We covered mostly everywhere in the Royal
Botanic Garden with our tracks today and were feeling weak and in poor health
by the time we returned…
We woke up to a windy Sunday but the free
pancakes Greenhouse provided for their guests lightened everyone’s mood. Each
person was limited to one pancake only but there’s this little fat and cheeky
kid cutting lines and eating so many pancakes with his shameless personality
and thick skinned face. The hostel’s atmosphere had been turned upside down
since the bunch of Taiwanese kids came on a trip with their cram school
teacher, always yelling and running around with not a bit of manner. But the
people here were too nice to say anything they just sighed and continued on
their work.
There was this Sunday market with many
booths selling strange and special stuff and foods. Roxie bought some handmade
candles and soap to take back to Taiwan as some gifts to her family. As for me,
I wandered around taking photos and observing the locals doing their selling
and purchases. There was this girl singing on the side of the street and she
had this really interesting behavior, she would sing for a bit and take a bite
of her sandwich, then continued with her song. The weather was already too cold
for our standard, I had this denim jacket on for extra today and I still felt
like standing naked in the wind.
We crossed the road to the Monet’s Garden
after finishing our tour in the market. It was small but delicate, full of
beautiful statues and well cared plants. Roxie and I tried hard to keep
ourselves in the sunlight but the area was pretty limited, I was afraid that
the sudden warmth and coldness will cause us high fevers. We made our way into
the Royal Botanic Garden afterwards and it was already six by the time we got
our of it from the exit on the other side. We had our eyes on the Australian
species a few days ago at the Aquarium and the special plants on this continent
were equally amazing.
The Garden was so big that we even got lost
with a map in hands. There were lakes and hills and every tree was gigantic
like the ones in Mt. Ali, but only bigger. On our way back, our heads were
aching so hard and the eyes were forced to go into slits by the strong winds
and cold. We had been walking through the whole Garden hand in hand for hours
and even myself, a tough guy was starting to wear down. Our fingers even felt
numb due to today’s humidity and freezing temperature, the body even started to
lose its senses. We hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since breakfast and
were lucky to be greeted with a 7-11 the moment we got out from the Garden.
Despite the prices, we picked two bars of chocolate each to restore our energy,
it felt great to be eating again. I insisted on going back to the roads after
just a little bit rest for I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to make it
back as the day gets even darker. I was really proud of Roxie for she didn’t
even complain about the tiniest bit after all this long hike. As for me, the
toe on my left foot had been feeling uncomfortable since coming to Melbourne,
there must be something wrong with the bone but I have to suck it up and limp
back to the hostel at the moment.
We didn’t take the same route back but along
the suburb through my instinct. We focused on the walk trying to forget about
the cold, and there’s this sequence game about celebrity names that we invented
to add up to the distraction. And it had been a 2-hour of Reese Witherspoon,
Drew Barrymore, Bruce Willis, etc before we finally see the lights coming off
skyscrapers and tall buildings. While we looked for restaurants to take some
serious big bites, my tummy started to tighten and there was this wrenching
pain coming from my abdomen. Teeth clenched and knuckles turning white , I
looked for toilets to do some perfect release. Unfortunately the first
department store I visited was on a cleaning session and I was already pale as
a ghost by the time I reached the second. Everything was pretty smooth from
that moment and I had my tiny explosion in the bathroom.
We had Claypot King, again for dinner but
there’s no way I’m going to order Laksa this time. I had some flat noodles
instead and they tasted okay, but the size of the meal wasn’t enough to fill my
appetite and I was still pretty starved after licking the plate clean. I bought
a cup of mocha for Roxie at Starbucks after leaving Claypot King, the price was
much the same as it was in Taiwan and that made it a cheaper drink here in
Australia.
I fried some nuggets and fish chips for
night snacks after we got back: ) There were a bunch of foreigners playing Beer
Pong at the table and it was one team against another. There was this girl
leaning over to pick up the ball but showing her cleavage in accident, and the
Taiwanese kids were yelling around and behaving rudely, I couldn’t feel more shamed
about them!
Time for bed! And it still felt so cold…
We chatted with our roommates and the
English guy told us about his story of how he got his tattoo on his birthday
and how it cost him 103 pounds… Roxie said that a lot of foreigners like to
tattoo Chinese words on their bodies but they don’t bother to understand its
meaning, and there was this guy who tattooed a Chinese “KITCHEN” on his arm…
The Australian girl shared her story about how
she accidentally swallowed her tongue ring at dinner with her mom…
It was fun sharing tales with the others : )
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