Melbourne Derby Day!

AU$50 black dress shoes. Wake up at 5AM. Walk for 1.5 hours. Raise money for 11 hours. I had a sincere smile on my face all day, try to be as approachable as I can, and greet anyone that makes eye contact with me. Some of them just looks like in disgust as if I'm going to steal their money.

I was really tired and upset yesterday because I had a long day and a lot of things happened all in one day, but nothing sleep didn't fix! It has been a weird week.

All week, I was applying to jobs at least 4~5 hours a day on Gumtree and Seek with no luck. x( Most of them don't respond. Some of them respond saying they have already found someone. Some of them say they have better matching candidates. I had one interview on Friday for a volunteer position with the YHA org to participate in a video shoot. In return, I get 10 days of free accommodations at any YHA around Australia. I was declined yesterday because they found someone better. I'm not good enough even for volunteer work. QQ; Oh well... Just got to keep trying on Monday. It's so demoralizing when you're applying for jobs and not getting any of them. It makes me feel like I'm not good for anything. >< Stay positive, Henry.

During this week and a half here at Melbourne Metro YHA, I've met three Germans! It's weird because all three of them saw me playing League of Legends and started talking to me, but two of them left already. The one that's left is Christopher. He's a pretty cool guy. Really good at making websites. We've been hanging out for quite a bit and I guess we get along pretty well haha... He seems like a genuine guy and likes hanging out with me so he can improve his English. On Friday after my interview for the YHA video shoot, I saw people walking around with PAX passes and I totally forgot that PAX was this weekend! I was like ohhhh, I wanna go! So I went back to the hostel to grab my camera and then I thought of Christopher that he likes game too. I messaged him asking if he wanted to go with me. He was super excited. He said he has never been to a gaming convention before. When we went, I can tell that he was really happy and excited about it. We stood around the lobby of Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre looking for people with Friday badges and see if they're going to come back (because we were there around 4PM). If they weren't coming back, we wanted to see if we can buy their passes. One kid just gave me one for free but Christopher was too shy to be asking people. I eventually found one that was willing to sell one and Christopher ended up paying $20 for it; which is okay because day pass is AU$60 and we only have 2 more hours before the convention closes for the day. He was really happy at the end. He thought he was going to spend a boring day at the hostel, but I made his day. It makes me happy to be able to make others happy. :)

Not only the Germans, but I've met a few other people that I didn't get to communicate with as much as I got to with these Germans. They keep me busy and not feeling lonely ahahah...

I've been playing League of Legends quite a bit recently though, especially on the US server... Because I wanted to get Andy's account to Gold before the season ends. I'm pretty sure I will stop playing as much once I get his account to Gold. But it's so hard because I'm playing on 280~400 ping and I'm only really excelling in playing Sona. Even at that, I don't win every game with Sona. I can't CS or team fight with this kind of ping... Season ends in a week and a half. @_@

Yesterday though... During Melbourne Knowledge Week, I met this other girl that was telling me about Melbourne Derby Day. So they have this horse racing thing and it's one of the biggest event in the year. She was telling me that I can volunteer and just go in for free, which makes a lot of sense! I should start volunteering at Anime Boston and PAX so I can get in for free! So she mentioned that I can volunteer for Starlight Children's Foundation. Apparently, they raise money to help sick children in hospitals and we raised money by selling Melbourne Cup pins.

To attend the Flemington Racecourse, you need to be wearing formal clothing, even volunteers. As a volunteer, we need to be specifically wearing black formal shoes and tailored pants. I have dress pants, but I didn't bring my dress shoes, so I was thinking about back out... I wanted a new pair of Converse too and now I have to buy another pair of shoes that I can't wear regularly. Anyways, in the end I ended up sticking to it and bought a pair of AU$50 formal shoes. @_@ It's the cheapest quality piece of shat ever, but it was okay in terms of comfort, so whatever. I can probably wear it to job interviews too I guess. The day and I was excited for it! I signed up for the afternoon shift which was 12:30PM to 5:30PM. They mentioned that they needed people for early riser where we sell pins to people that arrives early at 7AM. I decided to go for that anyways! When I do things, I get excited and wants to do everything lol... Big mistake! I woke up at 5AM, wash up, and started heading out at 5:30. It started POURING! I was like -_-; I'm not gonna make it! Luckily, I got to an underground walkway over the train track before it started pouring heavily. I waited there hoping that it might get better. It lasted probably around 10 minutes and luckily, it lighten it to the point that it's okay to start walking again without getting drenched. I made it to the racecourse at 6:50AM, so it was a little bit over an hour walk. Not that many volunteer showed it, but I got paired with this crazy lady. I don't even remember her name, but she was AGGRESSIVE AF. She mentioned that we should put some pins on our shirts so people can see how it looks like (there's two pins, one for $5 and one for $10). I took one of each pin and pin them on myself and wanted to donate $15 for the pins, but this lady (my partner in selling pins) didn't want me to pay for it... Awkward. I sneaked it into the bin anyways. So we headed out to sell pin and she said she was a saleswoman before. She'd get in front of other people's face, shove the pins into their face, and ask them if they want it. I was being a bit passive but still making sales. This lady think she's doing all the work and told me that I need to try harder! And that she's going to take all the credit because I'm not doing so well... Whatever, mate. Sales slowed down a bit and she couldn't stand it, so she made me go to the train station with her out in the pouring rain to make sales when people get off the train station... She was like, "COME ON! STOP TRYING TO KEEP THE PINS DRY AND SELL!" Words cannot express how rude and crazy she was; you gotta be there to witness it. She was getting into my nerves when she started tucking my shirt to get into the crowd and make sales to the point where I screamed out at her to Stop! I flipped out and she backed off for like a good 5 minutes before started doing it again. I had to deal with her from 7AM to 12:30PM before she finished her shift. She was trying to act friendly and all, but I started ignoring her and just doing my own sales. My second partner was passive af though lol... More passive than me. But he's a cool guy I guess. His name was Nick and he's still in Uni. We messed around the whole day watching the race, and just strolling around because most of the people that wants a pin already bought one and those that don't have a pin don't want one.

I don't know if it was a fun experience. It's nice to be part of Melbourne's biggest event of the year, but the things I have to deal with and standing from 5AM to getting back to my hostel by 6PM? It was tiring.... It was also Halloween night too, so I had Chris buy some Smirnoff Ice, made dinner, and spent the Halloween night drinking, eating, and watching The Conjuring. Good way to spend Halloween in Australia, right? :P I hope my Christmas is going to be better... I don't want to spend it alone again QQ I met this cute girl at the racecourse though that was also volunteering for Starlight! But I don't think it's gonna get anywhere LOLOL... I added her on Facebook and that was about it. We had a little back and forth conversation on Messenger, but nothing extraordinary. Don't need woman! I just need a date for the Pokemon Symphonics concert for the 21st just in case Anita can't take the day off from work. T_T; Plus she already has a boyfriend. :U I keep joking saying it's gonna be a nice date and she just brush it off haha.

Anyways, Happy November! Man, I need a job.

Barista Course and Beyond...

Don't you hate it when you're taking a poo and the hostel's bathroom lights has a timer to turn off after no movement for 3 minutes? You can't see my butt move, but it's moving! >:( Stop turning off the lights on me!

So I had my barista course on Saturday. I was expecting more, but what ever. We had maybe 2 hours of information learning and then 3 hours of unlimited coffee bean and milk to practice on. I poured out maybe 30~40 cups of espresso, cappuccino, latte, etc. The way we down those milk though... The instructor had a refrigerator filled with 2 litre bottles of milk and we down one for every 4~5 cappuccino maybe? I thought it was a huge waste, but I really wanted to practice more! It was really fun practicing and it's such a happy moment when you get that latte art showing up! Haha... I don't know how I'll get more practice time now but I think I got the basic down. We try to make espresso manually by timing when we stop the water and I got that down pretty fast. Too early will result in sour espresso, too late will result in bitter espresso. Then we went on to froth milk. That is a little bit difficult because we need to make sure we froth the milk enough and get the right temperature. I either have too less foam which won't work when making latte art. When there's too much foam, it mixes with the coffee? When the temperature is too hot, it will lose the silky sugary milk flavor. If it's too cold, it will just be milk and supposedly too sweet. See how fun it is?! I wanna practice moreee!! That day doe. When we were trying our manually made espresso, I had so many that I was literally twitching and hyper for almost the whole day haha.

So at the class, I met this guy Argi? I forgot his name, but best that I don't remember. He is of no importance to me now. He seemed like a nice guy. During break, we went out for lunch and had a good talk. He started his own business in making burgers. He has a wife and an adorable little son. Cool guy, it seems. He even offered me a ride back to Melbourne city after class because he said he was heading there anyways. I was like sweet, I'll save $5 on the train ride. Class is over, I hopped on into his car. He decided to drive me to a brothel... What? He said lets just check it out really quick, I promise. I was like -_- fine. So they showed us all the girls and he picked out one of the girl. What about you? Hahahha.... I'm good, none of them really suite me. He was like are you sure? Okayyy. I'll be out in a bit then. Alright. I'll wait outside! I went outside and made sure he was legit staying before I did anything else. Luckily, I took all my stuff out of his car because this is my chance to dash! I wrote a note saying I checked the internet and there was a train coming in 10 minutes, so I'm just going to take the train! Stuck it on his windshield and ran for my life! I thought he'd catch up to me before my train comes and tries to kill me or something! D: So I took off my dress shirt, put on my hat and shades and kept walking. Omg, I can't believe I took the candy from a stranger and hopped into his car. What a sicko. I wouldn't mind if he was single and just want to have some fun. That would be completely fine with me. But he has a family at home... Wtf? That's so unfair for the wife and the son that he's messing around outside. I need to be more caution about hopping into people's cars. :( Next time, it won't be just visiting a brothel! They might even sell me!!! T_T Just kidding, but still though... Luckily, he doesn't have any contact info or where I lived. I don't want that guy associating with me. Also, that guy has no taste! If you're going to pay $140 to have sex with some random girl, at least go to a place with better looking girls! LOLOL... As shallow as I may be, the girls weren't that great at all lel...

So anyways. Now that I have some basics in my belt, I think I'm going to stay around Melbourne and try to find a cafe to work in! I want make use of this $290 that I spent on a class and perfect my coffee making! Who knows, maybe I'll end up like the instructor. He used to not like coffee at all. He worked at a cafe while he was in uni and all he was taught was press this button, do this thing, bam, you're on your own. He was producing yucky coffee but back then people didn't demand high quality coffee. He started doing his own research on how to make it better. He eventually became really good and got invited to work for some top notch coffee business. They were like, "Forget completing your engineering degree. Come work for us!" He started competing and ended up winning competitions at coffee making and people were surprised because no newbies has ever won or even reach 3rd place at those big competition. After a couple of years, he stopped and started teaching. So myah... Maybe I'll come to like coffee hehe... But it's such an expensive hobby. Good quality beans are uber expensive as well as the espresso machines. Whatever.

I've been thinking. Should I return to the US after my year in Australia comes to an end. The chances of traveling like this is rare once I'll start working again. But I definitely have a feeling that once I go back home, I don't really want to work for something else again. I really want to do my own thing; start my own business. I was looking into Working Holiday at South Korea. I was going to start learning Korean on my own and by the time I finish another year at New Zealand, I'll have 2 years of Korean under my belt and ready to tackle the country! But then it's only available for people that have recently graduated from university. :( Same goes for Singapore and Ireland. Canada is only 6 months. That's really all the countries that US have working holiday with. So my only option is Australia and New Zealand. I'll work on it.

I've been playing League a lot lately. Catching up on my missed 2 months. x( I'll stop once I get Andy's account to Gold haha... Aside from playing, I do manage my time pretty wisely because I want to start looking for a job again. I don't want to go for too long without a job because my bank account is weeping right now. I found an ad on Gumtree that YHA is looking for people for photoshoot for new ads! Free 4 days trip to the Great Ocean Road and this other place, all cost covered! +10 days free stay at any YHA after that! So gooot! But it might delay my time to start working. I keep hearing good stories about the Great Ocean Road, but I really don't want to go because I'd have to rent my own car or go on a day trip with a tour group which would probably suck. This is a great opportunity to go for free and even get rewarded~ I'll work hard on getting this opportunity! :D

Anyways, I should get some sleep now. I feel bad sleeping in on weekdays because it feels like I'm wasting my time. I need to get my sleeping schedule back together! Feels like college all over again when I just wanted to stay up all night~ But myah. Good night!

Melbourne Knowledge Week cont.

Wow, it has already been a week! Melbourne Knowledge Week is almost over and I've been attending a lot of the free panels. I've went to so many panel, but they're all really exciting! So far, I haven't dozed off in any of them and they're all an hour to two hours! Lol... That means it's good stuff. Though one thing I noticed about myself is that I'm a pretty pessimistic person. There was a panel talking about an organization called B Lab that assist companies on being a "benefit corporation." Basically a company that is environmentally friendly, produce reusable products, green, etc. The whole time, I was thinking "well, I don't think these kind of companies are sustainable and in the end it's all about the money." I'm trying to change this way of thinking and be more open minded. It's all good though. I've met a few friends here and there.

One thing I still couldn't do is ask questions at the end of the panel. Why can't I be like Cathy and just speak up; ignore what people think! I don't think it's because of that. I think when I'm not confidently comfortable with a certain subject, I won't ask questions because I feel like I will make a fool of myself. I tend to do that and when I try to speak up, I trip all over my thoughts and it would come out sounding stupid. Why do I say that? Because There were two panels that I actually asked questions -- "Your Boring Life Gamified" and "The Future of Wearable Technology." I am really into those topics, so I won't feel uncomfortable asking questions because I understand the topic enough to not make a foolish question. There was this one panel about how University of Melbourne is trying really hard to change their way of teaching; teach to be open minded and creativity. Getting a diploma means setting yourself up for diplomacy. We need to get today's generation to be ready to solve all the issues that has been created in this world. I really wanted to ask a question, but I just couldn't get it out.

"I'm from Boston and in the US, we really embrace creativity and thinking outside of the box. That's why we have so many entrepreneurs that have created the most successful companies in the world e.g. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. I'm not sure if this is correct, but I have been told that in China, education do not explore the field of thinking outside of the box. When they face a problem, they do not understand how to take a different route because there's only one way to doing things. Not just China, but I'd think a few other countries might have such approach. What kind of impact would you think this will cause because clearly it's not affecting China in any way because they are currently one of the biggest economy in the world." I'm sure the answer would be because they have the population and the cheap labor lol...

Another question I wanted to ask in another panel was "Knowledge sharing is definitely the most valuable skills we can have in this society because it promotes growth. When I heard of Melbourne Knowledge Week, I spent the whole night looking through my brochure picking out all of the events that I would like to attend. And you know what ended up happening? I only picked out all of the free events. I didn't even bat an eye on the ones where I'd have to pay to attend. Would the desire of profit stump the growth for more knowledge in this world? I'm not sure about the education cost in Australia. But in a few more years, who knows if ordinary families can still afford a university study."

When I type it out, it sounds fluent and nice, but I'm sure I would have butchered it if I asked it at the panel. QQ; Oh well. It's not that important I guess lol. If I get an answer to those questions, it would just satisfy my curiosity and get other people's opinions. After all, they're all really big people in Australia that has done great things. But would it add to my knowledge? Who knows... I'm sure I'm slowly getting better at this asking question thing. Cathy is my role model! :)

That's really all really... Really. Also, toothpaste is my worse enemy. My first tube got stolen! Now my second tube has a hole in it!!! Wth?! I accidentally squished it too hard in my bag that it popped a hole. It leaked all over my toiletries and I thought it was because I left my bar of soap in the bag and it wasn't fully dried yet. When I started using my toothpaste, I notice a hole in it... -_-

In other news, I met two friends at my hostel because they saw me playing League of Legends ahah... It's great how games can bring people together too, em i rite? (: They're cool people from Germany, so it's cool!

Time to get some sleep! I don't have any early panels tomorrow, so it's all good. I can't wait for my barista course! I paid AU$300 for it, so it better be good! @_@; Until then, good night!

First Day of Melbourne Knowledge Week!

God damn it, I always do this to myself... Instead of just thinking I've learned something new, I'd feel like I haven't accomplished much in my life and feel shitty for the rest of the day.

The first event was having an inside look of a classical musician group called Inventi Ensemble and how they rehearse for their performance on Thursday. I think I can say I thoroughly enjoy classical music, especially the more modern ones. I don't know if game music can be categorized in that but it sounds similar to game background music. It was a group of three musicians, a harp, flute, and a clarinet player. Everyone was amazed by the harp and so was I. It had 47 strings and 7 pedals to switch between sharp and flat. The player was introducing the harp and they were reciting their pieces going into how they try to play with each other without a conductor. It was quite interesting but I only got to stay for half the rehearsal before I had to head off to the next one.

The next one was where I started feeling shitty about myself lol... Smart City Leadership. There were 4 speakers of which had done big things to help the promotion and growth of the city of Melbourne. One of them was called Marita Cheng. She's 26 years old graduated from University of Melbourne and currently in the progress of creating robotic technologies to assist people with disabilities and of the general public as well. She has also started a program to go around the world holding workshops to educate and encourage more females to take interest in the engineering and science (STEM) field of study. She was also awarded Young Australian of the Year in 2012; an award given to young Australian that has created a big impact in promoting knowledge and growth towards the country. And here I am, 7 months younger than her, lost and don't know what I really want to do...

I don't want to live a normal life being a puppet in making another person's dream come true. At the end of a 9-5 cubicle day, I feel so underachieved. I want to make something out of myself instead of just bring home the money and call it a life. I definitely have the idea that I want to do something big, but I don't have the urge or courage to stop dream and start creating. I wonder how these people do it... Maybe I'm just lazy, but are these people productive at all times? I mean, Marita said she was just a normal teenager in Cairns doing normal teenage things. It didn't all come together until she got into University of Melbourne. What separates me from her is that she is ambitious and hardworking. I'm lazy and satisfied with just getting by zzz... I need to stop being this way and have more confident in myself. A lot of people I meet tells me that I'm an awesome person in many different ways and I need to just take those words and empower myself to believe that I am great and I will achieve great things. I just need to work harder and stop slacking off going on reddit or refreshing my Facebook every 10 minutes.

The talk was great and it sparked some thinking into me. It was mostly about sharing knowledge and how to keep Melbourne growing into one of the best cities in the world. I think they already are a great city and they'll keep thriving! I wanted to ask a question, but time ran out and I didn't get to do it. Oh well, there's more opportunities into the week for me to ask!

In other news, I booked a 5 hour barista course on making latte for AU$290. :( Such amount. Much poor. It'll be all worth it! It's taught by some awesome person that has competed in latte art and very well known apparently!

I'll work on it; my confidence and errthing. Anyways, I need to get up at 6 AM tomorrow morning for another workshop! Sleep solves all problem and it's a new day tomorrow will new opportunities! I need some sleep now! Peace out!

Back into Melbourne and 2 months into Travel!

I can't believe that I'm heading into the 2 month period into my travel in Australia. Lilly was right; at some point, my excitement will plateau and I'm ready to settle down. I've came back to Melbourne on the 15th from Tasmania and started doing some light search for jobs around Victoria and New South Wales. I'm ready to settle down, get a job, and earn some money before I some more traveling~ I feel like I've been spending a lot of money; mostly on accommodation, food, and travel. I haven't been buying anything, but apparently, my backpack gained weight when I was checking in my bags at the airport... What?

During my 2 months travel, I've seen a lot of things, experienced a lot of situations, and met a fairly good amount of people. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed that I am moving day by day, places to places. If you look at my Google Fit stats, I've been walking 10,000 ~ 30,000 steps everyday. I try to do everything that is free in each place that I visit before I move on. There are places that are just unimaginably awesome; some were just meh. I don't know if I miss home, but I definitely miss Dexter, my parents, and my friends. There are times when I'd say, "Wow... This place is awesome! I bet [friend] would love to be here!" It's just things that cannot be expressed through pictures or words; things that has to be seen in person. Especially Tasmania! Just pure awesomeness -- The National Parks and the open field of farms and scenic views in every direction. Every time I see a dog, I'd be like OMG SO CUTEEE... I miss Dexter QQ lol... It's okay.

2 months. I don't know if I have really focused on understanding myself. But one thing for sure is that I don't like constant attention -- by that I mean traveling with friends that I meet on the trip haha... I'm a terrible person, but I hate having to think about other people when it comes to what I want to do. Things I might like, the other person might find it boring AF. When I travel alone, I like how I can stay at one place however long I want to as to traveling with someone else, they might want to move on. In Tasmania, we went to Mt. Wellington. I was really into getting the feel of being there and love the view, but one of the guy felt like we spent too much time up there. Whatev, ya knowww? What else... I'm getting back into my old habits. I ended up going out and buying a mouse so I can play League of Legends! Old habits are old habits. I've been watching the Worlds Championship and just craving to play. I've been playing on the Oceania server; maybe a total of 4 games? Wow am I bad at it after 3 months of hiatus. Or maybe I suck because I don't have my original keyboard and mouse. I don't think I will be playing a lot because I don't need it as an escape anymore. Maybe just a game or two every other night or something; something to relax to and just play casually when I feel like I need a break.

So I'm back to Melbourne now. I was planning on staying here for five more nights before heading back to Sydney (because the train only runs every Wednesday, so I need to stay 5 nights in Melbourne), but I decided to stay an additional week because the Melbourne Knowledge Week is happening 19 - 25 October. It's like a conference; a week of people, companies, universities hosting forums and talks regarding technology, innovation, future development, sharing ideas, etc. I found this event out before I left for Tasmania, but I couldn't decide if I really wanted to stay for this. I finally decided to stay for it anyways because it's a good way to meet people with the same interest and it's going to be very educational for me! I've literally signed up for almost every free ones! Now I have to out the time overlapping ones and decide which ones I want to go to! Haha... It's be a fun week. What's not fun is that I have to be jumping hostels. I booked 2 days at Melbourne Central YHA, 3 days at Home at the Mansion because I needed to stay five days before the train to Sydney, and 7 more days at Melbourne Metro YHA so I can stay for the Knowledge Week.

As for meeting new people, I don't know about being obligated to meet new people now haha... It's okay to just be myself and do my own thing. I do enjoy that some people are genuinely interested to talking with me. Whenever I hear Cantonese, I get so tempted to go over and be like ARE YOU FROM HONG KONG?! But then I feel like a creep, especially if they're girls, and I would just not do it and keep doing what I'm doing. It's all good though. It's not like I've created a bubble around myself. I do start up conversation with random people and others have started talking to me. As an introvert, it's a good amount of socializing for me. I don't need constant attention!

I'm sitting at the State Library of Victoria and they promised me high-speed internet, but it's 500kbps. God damn Australia. Your internet sucks! I guess it's good enough to sort out my week to come for Knowledge Week, do some hostel booking, check some emails, apply for jobs, etc. It's good that it's slow so I can't play League haha...

Welp, that's a quick update. I'm going to go get some groceries and start working on dinner because I'm sooo hungry right now! I don't know if I'm eating enough or not, but I lose weight without even trying. Maybe because I'm eating too healthy. I need to get myself some junk food. Tim Tam is like part of my life now. I've been buying every awesome flavors that I encounter! Until next time, peace out!

Birthday and them Shenanigans...

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to Henry... #loner5ever

Just kidding... I actually made a friend right before my birthday! His name was Roland from Singapore! He's mega smart -- a doctor in training. We were roommates for like 2 days before he actually introduced himself to me. Nothing really went past that. But I saw him eating dinner once and I decided to see if he wanted to go to the Melbourne Eureka Skywalk thingie with me where we go to the 88th floor of the tallest building in Melbourne and look over the skyline of Melbourne. He accepted my invitation and so we started being friends! The next day, we decided to go check out the Victoria Market and got some groceries for dinner. It was actually the day of my birthday, but I didn't want to make it a big deal. We decided to have an early dinner and go to St. Kilda Beach by sunset to see the penguins return to their nest for the night. On our way back, I suggested grabbing a drink; because it was my last night at Melbourne before I head off to Tasmania and kind of to secretly celebrate my birthday. We ended up going to Coles to try to get some drinks, but the one we went to didn't sell alcohol, so we ended up getting Ginger Beer... In Aussie, they call ginger ale -> ginger beer and they call beer -> ale; weird. He knew Bundaberg was a really good brand because he used to drink it in Singapore and they sell it for mad expensive compare to buying it in Aussie since it was brewed by Aussie. Low and behold, it taste so good compare to our crappy Canada Dry. We decided to drink that instead of alcohol. On our way back from Coles, he mentioned that he hasn't tried Mcdonald's in Australia yet. It was almost 11 PM and we decided to get McDonald's too (I finally saw a McDonald's with a sign called Macca's, Lilly!)! Too bad they messed up my sammich, but it was a great way to end my birthday regardless!

That concludes my first experience in Melbourne. Overall experience? I didn't like Melbourne Central YHA. The lounge is weirdly positioned making it hard to make friends because there's a bunch of single tables and people would never try to sit with you. Melbourne... I didn't know any of the hidden gems until my last day there when a staff at the hostel convinced me to join her short guided tour around Melbourne. That was when she showed us some of the hidden gems around Melbourne where tourist usually do not know about; like the best street for coffee and where to see really old building with little shops in them. Roland is super into sweets and he showed me some of the best chocolate stores (Chocolait and Cocoblack). He splurged on snacks to bring home because he wanted to spend all his AUD lol... Watching him go crazy over chocolate is funny. Melbourne is a nice place, but I don't know if it's somewhere I want to stay at.

I ended up applying to three jobs over the course of the week.... They all happen to be in New South Wales, but I didn't get any response. QQ; I gotta try harder once I get back from Tasmana.

7:30 PM, I took the ferry from Port Melbourne to Devonport, Tasmania with the two Chinese teachers. We reached there in the morning at 6:30 AM and picked up the SUV that we hired. It turned out to be a Ranault Koleos. I hate driving big cars, but I had to because we have 4 people and it'd be uncomfortable if we had to all squeeze in a small car. I ended up not getting a manual car either. But luckily, we got there early and picked up the car early. I was having a little bit of a hard time trying to keep in mind that I have to drive on the left side. When I turn left, I stay on the left. When I turn right, I have to hop over to the outer lane to stay on the left. Due to being there early, I got to drive without any car on the street. It doesn't really matter though because there's barely any people on Tasmania lol... I got used to driving on the other side pretty quick and it just feels natural to do so now after 3 days of driving. I have one work for Tasmania; Beautiful. Farm lands, mountains, ranges, natural beauty. Everywhere I drive, it's like being in a beautiful painting. It's just super scenic everywhere and completely different from being in all of Australia's big cities. One thing I don't like is how I need to drive like 300+ km in any direction to actually find civilization. There's also two more things that bothered me. People here follows the speed limit... Like legit, there's a sign that says reduce speed from 100 to 70 km due to construction on the highway. There's no visible construction but people still slow down. Rarely do people go over the speed limit, like, ALMOST NEVER RARELY. It makes me feel like a jerk speeding every where because I drive around 120 km LMAO... I'm such a horrible person, but 100 just feels too slow. Also, we're driving up and down the mountains. I was already doing 80 km around 98 degree hairpins one right after another and consecutively to a point where my wheels skid (kinda like Initial D!) on the turns, but the guy was still tailgating me and waving out his window telling me to get to the side so he can pass. Hwot? Of course, the stubborn me did not move to the side to let them pass. I just contested them, but I feel back for the two old ladies sitting in the back scared shitless because I was making 80/90 km turns lol... Fun times. I swear Initial D and all those Need for Speed racing games are all modeled after Tasmania. There's so many mountains and so many hairpins. This is like driving in heaven! Only bad thing is having to drive 3 to 5 hours just to get to places.

Seriously though, these two teachers nag more than my mom. I'm starting to get annoyed by them, but what can I do? I don't want to be mean. They genuine loves me, so I should genuinely love them back. After all, we're good friends lol... All old people are naggers, so it's okay in the end. They're good people and I like their company. Cradle Mountain was something. It's not as good as Huangshan in China, but it's beautiful regardless. I had a good time hiking in my Converse haha... Never wear Converse to hiking on rocky roads. My feet hurt so much from rocks poking onto my feet. Our first night was spent in Strahan, Tasmania. This town has a population of 500 people and everything closes at 6pm... We managed to find a restaurant that opens until 8:30 and the food was wicked expensive. The hostel we stayed at had separate building for shower. o_o Damn was it freezing cold to have to walk to and from the shower... It was nice though because the place was not polluted by city light, so I got to see stars in the sky at pitch dark night.

Today, we woke up at 5:30 PM and managed to leave the hostel by 6:30 to pick up my other friend from Hobart Airport by noon time. The drive was freakin 5 hours. =_= I was exhausted af when I picked him up. I was planning on going to Port Arthur right after I pick him up, but I seriously needed a break. We headed back to the hostel and settled down. The two teachers really wanted to buy honey because they heard there's a farmer's market, but it closes at 1 PM. They rushed out at 12:47 PM and I ended up waiting for them to come back... They didn't pick up their phone so I waited until 2 PM until they come back. I was frustrated because I didn't know how to get in contact with them. I was ready to drive off with my HK friend because I don't want to have to wait for people and ruin my trip. I'm glad that they came back by 2. I held off the Port Arthur trip because it was Sunday and I was worrying that things might close early so we ended up going to Mt. Wellington instead which turned out to be a pretty good plan as it was a nice day to be up there. Tomorrow, we will be heading to Port Arthur; which I heard is a great site to visit. Hopefully, this trip is going to be a blast before I head back to mainland and start looking for jobs! Because you know, job sucks, but I need money QQ;;

Time to get some rest and wake up tomorrow morning to move the car by 8:30 AM to avoid having to pay for street parking! Until next time, good night!

Sick and Lazy~

There's a fan in my room. The switch is right next to the switch for the light. People would come into the room and turn both switches on. People would leave the fan on overnight but it's broken so it doesn't rotate. Just so happens that the fan blows toward my bed. I got too lazy to get up and turn it off thinking it's alright. Two days later, I get a sore throat and I've been sick since. =_= I turn it off when everyone sleeps, but I've been feeling sick these past few days. Aside from that, I've been distracted from watching the League of Legends Worlds Championship. My hostel booking came with three days of "premium wifi" (which isn't so premium. Instead of 0.5Mbps, it's 3Mbps) so I activated it minutes before the first game started. I've been staying up until 1 or 2 am watching the games, so I've been sleeping in a lot until like 11 am because I'm not feeling well either. I feel like I've been wasting my time, but I guess that's what vacation is about; just relax and do what I want to do.

I've been in Melbourne for 6 days now. I've only made one friend on the first night and he ended up leaving the very next day! My birthday is coming up soon and I don't know about spending it alone! D: I need to find that trust worthy friend that will hold my hair up while I puke my brains out and carry me home knowing that they won't touch me inappropriately! Just kidding... But I would like to do something on my birthday. Or not and just spend it with a bunch of old people like any ordinary day. I don't like announcing my birthday, so it might just end up being a normal day.

Melbourne... I don't know. I'm not getting that feel/vibe that people are talking about. It's just another city. I went out for the first four/five days and went to museums and took pictures of night city lights. I think my vacation is plateauing; getting to that point where I kind of feel like every city is the same. It is probably because it's so expensive here; similar to Sydney, that I tend to try to find free things to do and avoid the paid things. I've only eaten out once on the first day when I arrived. It was highly rated on Yelp, but I thought it was average when I ordered a Japanese dish with roasted chicken and rice. It was cheap, so I guess I get what I pay for. Though I did go to the Australian Centre for Moving Image. It was a museum introducing the history of media, starting from simple drawing animation, black and white hollywood movies, 3D movies, 8-bit game graphics, 3D graphics, to what we have today with mobile technologies and how it transformed our entertainment. It's so surprising how not that long ago, we thought 3D Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy VII was super cool. Today, we are talking about virtual realities where we can see 3D live prospective images with a set of goggles. With the advancement of technology now a days, 2 years time could result in something even greater; something we couldn't even imagine of becoming a reality. I thought this museum was awesome and it can spark a lot of technological/science interest in little children. I wish we had one of these museum in Boston. Our museums seem to target towards simple things; the Aquarium, Museum of Science, Children Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Arts, etc. I'm sure it's awesome to the young audience to go to Museum of Science, but I went there in my 20s and I'm not wow'd haha... I was wow'd by the Australian Centre for Moving Image. If anyone were to go to Melbourne, I would highly suggest it even though it's quite a small museum.

So I've been starting to look for jobs. I'm so hesitant at applying. I'll be going to Tasmania until the 15th. I have a Pokemon concert to attend on 21st of November. A lot of jobs want people to start immediately or have some certificate in certain fields in order to be hired. Farm work requires commitment of 5 months 7 days a week because they don't want people leaving in the middle of a harvesting season. A lot farm jobs actually do not provide accommodations or transportation and they're in the middle of no where where buses and trains don't go to. I guess that only applies to people WWOOFing because that's free labour for food and a roof. I'm going to try phoning the Australia National Harvest Labour Information Service to inquire about farm work and give them some criteria that I want to aim for such as being able to go from an accommodation to the field via bike.

This is so weird. @_@ People don't like just randomly start a conversation with other people... I tried to initiate some talk with random people in the hostel, but it just kind of dies in 2~3 back and forth. That and the lounge setup is completely anti-social comparing to other hostels that I've stayed in. There's no big tables where it lets people sit with other people. They're just small tables enough space for one person and then a long bench across the room. People tends to sit a table away from another person unless it's packed. I like to sit in the lounge because who knows what kind of people you will come across. But when people have to sit next to me and see me watching the League of Legends Worlds Championship, they would just look over and look at me funny like what is this kid watching. :| I'm hopeless. Meeting people and socializing is just not my thing... But then I shouldn't be saying that because I still have 10 and half more months to go! I will bound to meet some close friends within that period of time. You still have a long way to go, Henry! Add oil!

Oh geez, this entry was going to be a short one, but I ended up blabbling again. I should go to sleep now because I want to wake up early to take a train to Lilydale and bike to Warburton! There used to be a railway from Lilydale to Warburton, but it was closed down and it became a bike trail which have very scenic country side along the way~ The friend that I met on the first night told me about it and I've been wanting to go, but I got sick and felt out of place to be biking. I hope I'm not out of shape to be biking 80 kilometers a day! I love cycling, so it should be okay.

Until next time, good night! My "premium wifi" is expiring soon... zzz