The Epicness of Melbourne

Well boys and gals, let me just say that I did not expect my trip to start out with such Incredible EPICNESS! Melbourne to say the least was... well... a week I won't soon forget. However to jump back to my leaving Auckland I shall keep it brief, because Melbourne will be long.

My last few days in Auckland were hurry-scurry. Between packing and saying goodbye, and all those last minutes things you had forgot to do until the time they were due arrived. However, it all worked out in the end. On Saturday night we had all of the family over, and A (Leigh's mother) finally made me the Pavlova she had promised me all year long. It was a fantastic evening and so nice to finally see all the family one last time. The next morning, was just as hectic with Leigh, Christoph and Yannik leaving to go skiing for the week. We said our goodbyes, which was hard. We all really connected over the past year. More so I think than they were used to as well, which I felt honored by. I'm not sure whether Yannik realized I was leaving or not. Its just to hard to tell. We told him time and again, but its not like he responds to it really. Anyways. It was an emotionally draining day. That night a friend took me back to her place and I crashed there. Early the next morning (like 4:30AM) I was driven to the airport where I snuck my rediculously overweight luggage onto the plane. Several hours later I was landing in Melbourne, Australia. If only I knew what lay before me.

Haha. I suppose I shouldn't build the week up to much, because to be honest I think a lot of the moments you had to be there for, but when you were (which I was), it was EPIC.

Anyways. I landed in Melbourne and took a bus from the airport to the city. Now I should say that when i snuck my overweight luggage onto the plane, I mean I was lugging around about 75lbs worth of it. Some of which was very awkward to handle. So needless to say I need to get rid of it as fast as I could. Fortunately about 50 pounds of that was luggage I was mailing home. So I confusedly walked around the city till I found a post office, went in, lifted my gigantic 50 pound bag onto the counter and told the man I needed to mail this home. He just looked at me blankly. I'm sure he thought I was crazy. But we weighed it, and and it was 23kg, and the maximum was 20kg's that they could mail. After I preformed some incredible puppy dog eyes, the man said we would just call it 20kgs. Then it turned out I couldn't mail it due to my laptop battery. But we did some research and apparently through some extra wrapping and labeling and such we could get around that as well. Finally the bottle of wine that Leigh and Christoph had given me as a goodbye present couldn't be mailed home. That problem was easy to fix though, I would just have to drink it in Melbourne.

So finally I got my bag off, and called my couchsurfing host who I was staying with, Natasha Stalker (kind of a freaky last name for a host but oh well). She gave me directions and off I went to meet her. I found the place easy enough and when a I rang the doorbell, and man with a big beard and frizzy hair answered. Something triggered in my mind about him but I couldn't place it. So I went inside and met everyone else. It appeared to be Natasha and about 4 other American male couchsurfers that were all staying there. Apparently I had happened upon a house that was hosting a whole group of Americans. So much so, that the day before I arrived they had thrown a July 4 party. It felt really nice to be among American's that a lot of that day was actually just spent sitting around chatting with them. Anyways, we were sitting around the kitchen when suddenly it hit me, "I've met that frizzy haired man before!" I thought. It was in Auckland at the Chinese lantern festival. We had both rocked out to a Mongolian throat singing punk rock band together at a couchsurfing meeting that day. Man the world is a small place. We instantly realized the occasion and had a good laugh over that.

That night we were scheduled to go to a African Dance class. Supposedly there was to be a free dance class downtown hosted by a Dutch couchsurfer studying dance in Melbourne. So we all figured why not. But first we thought perhaps we should pick up some booze from the shop. Now there were 5 of us at this point and the house only had one car. I should mention that that car was in fact a truck. I offered to ride in the back as did two of the other guys. When I say the bed of the truck though things got interesting. It had a cover on it and was pretty messy. But the three of us all squeezed in and then were covered up. Now something you should know is that the houses in Melbourne have no insulation, so in Winter (which is now) Natasha's house was FREEZING! (I mean freezing like every morning you wake up and judged the day based on how much breath you could see.) Anyways, The boys and I were surprised to find that the truck bed was actually the warmest place in the house! We were snug as bug in a rug.

At any rate, during the ride we had an intimate knowledge of the noises the truck was making. At one point we commented on how it didn't sound very good.... Sure enough, 30 seconds later the whole thing broke down. We decided to walk to the store since it was only 5 minutes away.... A half hour later we arrived at the store, made our purchase, and walked the other half hour back to the broken car. We tried everything on the car. This and that to no avail. We walked to a gas station and bought jumper cables, and tried to get some one to give us a jump. Problem was that the car was in a funny position where we would have to stop traffic in one lane of a busy road. We called the police to help but they distinctly let us know they didn't fix cars. Finally we decided to push start it even though we only had about 40 feet of space. Fortunately 20ft was all we needed. Getting the car going was so surprising I had to ask if it had actually started or I was hearing things.

Anyways, we went home, got changed and went to the African Dance. Walking through Melbourne at night was beautiful. Course, I love any big buildings at night, but Melbourne actually reminded me a lot of Chicago. The African Dancing was pretty funny to say the least. We arrived late, and had to learn the first couple of moves from watching others. However it gave us a plethora of material to bring back out throughout the week. After this we took a tram to Fitzroy and hit a Pub.

The next day Adam, Tony, and I (all American's) decided to go for a trip to St. Kilda's and try a restuarant that was pay-what-you-will called Lentils. But I should interrupt here, because I just nearly forgot the most important part of the week. I needed a battery for my camera first, so we went to Dick Smith and next door was a bargain book store. Sitting outside on a rack was a glorious book, "Da Gospel According to Ali G"! Oh yes. While most of the older generation that will make no sense too, but for us it was incredible. We instantly bought it and it defined most of our week.

Anyways, back to the restaurant. It was vegetarian, but that aside, it was freakin fantastic. A very hip place. Then we went for walk on the beach where we discovered a large model sun made of metal. Now I should remind everyone that it was pretty cold outside. So upon touching the sun and realizing it was warm we all somewhat laid on top and around it. Making large groups of children wander what was so special about it and thus also join in the fun. Proceeding this we walked by Luna Park. Luna Park is a theme park with the creepiest entry way ever thought of. It is a scary clown face and you enter through his mouth (very disturbing). Afterwards we caught a tram back downtown, because Adam wanted to show me an optical illusion building.

However, on the way there.... I FOUND FIFTY BUCKS!!!!!!!!!!
IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
I was walking on the street outside the bus terminal, looked down and noticed some paper on the ground. Went to pick it up, and BOOM! FIFTY BUCKS! Haha. I looked around and asked some people if they had lost some money, but no one claimed it so I smiled and continued on my way a slightly richer man. (I should note, that the optical illusion building was also AWESOME! it was a building designed like the illusion where you have parallel lines on a black and white checkerboard, and it makes them look crooked. Very cool building design.)

Alright from here on I'm just going to bullet point this because its going to be way to huge if I don't so...

My week looked like this:

Found fifty bucks on ground
Saw Optical Illusion building
Ran from Tram Police on way home
Replaced Fuel Filter
Adam got stuck in wheel well
I got drenched in gasoline
Made sure hoses to gas tank were replaced correctly
went out that night (EPIC!)

Wed:
Planned to go to Bimbo's for pizza (awesome pizza parlor name, and $4 pizzas)
Car wouldn't work in the morning
Mechanic came to fix it
We grilled 45 sausages (Mmmm Mm! Kangaroo!)
Cats locked us outside
Helped Mechanic fix the car
The front end of car ERUPTED in flame (while we weree working on it)
Had several seconds of imagining a car blowing up
Bolted to kitchen and filled dish pans up with water to put fire out!
Invented makes shift assembly fire fighting line and put fire out

ALRIGHT HOLD ON!
I just need to throw this out there. We literally had a car ERUPT in FIRE! I mean not like there was a small little flame. I mean this thing Spontaneously COMBUSTED INTO FLAME! There was mental pictures flying through my head of the car exploding 7 feet into the air in front of the house! IT WAS PRETTY FREAKIN RIDICULOUS! We momentarly ran for lives until we thought it might just be better to put the fire out. ANYWAYS, I just thought I should throw that out there. Now back to bullet notes!

Mechanic fix the car 4 hours later
Turns out the lines to the gas tank were switched (Oops!)
went out that night (EPIC!)

Thursday:
Went to Bimbo's
Saw the Orange man walking the streets (Man dressed entirely from in Orange from top hat (thats right TOP HAT) to his shoes)
Went to the ACMI (Australia Center for Movie Images)
Went to the Tim Burton exhibit
Got to hang out next to the actual Batmobile (YA!)
had dinner with Germans (new couchsurfers)
Went salsa dancing with Natasha
left Germans mashpitting in some club
was out for the night (EPIC!)


Friday:
Woke up with misplaced articles
Lazy day
made eggs
and mashed potatos
Went to the Melbourne Projection Festival which was interesting
headed to Chinatown
took Natasha home early
Left Phone and Camera in the taxi
Had cabbie return with my phone
met up with Adam and Langdon at Kebab stand for an EPIC! night

Sat:
discovered I had lost my camera
went to queen street Market
Had my first Burek (tasty pastry with meat in it)
relaxed back at the house
a Wizardstaff may or may not have been built
went to little creatures brewery
went back to bimbo's
had another EPIC! night in Melbourne

Sunday:
Woke up the next morning to the news that the cab driver had returned the night before and dropped my camera off (AWESOME!)
Natasha made delicious crepe's and I bought my plane ticket to Veitnam
Adam and I spent the day writing our memoirs of the past week to have them in writing.
(These bullet points are just small bits of the memoirs written that day)

That night I caught a plane to KL

Arrived in KL at 8 in the morning and took bus to town where I caught a bus to Singapore
After 16 hours of travelI meet up with Michelle for my four days in Singapore

That day I eat a delicous dinner of many foods I can't pronounce
That night Michelle and several friends and I go on a Night Safari at the park
(Night safari is really cool because its for nocturnal animals, and you can see them in the dark while they are actually active) (Lions and Tigers and Bears OH MY!)

Tuesday:
Spent the day exploring the city of Singapore
I spent the morning in Chinatown looking at all the hawkers and tried out some foot reflexology (basically a painful foot message) (I decide who to see by trying to find the oldest wisest looking man)
Then to the waterfront were I saw the Merlion (huge statue of a half-fish half-lion)
Next went to Kampung Gam (the Muslim section of town) and saw the Sultan's palace and the Sultan's Mosque
Then to Little India where 70 people all tried to sell me a new suit (also checked out the temples and such as I had everywhere)
Met up with Michelle and her family for dinner in Little India)
Then her brother (WHO HAS THE COOLEST NAME EVER: RONIN!) (AWESOME) took me out on the town (and by that I mean he and a friend showed me around the red light district of Singapore)
I have never been in a red light district, much less one in Asia, much less ever really thought about what happens there (let me just say it was an "experience", and I don't think I will be going back anytime soon. However its nice to have a image I can put in my head now when I hear the term "Red Light District")

Wednesday:
Michelle and I explored the city some more
Went to Hort Park (cool treetop bridge the whole way through)
Ate some Dim Sum (I should just say I ate AWESOMENESS! EVERYDAY here!)
Was going to see botanical gardens there, but we were both too tired so headed home.
I worked on writing this rather than sleeping
Also bought a visa to Vietnam
That night met up with Taylor (a UVA alum who I was crashing with) and Michelle and friends, we all went out to dinner and then hit a club that night (EPIC!) (haha, I just like saying that)

Thursday:
Woke up, packed, caught a bus to Kuala Lumpur
Met up with Angel (my couchsurfer here in KL)
Went back to her place and crashed after a tour around town

Friday:
Explored the city seeing the temples and Mosques of the city
Its definitely interesting being in and Asian Muslim country (I always think of Islam so much as a middle eastern religion, (which it is) but Malaysia is also a Muslim country with Muslim police outside of the normal police force.) (I also got a bit of a surprise when I came around a corner and suddenly was facing 500 people who got down on their knees bowed to me. I quickly realized I had come upon the call to prayer, but for a moment I was very confused)

Saturday
The next day Angel and I went to Batu Caves (a Massive series of caves with Hindu Temples within them)
Felt like I was going to be attacked by swarms of Monkeys at every step (they were everywhere)
Spent the day relaxing and finishing a puzzle with Angel
That night, I hit up the night market in Little India for a great experience (was able to impress the locals with my Malay language skills)

Sunday:
Explored the parks of KL, went to the orchid and hibiscus gardens along with there lake gardens with Angel
Got passport photos done at the mall
Ate some rockin Mee Goreng
Came back to Angels place and have now been workin on this for an hour or two

PEACE OUT!



Alright guys. I know that was pretty crappy, but its also pretty crappy to try and write about my travels rather than experiencing them. Well you know what I mean. Sorry a lot of this also probably doesn't make sense if you were there, but so be it. I've had an incredible last two weeks. Far crazier than I ever could have expected. Sorry I've been away for a while. I apologize. You guys rock. I'm off to Vietnam tomorrow. Till Next Time...

Goodbye and so Long
May the Force be with you.

Wes