Melbourne - part 1

i do have to say that i feel disappointed with myself because of not being able to write about my last trip to KL, Melbourne, and Sydney. that was just such a shame cause i REALLY want to remember that trip for, like, forever.

-okay to be honest, i want to remember the Melbourne part-

i DO love Melbourne. I LOVE the city, i love all the very-welcoming people, i love their very-pleasant-and-clean-and-VERY-safe public transportation. 

so i am now posting something that i can remember before i forget all the details. now i am cheating my itinerary and my camera photos :p oh ya, when you see the time footnotes in the photos, you have to add them by 4 more hours, because my camera was set to Indonesia time.

the very bad thing in Melbourne is that taxi fare is expensive. it. is. really. EXPENSIVE. i did not try any, because all my friends who have been to Melbourne say that the fare is too expensive. one of my friend spent 100AUD for taxi. how silly. 

but as i said before, the public transportation system is DAMN GOOD. i never have to walk more than 5 minutes to go anywhere. they have trams, buses, and trains like, everywhere. 

so the first thing i remember was we had to go to our hotel by shuttle bus (because of the very-expensive-taxi-fare). we went by SkyBus, which we booked online from Indonesia. so how the thing goes with SkyBus is they pick us up in the airport by a usual bus to the Central Station (their buses come every 5 minutes! isnt that awesome? and they are NEVER late). from there, all the passengers will be separated by the location of the hotels and go there with smaller bus. i dont have the big bus photo, but i do have the smaller bus (van, to be exact)

so there's the van which take us to our hotel. the back of it is of course, the Central Station. 

silly me, i dont have any photo of our hotel. but, i do remember we were staying at Miami Hotel. the hotel was quite good, it has a small-but-convenient room and the toilet is clean. it is a backpacker hotel, but they do have rooms for private usage. though we say to ourselves that we are backpacking, but we are not used to how backpackers share their bedrooms with strangers and go to the same bathroom. so yes, we were staying at their usual room. 

because at that time we had not understood how their transportation system went, we were on foot for the whole day. we were given a map from the hotel, and were going to the Queen Victoria Market. they said it was only a 10-minute walking. ah, DONT ever believe in their timing of walking. we walked there for almost 45 minutes! i dont know, maybe they walk faster than us because every time we asked about the walking timing, it was always a MUCH shorter time than we actually walked. 

this is me in our first visit to the QVM. sorry for the silly face hahaha. at night we were sleeping in the airplane and on the day we had our flight we did not book any hotel to save money :p and then, when we got to Melbourne we could not check in yet -in other words, we had not taken a bath for more than 24 hours. GRAAA.- 

okay, i have to stop writing about my face. 


that is QVM, Queen Victoria Market. they sell the cheapest fruit and vegetables there. but still, for us Indonesian, they are still VERY expensive. 


this is their food court. sorry for the quality of all picts, we both are not good at photography :p

and this is our first food in Australia! it is an indian food, but i forgot the price and the exact name. i think it's around 9AUD since we never had anything more than 9AUD hahaha. so all food we had were around 8-9AUD. we shared this rice (in fact, we shared all food we had there). but still, we are really full. their portion of food is HUGE. really. HUGE. 

but thanks to Autralia's good taste, all the food we had there were delicious, so was this indian rice. it was nice! 


then we went to China Town :)

in China Town we bought our Australian number, Lebara then my mom went to the bank (forgot what bank) to manage her account.


at my first day, i have had the whole idea of Australians.
Australians are VERY friendly and helpful. we knew nothing about Melbourne and how to go to QVM and China Town but every person we asked are VERY helpful. they were helping us more than what we asked. some of them even took a look at our map and explained us carefully which way to take. some of them did not know how to get there but they wanted to study the map and tell us. a shop owner even went out from his shop, brought us across the street and tell us how to go. some even brought us to the nearest junction then explained the way to get there. i was very impressed. and this is why i love Melbourne SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much. 


picts below are Flinders station (my friend said almost all train and tram went through this station. and she was right *of course she was! she lives in Melbourne!*, because every time we want to go somewhere, we had to go to this station) and Yarra river (if i am not mistaken)

the photos were both taken by my mom, as i was in the hotel taking a bath and talking with my very beloved friend Gabriel Kereh who studies in Melbourne! she met me in our hotel because, you know, we could not go to anywhere else unless we wanted to get lost HAHA. me and gebi went to the mall and ate ice cream (thanks for your treat! hihi :p) and then went to the river to meet my mom. oh ya, we went to a stationary store in the mall *of course i forgot the name of the mall* called Typo. they sell very cute stationary but they are all very expensive *all things in Melb are very expensive, to be honest*

me and gebi :)

me and mom 

WOW. i just realised that all of us wore blue tops! 

the first thing you have to realise is it was very bright though it was quite late. when you see the footnote, it was 14.32 indonesian time so it was 18.32 or 6.32 p.m in Australia yet it was still very bright! 

after we went to the river, we went to a beach *which i forgot the name* because i was veryyy tired at that time *of course! after all the walking* so i decided to just have a sit with gebi and let my mom walk down the street that you can see in the pict below. you see, it's half past seven yet it was still very bright. haha. how i love Melbourne in spring!

after we went to the beach, i think we caught a tram hmm. i forgot. gebi did explain to us how the transportation works, but i forgot whether we went home by tram or on foot. yah the point is, after had a couple of minutes in the beach, we were going home!


this is the end of part 1 hoho. i will definitely post the part 2. 

Part 2 of Membolang di KL, Melbourne and Sydney

now im continuing my Day 2 :)

after we finished going around the campus and pay for the initial fee for the dorm, we looked for lunch in Sunway. we walked to the hmm Rock Cafe (not sure about the name). then i, again, found out that the food is quite cheap. my 1 portion of chicken rice is about 5RM (15rb) and all fruit in that food court is 1RM each. yes i am happy yet i am afraid about my future weight hahaha.

i do not have photos of the food court n food, so sorry :(

all those activities were done till afternoon, so we went to a hotel still located in Sunway (forgot the name) and borrowed their toilets *hahaha :p* to change our clothes and refresh ourselves because we did not have any hotel room for that day n we still had a flight to catch at night (in other words, we could not have shower until we arrived at our hotel in Melbourne tomorrow). sigh. it was tiring. 

after finished with the toilet thing, we went back to Tune Hotel to pick our luggages that were stored there (3RM each) and with the shuttle bus (1RM each person) we got back to the LCCT and waited for our flight. the AWESOME thing is LCCT gives us free wifi. yeahhh. oh there is a caffe that is very crowded n we ordered 2 cup of coffees and 1 portion of hmm laksa, i think. the cafe is called 'Old Town White Caffee' and the coffee is sooo good (n is quite cheap compared with starbucks etc. too bad i forgot the price) the laksa was good, too.

after that we just waited for our flight and yes, flight was the end of Day 2 and the beginning of Day 3 :)

Day 3 

i began my day with....... brushing my teeth in the airplane. hahaha. it was the first time for me, n i was doing it during a turbulence -__- yeah. can't be said as a nice experience, but well yeah, it cannot be forgotten hahaha. 


the first thing we did after we arrived was looking for tourist information in the airport. we found it, but it was crowded so we decided to go back to the hotel first and then ask the information in the hotel instead. so then, we went to the hotel -Miami Hotel- with shuttle bus named SkyBus. it costed us 13AUD each, if im not mistaken. however, to get that kind of price, you must book return ticket, not one way ticket. 


anw, SkyBus did not get us to the hotel directly. they first got us to the Central station in Melbourne, then after that their staff cross check with the hotel about our arrival, then we must wait another bus (smaller) to get us to our hotel. 




okay i MUST stop here because i totally forgot what happened next after we arrived. GREAT. 

membolang di KL, melbourne, sydney :D

i just got back home at 11 this morning. now that im not too tired, i guess im gonna write about this little trip before i forget every detail (yeah i definitely will in 3 days). well actually i am even cheating in the itinerary right now, but i try not to as much as possible


ah, before that, i should say that this trip was not supposed to be like a holiday like what really happened. it was supposed to be me and my mom looking for room or house or apartment to rent in Melbourne for my 2-year study. but as i mentioned before, i decided to go to KL instead. so yes, this holiday was 'supposed not to be a holiday' holiday :p


anyway, here it goes...


DAY 1.


my flight from Jakarta to KL was at night. i forgot the exact time, but i do remember we chose Tune Hotel (Air Asia's hotel that is located inside the Low Cost Carried Terminal Airport) so that we do not need to search any taxi or train or monorail or whatever in the middle of the night. Tune Hotel is in walking distance, and they even provide us with shuttle bus. so, that would be efficient considering we arrived there in the middle of the night. 


DAY 2


i went to Sunway with my mom to see my future campus and dorm.


oh because the trip was not arranged by tour, i would like to share our means to get to all places we've been. to get to sunway from the LCCT, we should ride shuttle bus, train, and then taxi. so firstly, we went to the central station by shuttle bus.if im not mistaken, it costed each of us 8RM.the bad thing is, they do not have any schedule so they just wait until the bus is full then they run the bus :(. after we got to the central, we went to hmmmmmmm Subang Jaya station by train (forgot the fee). the train has time schedule and it is quite punctual. then from there, we reached Sunway by taxi (15RM). the public transportation is somewhat the same as indonesia. a little better, i should say. at least they have time table and they are quite punctual. 


okay, done with the transportation thing. 


the Monash University Campus is hmm better that i thought before. the campus is quite big. we went around the campus with one of the staffs there. we saw the classrooms, lecture halls, canteens, etc etc. too bad we went there when they were having their holidays so i cannot see other students. and too bad the library closes at 5 pm. grrrr. 


after we went around the campus, we went seeing the dorm. i realised that though the dorm is soooo good, it actually is a bit complicated. there are caps for electricity, laundry, and even air con. gosh! so the cap for my air con (the thing that freaks me out the most) is 180 hours a month! ----- yes, 6 hours a day. how can i live with thatttt??? so , if i get more than 180-hour use a month, i have to pay more. that's sooooo frustrating because the fee of the dorm is already quite expensive, and the library (which of course has air con) is closed at 5 pm. SIGH. no no no. VERY BIG SIGH. another big minus is that we are not allowed to cook in the dorm. yes, malaysian foods are delicious (some are surprisingly very delicious). yes, it is cheap. but yes, those really are the big problems! i can gain my weigh! errrr.






err. i should go now. day 2 is not finished yet. will continue later.