that they could chat to each other. See, the club penguin had a child safety features where it only allowed you to say certain words like "hi" bye".. etc. If you were older, you could chat by typing what you wanted to say. There were games too which made the club interesting.

I went to bed at about 1am and set my alarm at 7.45am, Australian time, the next morning.

Melbourne - Day 1

Our flight to Melbourne was at 1.40pm, but we woke up early because my cousin volunteered to take us to the airport. He had to be in the Bangi Court by 9am to attend a hearing. The other lawyer didn't turn up after an hour and so he decided not to wait for her.

We reached the LCCT airport at 10.40am, checked in and had breakfast there.

We boarded the plane at about 1.10pm, hoping that they would take off on time, and yes they did. This is my first time taking AirAsia X and I was kind of nervous, don't know what to expect. I have used AirAsia for local flights and one to as far as Chiang Mai - Northern part of Thailand.

The interior of the plane. I was surprised to see a LCD screen in front of me, since this was a no frills flight. Later I found out that if I want to watch a movie or listen to songs I had to pay RM30 for the service. I wasn't interested in it because tt wasn't that long a flight, I wasn't interested in movies anyway and I had a book with me.

As long as I had the "journey" screen, I'm fine. I loved to see where I was at the moment, and how long more to reach my destination.

I sat by the window and was rewarded by the change of colours in the skies. It was beautiful.

Taken at 2.46pm, Malaysian time.


Spotted the moon. Picture taken at 5.36pm, Malaysian time.


Taken at 5.45pm, Malaysian time.


Taken at 5.49pm, Malaysian time.

They served us late lunch at 3.15pm. This was pre-ordered. We had nasi lemak, a bar of kit kat and a 350ml water for the price of RM15.

Much later, we found out that we could chat with other passengers via the LCD screen. This was something new to me. I have not seen it in other airlines, or probably I didn't explore much during then.

We landed at 11.20pm, Australian time and was hit by the cool weather in Melbourne. Nice! Probably about 10 degrees Celcius or less.

It was a good flight. I don't mind flying with Air Asia X again.

I'm Flying Today

Don't miss me... I will be gone only for a week.

Will be arriving Melbourne late at night. My flight ticket cost only RM2172 for 2 persons. This is inclusive of taxes, admin charges, meal, luggage charges and insurance. The last time I went to Melbourne was in Aug 2002, and the flight ticket cost RM2000 for 1 person. I went by MAS at that time. Now I will be flying with Air Asia. I have never tried Air Asia X before.. so.. let's hope the ride would be as smooth as MAS.

They Didn't Tell Me About That Bank

I did all my errands and finish whatever work I had to do yesterday so that I could stay home today to clear my hard disk space and pack for tomorrow's trip. Whenever I go for short trips or vacation, I like to pack a few days beforehand.

Yesterday, Mctc and I accompanied a lady to the Welfare Department to collect her portion of money. To cut the long story short, we didn't have proper documents and our trip to the department was in vain. We were told to come back the next day. We spent more than an hour fetching her from her house to the Welfare Dept and then back again to her house.

At 10.30AM today, we fetched her from her house to the Welfare Department again. We saw so many people waiting to get their allowance. The person we spoke to the day before was updated by someone and we managed to get the lady her allowance. We were also advised to open a bank account in a certain bank and copy the bank details to the department by the 15th of May.

Fine, I thought to myself. We should be able to settle the banking and return to the Welfare Department within an hour.

How wrong I was.

We reached the bank at 12.49pm. Our queue number was 1094. They were serving number 1038 at that time. We filled in whatever forms they asked us to fill, but couldn't complete 1 form, which is the beneficiary's particulars. The lady wanted to put her daughter's name, but she couldn't remember the spelling. So we had to fetch her back to her house to get her daughter's ID card. We had our lunch first before taking her home.

It was pass 2pm when we arrived back at the bank. They were serving number 1055 at that time. I was hoping we could finish by 3pm, but no!!! There were only 2 counters open, but only 1 clerk was working full time. The other was not often at her place. And they worked at snail's pace. Gosh!!!! Thank God I brought a book.

Anyway, we were there till 5.25pm. I really don't understand why they took so long for each customer. This has got to be the slowest bank in the whole of Malaysia. I know I shouldn't have said that, but they took almost 5 hours to attend to less than 56 customers. They skipped some numbers because some customers were fed-up of waiting.

We send the lady home, explained to her about why we had to open the bank account and all those rules and stuff she needed to do or follow. Then we did some banking ourselves and reached home at 7pm.

I still haven't done the things I wanted to do today. Going to do it within the next hour..

I need to Clear Space For More Photos

Too little space, too many photos. I've got to clear my hard disk space today. Thank God I bought my 500GB external hard disk last November. Already used up more than a quarter.