Melbourne 22.0

I hereby present to you the twenty-two places in which created an impression on me during my 5-month stay in Melbourne. In no particular order of favour ...


1. Seven Seeds, Carlton

This was one of the first few coffee places I visited in Melbourne. I remember the latte being fairly satisfying but that ain't the highlight of this place...

Australian Journal #3

There are typically three reasons I'd head to the Central Business District (CBD):

1) Food; mostly brunches and dinners.
2) Shopping; I'd visit a Typo store every time.
3) Clubbing; partying, partying, yeah!

Today went a little different towards the end.

* * * *

Brunch

I met up with Delia for a catch up, girl talk brunch session at Fandango. I was contemplating between heading there and Auction Rooms which was a couple of doors away. However, I've been hearing from people within my social circles that visits to Auction Rooms weren't very memorable which was why I decided to cross it out of my list; leaving me 6 more coffee places to visit before I depart to Malaysia in a couple of days.

My regular coffee: soy cappuccino [AUD4.10]

It was their house blend espresso they used. Unfortunately, it wasn't very memorable for me. Sure enough, it's a good cup of coffee but I think Axil Coffee Roasters at Hawthorn made me the best soy cappuccino I've ever had using their seasonal espresso blend (which has coffee beans from El Salvador, Costa Rica and Ethiopia). I guess I'm the type that prefers a more fruity and sweet touch to my coffee.

As for the meal, both Delia and I ordered the french toast. Most french toasts I've had are very flavourful by themselves or they'd usually come with a scoop of ice cream alongside some fresh fruits. Often enough, they'd serve either only two pieces of toast the most or one huge toast on a plate. With little expectations in mind, I was served this:

French toast [AUD17.50]

Four pieces of fluffy french toast with the right amount of eggy-ness in each, probably half a cinnamon baked apple with maple syrup alongside was already held so much happiness for me. But imagine this: perfectly fried bacon strips placed right at the top of the stack of toasts; in between lies a cube of maple butter slowly melting and making its way to the bottom of the plate through the stack. I cannot further emphasize how absolutely sinful and gorgeous that whole thing sounds. Also, as I'd usually take certain little details into account, I love their little green garnishing that gave the dish a bit of colour.

I'm not too sure if adding ice cream to the plate would do more justice to the dish or put the consumer in a chaotic situation from the many competing flavours but as for now - best french toast so far!

Delia.

Myself.

* * * *

Walking around the city

After a little shopping at Melbourne Central, I decided to take a walk to Flinders Station in hope that I would find a couple of gigs or magic performances on the way. Unfortunately for me, I chose the wrong day to look for them as the sun was scorching and I started to sweat even in that sleeveless top, shorts and thongs. I believe it was about over 30 degrees that afternoon. Melbourne is clearly trying to prep me up for the Malaysian weather. Not a very kind thing to do.

Anyway, I spotted two performances:

Brandon Lewis.

Brandon, who was playing jazz music and teaches, has been playing the guitar for "a very long time". I was about to ask for how long has he been doing so but he refused to give me a number of years as he said it would give away his age. Of course, I respected that. I was very much taken by his skills despite the scorching Melbourne sun he was playing directly under.

I didn't stay long and as I continued to walk, I spotted a violin duet playing Christmas songs for a good cause. Unfortunately, I did not approach them personally.

Violin duet.

* * * *

An experience perhaps better than what I expected to discover

I was about to give up knowing that the unmerciful weather was a huge contributor to the absence of the performers and walk straight to Flinders Station when I spotted a man sitting at the corner of the building with a card board next to him which said something along the lines of "please spare me some change as I would like to stay in a room tonight". I don't know about you, but I was taught to ignore these people as some of them are said to be very dishonest and what not. However, I ignored that thought of mine and went with my gut. Instead of walking to the train station, I headed to the 7-eleven store nearby and bought a bottle of cold water. I then approached the man and bid him hello as I handed him the bottle and sat down on the pavement right in front of him being partially exposed to the sun. After introducing myself, from there he began his story.

His name is Trevor* and he lived in an area not far from the city before he was sentenced to two months in prison due to a fight with his mom and dad. His parents never supported him and I didn't ask precisely why as I didn't want to go too deep into that side of his story. Trevor went to school till Year 11 and has been working from the time he was 16 years old till his jail sentence. He has been out of jail for about a month and has been living along the streets for that same amount of time as he was basically released with no money on hand. Life has been hard with his drug problems still existing and also, most especially, when it comes to looking for jobs when he has to fulfill other basic needs first. To my surprise, he said he has been eating well. Only today Trevor was taken to Maccas by a very kind soul and had a few apples. He also told me that he'd often head to Queen Victoria Market and buy food from a food truck which is always there from Sunday to Sunday. Trevor then introduced me to Frosty, a snowman doll someone gave to him. I suppose that's the only company he'll be getting besides with the cops whom hopped into the middle of our conversation. I assumed I had to leave but one of the officers said it was okay for me to stay. I wish I did stay though. The officers were asking him plenty of questions in which I mostly did not understand. It seemed as though it was going to take a while so I decided to leave them to run their errands in peace. I said "bye" to Trevor and left for the train station, passing by a man who was looking at us the whole time as he gave me a weird stare. I wish I was given the opportunity to say more to Trevor like telling him to have hope and that all will be good soon.

* * * * 

Chatting with Trevor was probably one of the priceless experiences I will always remember as a part of my semester in Melbourne. Of the many days I've been spotting people like him sitting by the streets in the city with card boards of their stories next to them, I never once approached them as I was busy carrying on with my daily activities. I guess this experience serves as a reminder for me to always be thankful for the things in which I often take granted for and to always give back whenever opportunity knocks.


Thank you for reading and have a great day.


* name changed to protect identity

Australian Journal #2

So I've been in Melbourne for about 2 months now and am in the state of confusion by this phenomenon I've been encountering daily. No offense to Australians but as someone who is not from your country, this is something I've yet to wrap my head around. 

Conversations, most of the time, go as such:

Person (be it a friend or a stranger): Hey, how's it going/how are you

Me: Good/great, you?

Notice that I did not end the sentence "Hey, how's it going/how are you" with a question mark. Why is that? Because every time someone says that to me, it NEVER sounds like a question!

I'd like to think that the "question" was ask out of sincerity or courtesy in terms of greetings. But often enough, before I could even throw out an answer in the form of one simple word, the person would either be out of sight or would be paying attention to something else. Those acts of ignorance just absolutely annoy me and I would be left there thinking, "dude, if you really want to talk to me, then do it properly because that will make both our lives (especially mine) way easier and more interesting." On a rare occasion, my responses would be left unanswered while socializing with a bunch of people - which in no doubt brings me to a state of embarrassment.

Excuse me while I go all academic for this section. A course mate of mine pointed out one of the readings in Cognitive Psychology and true enough, according to Robinson-Reigler & Robinson-Reigler (2012), those stock questions elicit stock answers most of the time (p. 385); for example, answering with "fine, thank you!" or the plain old "good!". And only if the stock answer isn't given (i.e. well, today wasn't my day), conversations would drive down a better road as opposed to the former. So is negativity a better way to produce an effective conversation? 

I've tried alternative ways to keep conversations going. For instance, I talk about the weather to cashiers while paying for groceries. Cliche, perhaps, but it works for at least for a longer period of time as opposed to the how's-it-going situation. We would talk about how the day has been particularly hot or particularly cold and most recently how the cold wind is annoying everyone. Or perhaps sometimes when I go shopping, the retail assistants would be helping me decide if I should buy a particular clothing or not - and they often make me give into temptation. Oh well, I guess they're doing their job, sort of.

So this would be one of the situations I'm having minor issues adapting to during my stay in Melbourne to this date. Hoping I'll get a hang of it soon. Stay tuned for my next post on cooking in Australia! Cheers (:

Reference

Robinson-Reigler, B. & Robinson-Reigler, G. (2012). Chapter 9. Language 1: Basic Issues and Speech Processing. Cognitive Psychology, pp. 348-399

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:

* * * *

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!

* * * *

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! (: