Melbourne

This is my first time flying Virgin Blue Airlines, I see why the tickets were cheap. Thank mum for packing sushi and grapes, and one squashed banana for brunch, I was starving and refused to pay for crapy airplane food.

The queue to get through immigration was the longest I have ever seen, but Aussies are efficient, the queue moved fast. After pushing myself through the sea of people waiting to collect their luggage, I felt exceptionally happy to see my luggage was the first one to come through. So immediately headed for the exit for customs. I found myself seeing more people, all standing still with their luggages. HUH? Oh my.. it was a queue.. NO IT WAS NOT A QUEUE.. it was a crowd trying to form a queue. Apparently (I was evesdropping as I was bored senseless and busting to go to the bathroom), there was another foot and mouth outbreak so all passengers from UK are going through scrutinising customs, creating the crowd. I was relieved to have existed the customs without trouble, and bought the Aussie Vodafone Sim Card. Hopped on the shuttle who drove me to Graduate House.. This is what I call good service! This was part of the queue of passengers lining up for customs.. I was still behind the glass at the point with my jaw dropping to the floor.

Oooo.. Graduate HOuse - you are everything I imagined you would be. It was renovated, new, clean and friendly.

The receptionist gave me a tour and then helped me lifted my 24kg suitcase up the little staircases - reminded me of the Harry Potter Staircases.

Below, this is the front view of Graduate House.

This is the view opposite Graduation House, it's university square. The hospital is only 2 blocks away. I felt so bad but so happy she helped. I really struggled to bring less to Aussie. I only brought the essentials, but I guess the bedding I had to bring with me for my next accommodation does take up to 5kg. I have already started to worry how I can stop myself from buying stuff here as I can't take it back home. That thought made me slightly down - I cant enjoy Melb without actually buying stuff. (Note to you: Cindy does not believe in window shopping). I was starving again by the time I unpacked, and headed 10 mins down the road to the famous Queen Victoria Market with all sorts of food and cheap things to buy.

Im not quite sure why, but I bought a chic pea filafal for lunch. It was one of the first things I saw - it tasted it pretty good actually. I spent the next 3 hours shopping in the market.. there are so many things to look at! So much clothes, accessories, funny ornaments, etc. I really tried so hard not the buy anything - I failed of course (what did you expect :p ). I decided I will need to ship the things I dont urgently need back to NZ at the end of the trip.

A nap before dinner was essential by the time I brought back my groceries. Dinner at Graduate House was served in the same style as the halls of residence in Dunedin, except everything LOOKED much fancier. On the menu was shrimp and squid green leave salad (The shrimp was squishy after defrosting and the type of greens they used was bitter), lime fish (it was dry and tasteless), tandoori chicken (nicely flavoured but overcooked as well), tuna pasta (average - thank goodness there was something eatable), vegetarian fried rice (tasted like white steam rice), chocolate cake for dessert. Well, I thought I was slightly too optimistic when I thought I should try everything on the menu BUT not the cake (to be healthy). The best dish of the meal with can fruit salad for dessert.

Although the food was not the best, I had lovely company in the dining room (which has nice mood lighting). I sat amongst 3 Spanish girls who didnt speak much English and one Aussie post grad guy (looked like in his early 30s). They were friendly and commented they understood my English better than the locals (hehehe - Phil the Aussie guy started asking me to say fish and chips etc to state the differences in our accent). Just before dinner finished, a Korean girl walked over to hand out flyers advertising the salsa dance social tonight on campus - she was a regular attendee and wanted us to go with her. The people sitting around me wanted to go and I eagerly joined them.

We turned up to the social wearing what we wore that day - for me, it was my Adidas skateshoes, jeans, and Australian T-shirt (I had no time to change after dinner). The other girls were wearing similar things too.. HOWEVER, the hall of students (mainly Asians) were wearing shirts, and dress shoes, while the girls were strapped 2.5inch heels and skirts.. Ok, we were very underdressed. Oh well, there were several beginners there too. Surprisingly, there were heaps of boys there, so everyone had a partner. There were about 80 people there.

The dance class was interactive, starting from basic salsa moves to routines, and we swapped partners every 30 seconds.. The class lasted for 2.5 hours - my hands desperately need to be washed with heaps of soap! Those sweaty hands - yuck! But I loved the class - so much fun. Some of the guys commented on my skateshoes.. yep! There were bulky, but man, I did not regret wearing them one bit, they were stepped on several times by incoordinated boys. Bless my toes.

Above is Sun-Yee (the Korean girl who took us beginners to class) and Yasmina (she is Spanish). At the end of the class, a short Asian guy doing a PhD in law came and give her his business card. She was so flattered and embarrassed but said later on she will never call him (hahaha).

Saturday:

This morning, after a tasteful brunch of toasties and fruit salad. I took the tram down to Bridge Road...
The place of shopping everyone has been telling me about. It is the place for fashion bargins. There are many shops lined up over 3 to 4 blocks, varying from low priced clothing like "Cotton On" to high priced fashion like "Country Road". They all have one thing in common - most of their products are all sale. It is similar to DressMart except the products are much more classier.
I found a few nice things here and there but thought I should make my purchases the next time I come with May. She is not arriving to do her elective until next Friday. I have all these places I want to take her too. Shopping alone is definitely not as fun - its gets boring after a hour (yes, I did say boring.. close your mouth).
AFter 3 hours on Bridge Road, I met up with Rick whom I haven't seen for 10 years. I recognised him as he came around walking around the corner - I guess people dont change that much from their adolescent shape. We grabbed a quick bite at a Vietnamese restaurant. I had these rice noodle spring rolls which was quite tasty. And then we had a drink in KOKO BLACK.. a very nice cafe with many varieties of homemade chocolates, hot chocolate and coffee drinks. Must go back there to look at the all the chocolates again.

Below is a picture of the horses and carriages for tourists to hire to ride on. The horses are so dirty, they really need a shower.This is the view looking bridge road. Ok its not that impressive, but wait till you shop there!This is the spring roll with rice noodles, lettuce and shrimp. With a very nice dipping sauce which I dripped across the whole table (of course, it's me.. messy eater).