Let's go to the City~~~!

After 3 days in Mel, pretty much settled in, except the urban life. It took me 3 days to understand the public transport, eating habits and weather. Visited Pakenham town on Fri to have lunch and do some shopping. A beautiful town that's busier than Garfield, shopping malls and cafes spread near the train station (and the furthest station with metro to the city). Love small towns like these, peaceful and quiet, with everything you need within 1km, they even have horseracing tracks! Here comes the highlight of the day: Was on the Vline back, that darn station crew led me on the wrong train! Since the time of departure matches, I didnt doubt her much. I felt something wrong when the train's not stopping after 15 mins (supposed timing) and it goes on till Dandenong! LoL, it's ehading to the city! Got off and on the other Vline train, it was 4pm and I didn't know if my ticket is valid for peak hours. Then came the owned2x, I actually missed my stop and end up in Longwarry! Here's the problem: they didn't announce the train station (which they did on my 1st ride) and nor do the doors open by themselves, thus I assumed the train stopped for some other reasons (changing tracks, etcs). Sucker... It was rather dark when I finally got off Garfield and walk the 2k plus back home.

Finally, Mel city here I come! Adrian dropped me off at Pakenham :) where I had my 1st metro ride to the city (thanks for his myki card as well). Was a long ride, about an hour 0.0, thats like JE to Changi. Got off at Flinders and visited Fed sq for the tourist info centre and idle around to watch the street perf. Great weather for a walk into the heart of the city. Marveled by the skyscrappers, shops and vehicles, this is the city I'm talking about! Took the "arcade and lanes" route based on a paper guide and finished almost a third of the city centre. Met gugu for dinner at box hill and visited Tzu chi @Melbourne. Most of the volunteers were of my age? some slightly older, uni students. The elders offered me to stay for veggie soup (which was incredibly delicious!) Had a quick chat with people and left for dinner (after being half-full). Gugu thought I would miss home food and brought me to a Malaysian restaurant with mostly... chinese cuisine, wasnt so bad, most chicken rice stalls should be ashamed of themselves when I can find an applaudable plate of chicken rise in a foreign land. Thanks aunt for the ride home, very long 1hour journey on the dark freeway.

Pretty much the same thing happened on Sunday with certain changes. I set off earlier and it was raining when I reached the city. Sat down watching the commuters go with some hot croissant and tea. There was some mother's day walk going on that day, in a rainy weather?I manged to book my GOR trip then off for another walk in the city. Hollan many times and the darn GPS wasn't working but still managed to find my way to the great State library where the famous La Trobe sat. Besides that its all asian muggers, as expected when you visit any library. The chinatown was quite boring, not much happening on a mother's day sunday. The rest of the evening was again with gugu for dinner (at an Italians) where we had a meaningful conversation over religion and philosopy. I got a free ride home again :P really thanked her for that.

I think I'm not gonna bother her again as it'd be taxing on her car petrol and time. Anyways, I lost quite alot of weight too, maybe because the body's going into hibernation mode and used the fats to keep the itself warm :) And the long walks... So far so good in Oz, just hate the cold dry air which gave my nose HELL.