Melbourne Outing Day 1

The day I have been psyched for since the beginning of the Melbourne outing plan is finally here! I am so excited! Nonetheless, I woke up at 7:15 despite the fact of having to check in at 8. I overslept. I set an alarm at 6, but then I kept on snoozing it and suddenly I took a glance at it and it was 7-ish. I was not aware that Cim had changed the alarm to 7. argh.

Then at 7:30, Haubert picked Cim and I up and along with Ci Tika and Ko Foeng, we went quickly to the airport to catch up with the others. Along the way, Unto was texting us that the check-in counter was going to close in 15 minutes time. We were in a hurry but we made it anyway right in a nick of a time. Such a huge relief.

We snacked on the bananas we brought while waiting for being called. Have I mentioned that our plane got delayed. Bummer huh.

bababanana

 At 9:30 we got into the plane. It was a one and a half hour trip to Melbourne and I was too excited to even sleep! It was a good thing Cim and Jopil were not sleeping either! Woohoo. Shared jokes, stories with them too. I kinda felt bad for Ko Foeng, Unto and Ko Freddie who were sitting in front of us. Not to mention they were sleeping during the whole journey. Our noise was too unbearable, I guess. But what's done is done. LOL. I felt bad for the people sitting at the back of us too.

Anyway, at around 12-ish? I am not sure of the exact time we actually arrived there. But let's presume it be around midday, we quickly tried to rent a car. We selected Hertz for the car renting as it's the cheapest compared to the other car rentals. And there is an additional cost of a person driving under 25 years of age.

guppy face 

After getting the car, we went to eat brunch at a place called Auction Room. But just before that, I had to go number 1 and went to the nearest toilet before we proceeded on our journey. There was an unpredictable incident that happened in the toilet. When I went inside the stall, my phone fell down and it slid to the neighbouring stall. I was in shock, it was a good thing, the lady slid it back to my place. Awkward moment indeed.

Then off we go.

it looks gloomy due to the clouds 

Ko freddie, unto, ko foeng and jopil

The place was full and we went into a waiting list and had to wait outside. We spent the time talking, taking snapshots, laughing, giggling, jittering, and all those other adjectives to describe what was being done. 

As I have mentioned before, brunch is very popular in Australia. We had brunch at The Auction Room. 

the vase is from a coffee sort of machine bulb

group photo taken by the nice waitress!  

We were greeted with the friendliest waitress ever. If not mistaken, her name is Vanessa? She could speak Indonesian language. She noticed us talking in Indonesian and she asked the guys "Mau minum apa?" which totally blew us away. She was caucasion btw. She told us that she spent some part of her childhood in Jakarta, that's why she could speak Indonesia. How splendid. Her accent is very Jakartian too.

Ko Freddie's salmon dish

let all the cutting be done by the mistress of cutting, Ci Hilda

photobombing the guys. 

totally immersed with the conversation. 

Well during the whole period of eating at that restaurant, we talked, joked around, and took even more photos. The food was good. The price is always pricey here in Australia. Just imagine how much is the exchange rate of Rupiah to AUSD. It's unimaginable. 

Anyway, I took several photos of the people who ordered coffee/espresso or anything that has caffeine in them. Excluding Ko Freddy and Unto, they were too far out of my reach. I should have asked the person sitting across them to take their photos, but it's too late now. Why should the feeling of regret comes afterwards.

Ko Foeng

Jopil 

Ci Tika

Ci Hilda, very retro huh.. 

Ko Freddie was pouring his hot chocolate

 Oops, in fact Ko Freddie bought a hot chocolate instead of a caffeine-containing-beverage. So that's fine then.

Untoro's brewed coffee. I don't know what it's called. It's really bitter. 

Time to pay up. 

 After getting fueled up by the brunch we ate, we continued our road trip to Brunswick Street! A street filled with perks for being a hipster. The place is perfectly vintage. It is really unique. I love it there, the little shops just right at the corner of an intersection is the perfect touch to conjure the street to a magical place of vintage land. I know I am being too dramatic or using up too much effort of being so poetic, it's just that the place is absolutely beyond my literary limits of description and you might just have to visit the place for yourself.

Against the strong gush of Melbourne's wind, we stood standstill and persevere and kept on lifting our wiggly legs, step by step, we persisted on walking. We slotted in coins at the parking machine for about an hour and within that hour we should be back to our car or else bad things could happen. I have no idea what sort of bad things might be casted upon the cars we rented at Hertz. But probably the car could be towed or be fined.

the parking machine 

reminds me of a korean song called "Bounce"

love this window display of colourful flurry polkadot eyelashes bald mannequins

 We came across the cutest boutique with plenty of adorable apparels. Starting from jumpers, knits, skirts, all specially designed for authentic out-of-the-box fashionistas. Autumn colours like orange, green, brown, indigo fill the cozy shack. I was trying so hard to restrain myself from being tempted of buying clothes there. I succeeded! Hooray! It was such a hard obstacle of managing to pass through all the cuties there. Fortunately, the upscaled prices open my eyes to decide better!

I forgot to mention that while the girls had arrived on Brunswick Street, the guys were still finding a place to park their cars. So while the girls shop, the guys were still somewhere out there. Moreover, they were finding a restroom too when we were about to step out of the boutique.

cim with a knitted headwear? It's precisely not a cap nor a hat. Well, headwear it is. 

Next stop was Urban Altitude! Another delightful store to be! This particular store supplies all the necessary gears of being a hipster too! Who doesn't like being a hipster? It's great being a hipster rather than being a mainstream. But to some extent, hipsters population start to increase and then as quoted from the Hipster song we're so different we're the same. 

There are a lot of knick-knacks here. The products are too creative to be true. Don't bother asking about the price, like I said before, it's way overprice. Why can't Indonesia's exchange rate be equivalent to AUSD. That would make the world a better place. LOL. Jokes. That would just mean that if it were to be true, we, Indonesians, would just stay at our hometown and would not study abroad presumably. Or, there might be a chance of studying abroad to a more developed country like somewhere around Europe. Another good thing derived from the concept of equivalent exchange rate is that Indonesia is as developed as Australia. Or if it were to be the other round, Australia would be less developed as Indonesia. Not being judgemental or anything, I am just typing out these revolving sentences or so-called "hypothesis" to increase the word count on this blog. In order for all of you to be able to read something out of this. And so that this blog would not only just contain pictures but also meaningful hypothetical words. 

Whoah, that's a mouthful paragraph I just typed there. Pardon any sentence structure mistakes or any grammatical errors. I am too lazy to proof-read the whole thing. Anyway, enjoy the pictures :3 

cute watches aye

kyaa, saw one of these volcanic jelly thing in a rocket-sort-of-thing lamp on the Sims. 

fancy teapots 

who doesn't want a melting clock! 

mini tumblr! 

ooh a cookbook. caught my attention due to the catchy title and bright cover colour 

defuse a bomb alarm clock? anyone? 

 Unto was showing this alarm clock to me as a reminder of a critical mistake I did in the morning of waking up really late and almost missing the flight to Melbourne. I could not even imagine if I got myself that bomb defuser alarm clock. That would just mean waking up would always be an intense morning starter.

retro sunglasses 

ooh, the things I saw on 9gag exist! 

half spoon. lol.  

I have always wondered what this would like. It was really heavy. 

learn to speak Chinese! 

michael jackson and psy cards

 After pleasing our eyes with all of Urban Altitude's products, we walked on to a coffee shop called Jasper's. The coffee bean aroma was so relaxing. There are a wide range of coffee beans and chocolates available.

Saw this window display beside Jasper's coffee. 

 Where does time gets its wings?, a direct quote from Ci Tika, is exactly the perfect expression to describe the fast-going outing that day. The lights were out, illuminating the peaceful street. After about an hour, we had to go back to our parking space and head to our hotel.

Arriving upon the place where we were going to spend two nights, we head to check in at the front desk to attain our keys. We were staying at Oaks right at the heart of the city. We were about to rest for quite some time before we stepped out in hunt for food.

guys chilling out

There were two bedrooms in each room, a master room and a room with twin beds. As there were 5 girls, we ordered an extra bed. So we talked for a bit while the girls excluding me and cim took turns in taking a shower. I could not believe that I took a quick nap too. Probably too tired from all that travelling.

Being recharged once more, we started to hunt for dinner! It was drizzling.

We could actually borrow books from here and it's open for public. 

We ate at The Pancake Parlour. 

The thing about driving is that it is quite challenging in finding a parking spot. 

But we got a parking spot anyway. 

these bacon and chips are GOOOOOOOOD

lol. 

Met David too and talked and had dinner with him at the parlour. Such a fantastic time we had and should be cherished forever.

After dinner, we took photos near the library.

LOL. just realized ko foeng was not in this picture apart from his right arm

Then we headed to Crown Plaza. As David mentioned, you haven't been to Melbourne if you haven't been to the Crown.  The place is a great place for photoshoot. Not to mention it is widely known for its casino not that we gambled there. Plus, I am still underage to even be able to enter. The power of being underage is super awesome to some extent. It is such a great alibi some time too. LOL. None of us gambled. Period.

We took a while to be reunited with the guys. It was super cold. And the weather was too dry. There was a time when I started to cough. I was afraid that I might caught the dry cough which is probably the most irritating cough in my opinion. No matter how hard you try to cough the mucus, it would not budge and you still got that tingling feeling up your throat.

With the guys, we decided to hunt where the water fountain is. It was another challenge for us to find the water fountain. However, to our bad luck, the water fountain was recently removed and only the fire attraction was available. And that also started at midnight.

There we were in the lounge to wait for the fire attraction. We shared possibly the most annoying/hair-shredder/stressful jokes ever. But it is a great ice-breaker and as quoted from Jopil "these jokes are very important for future purposes for ice-breaking".

At 12, we made our move for the attraction!

It was great, the fire made a shocking noise whenever it was lighted. It was warm too. Great experience!

last group photo of the day

We were about to search for desserts but it was too late and we had to wake up early tomorrow for another great trip awaits! Great credits to our drivers: Ci Hilda and Ko Foeng! Thank you so much for your effort on driving us to these amazing places! Without you, all these would have been impossible!

There was a bad incident though when we were on our way to the seven-eleven near our hotel There was an old lady talking to herself out loud. It was almost midnight and she was all alone screaming at the top of her lungs. She sounded angry and was complaining about something. I could not even figure out what she was saying though. I could only hear mumbles. It was pretty terrifying though. Anyway, we stopped by 7/11 and bought milk for tomorrow.

And that night, we all slept like a baby as a great adventure is waiting for us by the break of dawn. 

to be continued on the next post..