I did not do too much today. I got up around 7:30am. I knew I was meeting Jillienne for breakfast at the hotel around 8am. She knocked on the door to let me know she was ready. Marion was still asleep. And most likely still drunk, or at least very hung over.
After breakfast the 2 of us and Rowie headed down to the beach again. I didn't have time to hang out on the beach, but I had seen a dream catcher hanging yesterday that I really liked. It was unlike any I have in my collection. The circles of the dream catchers were done in small beads and these wrapped around it in rainbow colored chunks. There was a large dream catcher and 2 smaller ones and no feathers, but fabric hung down from the dream catchers with little beads on it. It was so cool. It looked like it was part of decorations for the restaurant though and not for sale. I went back to see if I could buy it. But, when we got there, not only did the person working there not understand that I wanted to buy that particular dream catcher (there is a dream catcher stand next to it but there weren't any similar to the one I liked and she kept pointing to the stand), but when I actually looked at it, it was pretty worn and gross so I didn't really want it anymore. It was worth a try though because I couldn't stop thinking about it. We did end up all buying something else along the boardwalk though. Then Jill parted ways and went to the beach and Rowie and I went toward the hotel.
I showered and finished packing and then it was 11. Marion was laying around on the bed because she thought that not only was she hungover, but also that she finally had caught the "travelers curse" aka diarrhea. But, I needed to head to the airport so I left.
Saying goodbye to everyone again was actually not bad. I wasn't too sad to be leaving. Usually I get a little teary and there weren't any tears. I was more sad than I thought I would be leaving everyone though. I still enjoyed everyone and will miss them. I'm really excited I get to see Jill in a few weeks.
The ride to the airport was way shorter than Panji said it would be and I got there with an extra hour to spare (cost: 150,000 rupiah... $15). This extra hour was even after I had gone through security to get into the airport. I looked for where to check in and it wasn't on the board yet so I sat and waited. On the floor since there were no chairs. I people watched. There was a family that came through with like 7 young children. It was insane. I think there were 2 sets of parents and at least 2 nannies and they were still having problems.
After an hour of sitting there the place to check in still hadnt shown up and it was a little past 2 hours before my flight. I just decided to walk around and try to find Virgin Airlines. It didn't take too long but they did send me back to security before I could check in and get my boarding pass. I hadn't received a sticker on my bag that said checked by security. I thought I was going to have to go out and through again but they just gave me a sticker. In no time I was back wondering the airport.
I had 100,000 rupiah left to spend. I bought snacks. Then, later, I was annoyed I had spent it on snacks because there were nice neck pillows. I really wanted one and decided I would pay in USD if I could. It was $10 and I only had a $20. She said she only had $7 in change (got a $2 bill!!!). I didn't really care and told her that was fine. I think it was a good choice. I have used it a bunch already and if we are driving a lot I'm sure I will use it then as well. Not to mention on my flight home.
I went to the gate and you have to go through security again. Well, I didn't even get through the doors. He told me my gate had changed. I was at 8 and I needed to be at 1. It was all the way across the airport but it wasn't too far.
Boarding went smoothly. I was a little confused at first because I realized I still had my departure card. That was alarming to me because normally immigration takes that. They took it as we were getting on the plane though. (After I checked in, I went upstairs and had to go through immigration. I got stamped and had to pay a 150,000 rupiah airport tax.) The plane was really nice interior wise. It didn't matter too much though because I was asleep before we even took off. This actually was upsetting to me because I was looking forward to seeing what Bali looked like from the air. Oh well.
I got woken up at one point for food. Obviously. Apparently Australian airlines feed you as much as Asian ones do. It was only a 4 hour flight. I had the choice of chicken or noodles. I got noodles and it was so tasty. It was like normal noodles. Nothing Asian like. And, there was an identifiable dessert! Kit Kat bar! Also, the butter for the bread didn't leave a strange film all over my mouth. Who knew I would love airline food so much!
Getting off the plane in Perth was a little chilly. It was just a sky bridge but I could still feel the cool air. Luckily the airport was warm. I had 6 hours to kill! I thought that clearing customs and getting my luggage would take time, but it took less than hour. How annoying! When I want it to go slow it goes fast. I'm sure in the US it'll take forever. So silly.
I was nervous about customs because I had coffee beans and a wooden/cinnamon bowl. They didn't seem to care which was good but I had remembered Mars was nervous about bringing stuff back home from Vietnam. I also had to check yes on the form that I had been in the wilderness in the past 30 days. All they asked was if I had muddy boots. I didn't have to wait too long for my bag either.
At customs, some American guy was asking about catching a connecting flight to Melbourne. Luckily, I heard the answer. I had to catch the interairport shuttle and go to the domestic terminal. I'm sure overhearing this was good and made up for a lot of time I would have wandered around.
After taking the transfer bus I had to wait for a while before I could even check in for my flight. I just sat around and blogged. Then, I checked in and got rid of my big bag again. That's always really nice. Got through security no problem.
Then I went on a search for food. There was a lot of little food places, all fast food style. Then, I saw a sign with fruit and salad and sandwiches. Oh my god. It looked so good! There was a Chicken Caesar salad and sandwiches with Brie on it. Tasty. I got half a sandwich and a small salad. It cost $13 AUD or something like that. I didn't care. And to be fair, it was the airport. Unfortunately, the Caesar salad was not good. It tasted like mayonnaise (hate it) and weird canned Indonesian style tuna maybe chicken. Wasn't happy about that. The sandwich was good though. It was really strange to be able to eat food without thinking about whether or not it would be safe. I also had to try 3 different cards before anything worked. I was going to be embarrassed if I ordered the food and then couldn't pay. I hadn't been to an ATM yet. Luckily, Australia is a first world country and you can use a credit card anywhere!
Then, there was a free Internet computer kiosk and I sat down there. I only had 4 hours left to waste before boarding... Then, the same guy from customs came and sat down there too. He had also been at the same cafe for food that I had been at. At one point he leaned over and asked if the computer was being wacky because it was booting him off every 5 minutes. We started talking. He's from Fort Lauderdale. He was in Bangkok and then Bali and now Australia. He is ridiculous. American men are so obnoxious sometimes. Basically the entire time he was talking about himself in a very flattering, possibly inflated light. He has his own personal training business. He stayed in Lebua hotel in Bkk which is the really nice expensive hotel with sky bar in it. He told me about this amazing place he's going to in Melbourne. We were talking about traveling for a while. He asked me my favorite places and I said Budapest (for all my travels) and Varanasi India and Singapore (for this trip). He looked lost. Then he said his favorite places were Manhattan and Paris. Boring. He then wanted to show me photos of these monkeys from Bali. He asked if I was on Facebook at the moment and I was so he came over and had me type in his name. Christopher Dean something. His profile photo was him with bulging muscles and no shirt doing some crazy personal training exercise. Then he had me scroll down to find the monkey pictures... It was all huge photos of him with no shirt on or modeling. It was so awkward. The monkey pictures weren't even there. Then he said, "Hm. They must be on my camera. I'll show you from there. But since you're on my page you could just friend me." Whatever. So then, he got out his camera to show me the pics and asked if he could take a picture of me! Creepy much! What the hell! I ended up escaping that successfully.
The flight was boarding at 12:05am Bali/Perth time. It was supposed to get in at 6am but we actually got in at 4am Sydney time. I was not too happy about that one. Like what the hell. The flight time said 4 hours and it was only 2 and a half. I slept the entire flight but was still really tired. I went to baggage claim. Chris was there again. We talked again and luckily my bag was one of the first bags off. He was also surprised that I was such a little girl carrying a big bag. I said goodbye to him to head for the bathroom and the free calling area where I had seen my hostel name on it. That was nice because I wasn't sure yet if they had a room for me for an extra night since my trip to Cairns was cancelled.
I sat down and took advantage of the free Internet for a while. Chatted with Cory from home for a bit. I'm missing his birthday (21st) so that's sad. He leaves for east Lansing 9 days after I get back but a few friends I totally missed so at least ill be able to buy him a drink and catch up before he leaves.
Then, I called the hostel around 6am and they did have a bed for me. Then I had to try to find the Star Bus. It was supposedly $13 for transport to the hostel. Well, I wandered around and aske a few people and they weren't giving me directions that actually helped. Then, I went to an information desk and she said I could buy a ticket there for $17. I just figured the price had changed.
Then, I went to the median to try to find the bus. It was confusing. There weren't signs anywhere that I could see and shuttles just pulled up wherever. Finally I saw the star bus. I handed the driver my ticket and he seemed disgruntled. Apparently I could have bought it from him for $13 AUD. I don't know how to do that when I can't find the bus and didn't know that, but whatever. I was so tired I just wanted to get to the hostel.
When I had been in the airport I had used the bathroom... There was no squat toilet, everything was clean, there was soap, it smelled nice, and there wasn't a ton of water all over the floor. I literally just sat there for a few minutes... I decided to fill out my immigration card on the toilet. Ha. Silly but I enjoyed it. I also noticed that I was not the minority anymore. There were white people all over the place!
On the shuttle bus, the driver and I were the only white people. Everyone was Asian. And later, I actually realized they were students because they were getting dropped off at university apartments. Moral of the story: There are lots of Asians in Australia.
When I finally got dropped off at the hostel I checked in. Had to read like 400 rules which included not throwing things from windows or being loud after 10:30pm or bringing guests back or using a sleeping bag and signed a thing. I got my key and headed upstairs. There were 2 guys in the dorm room who also looked like they had just arrived. I was tired so I went to sleep for a few hours because I knew I had a long day with meeting Mars later and I wanted to be rested instead of tired and cranky.
I don't think the sheets were clean. I was so tired I didn't really care but I also didn't really touch them ha. Later that day I went down and asked for new sheets so that got solved quickly and easily. The guys came back in at one point and turned on all the lights. That was nice. One of them couldn't speak English either so at least I didn't really feel like I had to be social with them.
After I woke up and got myself together, I went downstairs and talked to the man at the travel agency. He was really helpful and nice and have me a ton of suggestions of places to walk around and things I could do in Melbourne. Since it was a nice, clear, beautiful day he recommended that I head over to the Eureka Tower which is a huge viewing tower to see all of Melbourne. Obviously, I love stuff like that so I headed that way.
I stopped off at "Pie Face" to buy a sandwich for lunch. I could eat it on the fly and it came with a free bottle of water. I unfortunately don't have a water bottle with me since it would have just been silly in Asia and impossible to clean. I think it cost me $7.50 AUD which wasn't too bad actually.
For the Eureka tower, it was kinda like in Bangkok. Once I got to the waterfront, I just kinda looked at the building and tried to figure out which was the best way to walk to get there. The river area is actually really beautiful. I think it's the Yarra River that runs through Melbourne. But there are a lot of walking bridges and statues and things. One of the bridges even has locks on it like in Florence, Italy. I spent some time taking photos here and walking around.
The Eureka tower is huge. It is the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere. It is 984.3 feet/300m tall. The top of the tower can flex up to 600mm in high winds. Two 300,000 liter water tanks on level 90 and 91 prevent any excess swaying. The lifts travel at more than 9m/sec. It has 3,680 stairs, 92 storeys, and 52,000 sq m of windows. The glass on Eurekas top 10 levels is 24 carat gold plated. It used 110,000 tonnes of concrete and weighs 200,000 tonnes. The white horizontal lines represent the linear line markings on a surveyors measuring staff. These cover the outside of the building. The viewing tower was on the 88th floor. With my ISIC I paid $13 or $14 AUD instead of $22.50. I wanted to buy the ticket that let you go up 2 times in 1 day so I could also see the city at night but I decided against it because I wasn't sure what Mars had planned for us and I didn't want to mess up her plans.
Being up there was cool. Melbourne is a really beautiful city. There is ocean on one side and a river going through the city and a bunch of really old and modern buildings. While walking around I noticed the combination of the modern and older style buildings as well and I actually really liked it. It gives the city a nice feel. There are really cool architectural buildings here as well. On the viewing deck you could only go outside at one area and it had caging on it so it technically wasn't even outside. It was hard to get photos with the reflections on the glass though so that was frustrating. They also had these little viewing scopes that pin pointed important buildings and landmarks so if you looked through it you could easily find it. I could see the tennis stadium which was really cool, as well as a bunch of other buildings. I'm sure the city looks amazing at night though too.
When I was done here, I walked to Federation Square. This is where I was meeting Mars later this evening and the guy at the travel desk said that I should go here during the day as well because it has a completely different feel and look. It was actually really cool. There are lawn chairs and little cushions sitting out that you are allowed to take and just use around the area to chill. There are a number of coffee shops and small cafes. The buildings look cool as well. They have a rock type look to them but they are not made out of rock. I don't really know how to explain it.
After that I decided to walk around Fitzroy. There was supposed to be street art there. There is a free tour with the hostel in the morning on Tuesdays to see it but tomorrow I wanted to go to St Kilda so I didn't want to waste my morning. I saw some street art but not too much so I was like well maybe I should just sign up for the tour.
At this point the sun was starting to set so I headed back to the hostel. Walking of course. At one point I was on the side of the road with a map in my face, not exactly sure where I was. A super nice couple walked past and then came back toward me asking if they could help me.
I continued waking back. I passed a place called Draculas. Not sure what that is. And then I passed a rock climbing place and I know Mars rock climbs so I wondered if it was where she climbs. I found out later it was. I also found out later Draculas is like a theme restaurant or something. So, yea.
I had a while at the hostel before I had to meet Mars. I wasn't sure if I needed to dress up or not but I didn't really have that option either so it didn't matter too much. I gave myself about half an hour before I had to meet her to walk there. I got to Federation Square with probably 10 minutes to spare but I'd rather be early than late. So, I sat on the steps where Mars told me to sit. Federation Square is the official meeting place in Melbourne so that's fitting.
Seeing Mars again was great! Maybe my flight to Cairns was cancelled just so I could spend some time with Mars, because otherwise I don't think I would have had time. As I knew she would, she had a whole bunch of stuff planned out for where she wanted to take me and things she wanted to show me.
We went to a restaurant called Modiva. There was a bit of a wait but we put our names in. We had about half an hour to waste and there was a bunch of street art in the area so we walked around and took pictures of that outside. I didn't have to feel silly using my camera luckily because its Mars haha. She said she edited her photos down to 1400 to show her family lol.
The street art just lined this one street. Mars said when something looks old someone will paint over it and so the art is constantly changing which is cool. There was another alley way that was full of street art as well. There was a lady there filming it on a scooter and she took a photo for us next to this huge face that was really cool. She also told us about a video about street art in Melbourne that she is making that will be up on YouTube in about a month. We got her information. I'm sure it'll be cool to see that video.
Dinner was an experience. It's a tapas restaurant. First of all, I got tap water. And the water was free. So that was amazing ha. It still takes a while for my brain to remember I don't have to worry about the food and water here. Mars really likes to try different food and we had some interesting things for dinner. At a place like that though, you pretty much know everything will taste good. We had beef cheek, a fennel salad, mushrooms that were marinated and taste incredible, some type of really thinly sliced meat with truffle foam and an egg in the middle, bread with olive oil, and another dish I can't remember now. Everything was so good, even the beef cheek. I was so full though. It was a ton of food. I had a beer as well. Mars insisted on paying for the meal. I tried to pay for the drinks and she said I could at the next place. I think dinner was probably pretty expensive. Like at least $75AUD. She said she knows Australia is expensive for people so she likes to pay.
We then walked around. She walked me through China Town and Greek Town. There was a street that connected them that was just a normal street but it had a bunch of inspirational and quotey signs on it. That was kinda cool. She said that to her that was the beginning of street art in Melbourne. We walked along Bourke street as well which is a very nice street. She was showing me the arcades, but they were closed. I wasn't totally sure what the definition of an arcade was so I asked her. She said its a little laneway that connects 2 streets and has little shops and cafes in it. Some of the arcades are pretty fancy and reflect an older style with tiled flooring and stuff. I decided I'd have to come back the next day to see those too.
We walked to a bar called Madame Brussels. Mars said she used to come here a lot and its a cute place. It used to be a brothel and they converted it into a restaurant/bar. It was really cute. The men working there wore clothes like they were playing tennis at a country club. They were attractive. There was also fake grass and a little brick road inside which was different. We went outside on the patio and got to see the city a bit, it was a lower view though, so mostly looking at the buildings around it instead of looking out over the city. I got a warm buttered rum drink. It came in a really cute knitted tea pot. Mars got a raspberry drink that was cold but tasted very good. I paid for drinks. For our 2 drinks, including tip, it was something like $47AUD. Ha, that's like 2 weeks of drinking at the angle every night. But I wanted to say thank you to Mars somehow.
We had a lot to talk about so it was nice to know that we would be able to see each other the next night as well. She had stuff planned out for us that night too, of course!
She walked me back to my hostel most of the way and she caught a tram back to her boyfriends house. We were out late! It was around midnight when I got back to the hostel. Both of the guys I was rooming with were asleep... Or I thought. The lights were off. One of them was definitely asleep. The other was jacking himself off. So that was a fun thing to walk in on. Luckily he can't speak English! I kind just walked in and grabbed my toothbrush and stuff and walked back out. He was done when I came back in so that was good ha. Awkward hostel times. So fun.
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