Australian Journal #1

Hello everyone and a very happy Merdeka to all Malaysians!

Yes, finally. An update on Australia! It'll only be a short one but I hope it'll do much justice.

As some of you know, I'm in Melbourne primarily for education purposes. Aside from that, being someone who has lived in Malaysia literally for her entire life, I thought I should give a shot at experiencing the life of being an independent person.

This trip is where I leave a second set of my footprints in Melbourne. I guess this is the experience that I've missed out on because I was on tour the last time I was here rather on a self-exploration journey.

Unfortunately, food isn't on the top of the list for "Best Melbourne Experience". Without hesitation, I put the people first. With regards to that, there is much to say about Melbournians. For instance:

This guy definitely has a Masters in Photobombing.

Prime example of an Australian, if you'd ask me. "Friendly" would be an understatement for this young lad. "They know how to enjoy life" would be more appropriate words to describe the people here.

I have my own fair share of friendly people around me especially those living in the same hall as I am. I got lost in my hall itself wandering for half an hour and looking my room only leading to failure. I guess I am to be blamed for I define a woman with bad directions but the 8-hour flight and the 1-hour journey to the campus drained me too. After unpacking, my shelves were empty and I could only think of one thing. Food.

I am utmost grateful for my neighbours who volunteered to take me out to Brandon's Park to grab groceries, a couple of essential items like plates, a lamp, hangers, SIM card etc. With that, I would consider myself settled in and only within a couple of hours after arriving which was self-surprising.

Aside from that, Australians have their own slang in which I am still trying to pick up. They shorten words so much it's just weird. For instance, "arvo" means "afternoon" (I have no idea how that is derived) and "brollie" means "umbrella".

From personal experiences, they use quite a fair bit of sarcasm in their conversations. Which reminded me of this Big Bang Theory scene:

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Anyway, my friends and I arrived in Melbourne when it was 6 degrees and raining. It was extremely hard to sleep at night without a comforter. I was personally freezing inside and out and that was when I thought, "Thank goodness I'm not in Canada or Moscow!" But as winter passes, the weather got more merciful. This was one of the best days ever and it so happened to be the day we decided to shop.

 

Beautiful, beautiful day to walking by the Yarra River and shopping at DFO South Wharf!

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Speaking of food, oh boy, I didn't know where to start as I was typing this out.

But these were what my friends and I had during my first trip to the city:

Slow roasted lamb with tomatoes, red onions and chips. [$9.00]

Yes, I wanted to try Greek food badly so we discovered this restaurant that serves Greek street food. I was expecting the chips to be served as a side order, but little did I know, they included them in the souvlaki and pita which tasted amazing! Not too sure how authentic this is for I have not had any Greek food before. If you know any Greek places I should try out in Melbourne, by all means, drop a comment or email me!

 

Greek village salad [$8.00]

Information:

Restaurant name: Kalamaki - Greek Street Food

Address: 389, Londsdale St, Melbourne, VIC 3000

Contact no.: 0396024444

Website: www.kalamakigsf.com.au

 

The dessert theme was French!

 

La Mongolfiere [$10.00] which looks like a scrumptious, ginormous dumpling. Inside is vanilla ice cream.

Close up shot of the berry and whipped cream.

La Charabotte [$10.00] of homemade salted caramel, bananas and vanilla ice cream.

This was the one with flames is La Suzon [$11.50] or orange marmalade, warm melted chocolate and grand marnier under the "Les Flambées" section. Sadly, I didn't catch a snapshot of the flames. This dish, without the flames, is absolutely bland for it'll be missing a scoop of ice cream.

And I absolutely love the deco!

Information:

Knock yourselves out!

I shall update soon. Thanks for reading and have a very pleasant day ahead! (: