Love, Peace & Bullet-proof Marshmallows!

Utter Nutter Peanut Butter

2008-08-23T20:30:00.005+12:00

My last day in Melbourne was more like a last half day. I'd enjoyed my first run in Melbourne and saw such beautiful sights that I really wanted to run through that area again.

I have been tired at the end of the day, and thought it might be a struggle waking up. Unfortunately, the struggle was the OTHER way around, falling ASLEEP to begin with.

I've been staying in Student Accommodation, and throughout most of the week, the students have been well behaved. Naturally, on a Friday night, it was a bit much to ask them to be quiet and not act rowdy to enable Marshy to get some sleep on her last night in Melbourne. A group of rather loud, raucaus boys were laughing and squealing (yes, squealing) all through the night. In fact, when I'd decided I'd had enough at 6am, they were still going.

It was easily one of the most stunning mornings in Melbourne since I've been here. And throughout my run, I got some beautiful photos to make up for the other days where I'd either forgotten the camera or the batteries died on me.

How gorgeous does the MCG look reflected in the Yarra river with flecks of orange dotted around the sweeping grey clouds? PURDY!

The gorgeous, ghostly effect of the naked trees that line St Kilda Road. On the mornings when there's a bit of a fog, it's a disturbing, haunting beauty. Today, not so much, but use your imagination, kids.

Distance markers along the famous Tan...

And the sun rising behind various monuments.

Not sure how clearly you can see it from the photo, but there's a pair of parent duckies with their several ducklings here, SO gorgeous. Such a beautiful sight to see on my first adventure through the Queen Victoria gardens.

Now how awesome is THIS. The sun rising over the MCG, and streaming through the trees.

I didn't pay any money to see this!

The naked trees on the banks of the Yarra reflect on themselves on the river's surface.

The skyline of Melbourne has highlights of gold on the building's edges as the city is slowly unveiled.

By far my favourite photo that I've taken on this trip.The MCG and the Melbourne Tennis Centre are in silhouette, and the sun is a striking, glowing ball which is reflected on the Yarra. Also, check out the morning exercisers - there's a rower on the river, a runner on the river's edge, and a cyclist on the track. It's the sort of photo that when you take, you have no concept of how beautiful it is. It was only when I looked at it later and went "HOLY CRAP" that you appreciate how gorgeous that moment in time truly was.

I headed back to the hotel, but not really wanting to given that out of all of the days I'd been out running, today was by far the most beautiful. Also, I wasn't sure if the noisy hooligans had calmed down, but there was no need for me to worry; at 7am when I got back to my room, they had finally quietened down.

I packed up all of my gear, and then checked out. There was still a couple of hours to kill until my airport transfer arrived, so I had a final wander around Melbourne Central and QV malls.

I went into the Max Brenner in Melbourne Central and thought, "Well, I've bought a bunch of pralines to take home, why don't we buy a couple to actually TASTE." I bought two pralines - one was a chocolate ganache with spices, the other, a peanut butter praline. I slowly savoured the spicy one, mmm, was lovely. I loved the tickle of flavours that the nutmeg and cinnamon that was added therein gave to the chocolate. It wasn't quite as aggressive as a chilli chocolate - which I love - though it was a nice, interesting flavour combination that worked well.

Then I tried the peanut butter praline. And OH. MY. GOD. In my head, I've always imagined that I would love Reese's Peanut Butter cups. Then I actually bought one and I was thoroughly unimpressed with what I tasted - the peanut butter had added sugar to it so it didn't feel genuinely peanutty in the slightest, and the chocolate itself had little chocolate flavour though more importantly, it had a horrible texture that clung to the roof and sides of your mouth. It was almost like a small sandpaper effect.

Even though I clearly do not like Reese's Peanut Butter cups, the idea of it still appeals to me. So when I tasted the Max Brenner Peanut Butter Praline, it was like my Peanut Butter Cup fantasy had finally become true. The praline tasted EXACTLY what I thought the peanut butter cup would taste like.

I had to have another one. But I felt embarassed going back into the store just as I had left it. It was early in the morning, so I would definitely have been recognised and most likely served by the same person.

So! Knowing that there was a Max Brenner in the QV mall across the road, I headed on across the road, into the Max Brenner there, and got myself another peanut butter praline. I sat down outside and tried to savour the thing as slowly as I could, making it last as long as possible.

Yet again, I wanted another one! I began rummaging through my coins, trying to piece together using everything I could to get enough together to get another peanut butter praline.

I began heading back across the road and into Melbourne Central to get my final praline, when I walked past a homeless man. He's been at that spot outside one of the entrances to Melbourne Central every day since my stay - he looks a lot like The Wizard of Christchurch. He stands there, day in day out, holding a styrofoam cup, asking people for spare change.

In my insensitive holiday mood, I would rush past him, ignoring him, thinking to myself that I needed my coins being an overseas traveller.

Today, for the first time I had seen, the man had fallen asleep while standing. There were a group of people in their 20s, standing around him, pointing and laughing.

Suddenly, my peanut butter praline didn't seem like such a necessity after that.

I had no hesitation of putting all of my coins into his cup. He felt the coins clang at the bottom, and he woke up. I saw a brief sparkle in his eyes as he thanked me.

I may be vain, but it felt good. It was a lovely way to say farewell to the city that has treated me so well for the week that I've been here. I'll definitely be back.

Have your Kek and... err... eat it?

2008-08-22T20:30:00.004+12:00

Today is my last full day in Melbourne, and I had two things on my agenda for today - meeting Kek, and the chocoholics chocolate tour.

I woke up with awful cramps in my legs, which killed any desire to go for a run, so instead, I went for a walk to explore The Yarra River and the Southbank precinct.

While the photo makes it look all tranquil and whatnot, it was actually incredibly windy and cold. I tried taking several photos of myself though I look seriously muntified since my fringe was constantly being blown backwards.

Ah, never mind. This photo was taken from the famous bridge. I don't know what it's called, but I just called it 'The Famous Bridge', on the Yarra River. If anyone can help me out with what its called, give a shout out in the comments.

Southbank is a lovely area lined with restaurants and cafes. I imagined my Dad sitting outside one of them with a beer and a stick of garlic bread, enjoying the view. (While the rest of us ran around like crazy wondering where the hell he is. Makes up the majority of time with our family trips away.)

Very pretty.

From there, I went to have a little wander around the gardens - Alexandra and Queen Victoria, before going back to meet Kek at Melbourne Central.

It was nice seeing the gardens in their daytime splendour - a very different sort of beauty to that of the Melbourne morning.

I even got to stop by and look at the lovely flower clock on the outskirts of the Queen Victoria gardens, something I must've zoomed by without noticing before.

After my lovely walk around the gardens and the Yarra, I headed back towards Melbourne Central plaza to meet Kek. And I thought to myself as I walked there, "Uh... I probably should've called her to confirm." I hadn't had any contact with her since the emails I sent from New Zealand.

Thankfully, the moment I saw her striding towards me, she flashed me a big smile and all of my anxiety disappeared. We got along fantastically, snuggling down in the Way Too Comfortable seating in Gloria Jeans - me with a Vanilla Latte, her with a long black. (Guess that's what training for a body building competition does to you.) We talked about training, genetics, food (chocolate came up more than once in the conversation, I believe).

Then she took me on a fantastic walking tour of Melbourne. She took me through all of the laneways - stopping only for an emergency quiche when our stomachs started grumbling - with loads of commentary to go along with it.

And of course, this included walkbys of Max Brenner and Koko Black.

Not to mention, Gog and Magog.

Gog and Magog. (Seriously.)

I'm really glad that she took me on such a great walk of the city - I managed to see a whole lot more on foot than I ever did on the tram, or on the train. Yet another blogger that I had a fantastic time with, and got along like a house on fire with. It's a shame that she had the competition to train for, - all the while, I understand, given that when I get back home, I'll be fully into my training for the Harbour Crossing - otherwise I highly doubt that our visits to Max Brenner and Koko Black wouldn't have been as... err... 'speedy'.

In fact, I was expecting a highly neurotic, stressed out woman - someone quite like myself when I'm training for my events. Kek was like the Dalai Lama compared to how high strung I was for my teensy weensy triathlon that I wasn't even doing in full. Goes to show you that Kek can certainly handly the stress of training a hell of a lot better than I can. And with three kids and a husband to boot. Legendary woman, I tell you.

Kek left me outside Haigh's in The Block Arcade, where a gaggle of people were mulling around waiting for the Chocoholics Tour to start.

The tour guide started off by giving us a brief rundown of the history of Haigh's and the history of The Block Arcade. Also, she sweetened our taste buds by giving us bits of chocolate to sample. After munching into a freaking awesome chocolate covered macadamia, I zoomed into the store to get a couple of bags (one bag of dark, for myself, and a bag of milk for my family), as well as a box of truffles. Then, I made conversation with a Jamaican girl who was on the tour. Much to our annoyance, it was a 40 minute wait before we went to our next destination.

I knew that there would be lot of free samples along the way, so I didn't gobble the chocolates that I was given first off. All of my chocoholic tour colleagues snorfed theirs down so quickly, that by the time we let Haighs, everyone was already all chocolated out. Even better, they took orders for our afternoon tea, and most of the other tour pariticpants picked hot chocolate as their drink, and a chocolate tart as their food item. I picked green tea and a pear tart, much to the amusement of everyone else. I must admit, I was a little smug inside, thinking about how sick everyone was going to be very soon.

From Haigh's, the tour guide took us to Deva, a quaint little gift shop in Collins Street.

I wondered why we were being taken to this store, though within it it sold cocoa-le-art chocolates - chocolates that had artwork drawn on them. And unlike other stores, the artwork wasn't a rice paper transfer, the artwork was in chocolate itself, giving the chocolates a much more rich flavour. The store also did custom artwork to order, for corporate events, weddings etc.

I quite liked this handbag that they had on display.

Well, I would've liked to bite right into that sucker's handle. NOM.

We all got given a different piece to try, and we were asked to try and guess which flavour was infused therein. I got coconut, and I loved it that much that I bought several blocks of the stuff to take home. Little did I realise that later, I would regret not buying more. (Goddamn.)

From there, we moved onto the Hub arcade, where we were taken to The Chokolait Hub.

Where we were all treated to a super tasty hot chocolate shot.

Most of the others were happy to sit down, though I got fidgety and sprung off my feet to have a wander around the store.

I bought four lemon & lime white truffles to take home, simply because they sounded like they would be light and zesty - something a bit different.

Because we had spent so much time at Haigh's, this meant some of the time was sucked out of the back end of the tour. We only spent a few minutes outside Koko Black - where we sampled a divine cappuccino truffle, and we were told we had to come back later to really experience it. I knew for me, there was no 'later', so I zoomed in and bought four truffles. I would later regret not getting myself the flakes to make the hot chocolate, or being able to buy more than four truffles/pralines/etc. (Goddamn x 2).

Our final stop was at the Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie...

...where I had my green tea and pear tart and felt fantastic.

My fellow tour going buddies turned greener than my tea when their hot chocolate and chocolate tarts arrived. Heeee!

From there, with bags bulging of chocolate - both bought and free - I made my way back towards my hotel. Only stopping at the Max Brenner in QV Plaza to get a box of pralines to take home, since the tour didn't take me to a Max Brenner. Well, actually, I stopped at the Max Brenner in Melbourne Central Plaza but was ignored for 10 minutes by the staff, so I instead went across the road to the one in QV Plaza, where the store folk were much friendlier and served me straight away. (Funny that.)

I packed up some of my clothes, put on some episode of Close to Home on my laptop, tucked into some pan seared fish, turkish bread and veggies, then enjoyed the sumptuous strawberry tart I had bought for myself from Brunetti in City square.

My 5+ a day. Right there. (What? You mean it doesn't count if it's in sugary tarty goodness?)

What a way to wind up my last full day in Melbourne. Walking, Kek, and Chocolate. Awesomeness from every angle.

Why didn't the Marshmallow cross the road before?!

2008-08-21T20:30:00.006+12:00

My plan for today was to visit the National Sports Museum, and get back in time to have lunch with Tully.

It was a wet day, so umbrella in hand, I got on the train and headed over to the MCG to visit the National Sports Museum. When I arrived at the MCG, I was asked to check in my umbrella - naturally, they didn't want wetness all over the museum. The woman who took my umbrella at the counter said she'd been working there all year and had never seen umbrellas being checked in. Huh. People told me that the weather is volatile in Melbourne. Clearly, nowhere NEAR as volatile as Auckland.

As I entered the museum, a big mob of schoolchildren burst through the doors. Oh gawd. I swear, the mob has been following me around.

I had about 20 minutes in the museum before the infestation of the noisy, 'energetic' children filled the museum. Because I am a fan of sports, I thoroughly enjoyed the museum - though it made me miss my brother.

I snapped a couple of photos inside the museum, full knowing that they weren't allowed and that I'd be told off for it. And indeed, after these two photos I took, a polite gentleman came along and gently advised me that photos weren't allowed. I played the dumbass tourist.

There were trophies and tributes aplenty. It was just a shame that I could barely hear myself think what with all of the squealing and shrieking from the schoolkids. Bah.

When I got back to the hotel, I received a message from Tully saying that she had to cancel our lunch. Needless to say I was disappointed, since I was really looking forward to seeing her again.

I didn't have much motivation from there on in to do anything particularly productive with the rest of the day. I could've gotten my act together and gone to check out St Kilda, though I honestly couldn't be bothered. Instead, I had a little wander around Melbourne Central (again) and across the road at the QV Plaza. I was gobsmacked that all this time there was a San Churro across the road from me. I mean, WHAT? How could I have not noticed it before?!

This time, I went in there, and bought a couple of truffles FOR MYSELF.

Controversial, I know!

The one on the left is a white chocolate and chilli, and the one on the right is a dark chocolate and eucalyptus. I love the combination of chocolate and chilli, and due to white chocolate being much sweeter than normal chocolate, they were able to let loose with the chilli powder. Super spicy madness! And I loved it! :-D As for the eucalyptus, I could smell it, but couldn't taste it. It was an interesting sensory conflict.

So I spent the majority of the rest of the day in my hotel room, drinking peach iced tea and watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on my laptop.

Some would say, gathering my strength for the chocolate tour tomorrow!

Wake me up before you Gogo

2008-08-20T20:30:00.012+12:00

After arriving back at the hotel rather late after The Great Ocean Road tour, I was far too tired to get up and go running in the morning. But I was definitely not too tired to get up and meet Desci again for breakfast.

I must say, waiting for her while she was walking up Swanston Street was quite awesome, a lovely simple pleasure. I spotted her, looking super cool, a super luscious vixen in full stride. Then I waved to her, and she broke out into what possibly was the biggest grin I'd ever seen. Maybe she hallucinated and thought I was... I oh I dunno... David Sedaris?

She took me to Home Barista Instutite on Victoria Street (I think?). Don't be fooled by the salmon on the website, they do a damn good chai. Awww, Lee would be so proud.

Both Desci and I ordered some fruit toast, and Desci ordered some Bircher Muesli in addition.

This made the meal seriously huge, and I was more than happy to help her tuck into it, hee! If you're ever there, I recommend a SMALL chai and a bircher muesli - it's a fabulous breakfast; a super delicious way to start the day.

From there, Desci took me to Brunswick Street in Fitzroy to peruse some of the shops.

Like the majority of Melbourne, I loved the random artwork. Go down a laneway, and you are faced with a mural.

Like so.

So purdy!

And just my luck, look at what I stumbled on on Brunswick Street. A repeat of what I'd encountered on Chapel Street, a branch of San Churro!

I am smiling, really. I'm not pretending to be a turtle by trying to see how far I can stick my neck out. I bought four boxes of chocolates for gifts to take back home, and absolutely boggled the poor girl working the counter when I handed her a hundred dollar note. Bah, these bloody money exchange places and their hundred dollar notes - I feel so damn conspicuous carrying them around.

After being shown around Brunswick Street, we got on the tram back into the city - after a brief stop off at Big W to get Desci a towel - we bid a very hasty farewell at Melbourne Central mall where she headed off to her Combat class and I rushed to shovel some food down my gob before going to Wicked, which was showing at The Regent theatre.

Somehow, with two minutes before the show started, I zoomed out from the mall, ran down Swanston Street (because it was faster than waiting for a tram to come...!) and arrived at the ticket office for the Regent Theatre spluttering between breaths, "Hi *inhale*, I'm *inhale*, picking up my *inhale*, ticket?" The polite man at the office asked for my name and it was easier for me to rummage through my bag and hand him the printout from the intarwebs and hand it to him. He saw my foreign name - with a common surname! - and understood. He handed me my ticket promptly, and politely wished me to enjoy the show.

I managed to collapse into my seat two seconds before the lights dimmed and the orchestra started up. How I managed it, I have NO idea.

What I realised when the show started was that there were SHITLOADS of kids. Given how many evening performances I've attended, I've forgotten how many schoolkids go to matinee performances. In fact, that was one thing the schools I went to encouraged - I saw Phantom of the Opera and Leah - a reverse gendered interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear - through school, and it was quite cool. Though now I see how we must've driven the other theatre attendees absolutely mad.

I enjoyed the first half of the show, but my blood pressure was feeling some ill effects with all of the giggling and the getting up and down out of seats and the whispering and the 'ewwwwwwwwws'. Thankfully, Desci had insisted that I treat myself to an Ozmopolitan cocktail, and when intermission hit, I was at that bar before the lights had even been restored. And it was fan-freaking-tastic. AND all of the schoolkids were jealous because they couldn't have any. AND it came in an awesome light up martini glass. HAH! It made the second half all the more sweeter as I guzzled the thing down far too quickly and snuggled in in a semi-drunk manner.

Obviously, I couldn't very well be taking photos in the show, so here's a selection of ones I've poached off the intarwebs.

It was a great show, I'm glad I went, though I did miss having company with me to yabber about how awesome the set and costumes were and how big Anthony Callea's head looked in a strange attempt at being munchkinified.

With the Regent Theatre being a stones throw away from Federation Square, I decided to check out ACMI.

However, yet again, the place was filled with children. And the free exhibit area was closed off since they were swapping the exhibits around. Bloody timing, aye? So, I just wandered around inside the building.

It looks much cooler from the inside than it does on the outside. It's a real shame that I didn't get to explore it, though with the number of kids there I was lucky to find little airpockets where I could take photos without shrill squeals bouncing off the walls.

I wandered back up to my hotel and slobbed out, still tired from the day before. I managed to get my act together and call Kathryn who writes at iDiet, who herself sounded really tired, poor thing. She had suggested I tag along to a Gogo dancing class that she regularly goes to, and I was really looking forward to it. It's certainly not something that you would normally go to experience on a trip overseas.

When the time came, I waited for Kathryn near the train station and we made the brief walk to the halls where the Gogo dancing class took place. The class was full of colourful, vibrant people, and the instructor who lead the classes was an amazing, lively woman who just blew me away with her charisma.

Given that we were in the throng of the Bejing Olympics at the time, she declared the class the 'Gogolympics', with three miniature trophies to hand out to the class members for Best Technique, Best Newcomer, and Most Enthusiasm. The story that she told us about how she bought the trophies is one I will continue to tell and tell again.

Gogo Dancing Instructor	So I went into the dollar shop and I asked the lady who worked there...
Gogo Dancing Instructor	"Do you have any of the novelty medals? Like the ones they give out in the Olympics?"
Gogo Dancing Instructor	And she says to me...
Gogo Dancing Instructor	"NO!!! EVERYBODY ASKS!!!
* Class guffaws

I had a great time, and the dancing was fantastic. A lovely, refreshing experience. Kathryn walked me back to my hotel, and it took us several attempts to get a photo with both of our heads in the frame. Of course, it was only after several attempts that I realised I was holding the camera with my right hand instead of my left - being left handed. UH. Whadda stoopid.

Kathryn - you are a super cool woman, and it was really great meeting you. It would be great to catch up again (hopefully we both won't be so tired second time around!)

I'd managed to precook my dinner (somehow!), and sat down and tucked into it.

Just like every day in this trip so far, this day was fabulous and full of memories that I'll be carrying with me forever. Desci, and Kathryn - two great bloggers and two fabulous people; both are too cool for words to do them justice. And I got to spend time with both of them. How lucky am I. :-D

On the Road Again

2008-08-19T22:30:00.006+12:00

There were two tours I’d booked when I was back in New Zealand. Two places I wanted to see. Well, there were three, but I had seen that back when I was in Melbourne 13 years ago(!). The Great Ocean Road, Penguin Parade, and a Chocoholics Chocolate Tour. We saw the Twelve Apostles on The Great Ocean Road 13 years ago, though all I remember was my Mum telling me off when I waved to another person’s camera. (I was copying my cheeky cousins. Only they were clever, and only did it when their parents weren’t looking.) I remembered The Penguin Parade rather vividly, because I thought it was Incredibly Rude of the mumma penguins to snub the kids that weren’t theirs.

Kid Penguin	Mummy! Mummy!
Mumma Penguin	Fuck off brat, you ain’t my kid.
Mumma Penguin	turns her back on the kid penguin, waddles off

Today was my tour of The Great Ocean Road. While the start wasn’t any earlier than when I’d been ordinarily getting up while I was here, 6:15am, my dinner with Tully last night meant I got to bed a bit later than normal. After a shower, some cereal, and a slice of gingerbread, I headed off to the pickup point for my tour.

My pickup was at 7:20am, and I, as I seem to be doing quite a bit lately, overestimated the amount of time it would take to walk there. I was around the corner from the pickup point at 7am and already was thinking, “Great. What on earth am I going to do for 20 minutes at THIS time in the morning?”

Fortunately for me, the GoWest tour bus was already there – the driver had his newspaper open and was having a read while waiting for me. He let me in and I picked a single seat on the left hand side of the bus near the front. I was a bit tired and tend to want to sponge out and do nothing in particular whenever I’m on these tours. It was always good doing these tours with my Mum, since she would do the Polite Conversation thing with the driver and anyone else around us, while my brother and I became slobs. I found it more difficult to slob out when I was the only one who could do the conversation-ing.

We went around from hotel to hotel, picking up all of the other participants on the tour. Like with the runs I’d been on, I loved seeing the city at dawn, and being on the bus meant that I got to see parts of the city that I hadn’t explored before.

When we got to the last hotel, there were two girls who needed to get on the bus. Yet, somehow, there was only one seat left. The driver started scratching his head, and dived into his paperwork and started doing a roll call. Throughout his investigation, he found one Japanese guy who was unaccounted for. When he asked him where he was supposed to be, the guy panicked, and ran out of the bus. The driver called out after him, saying, “It’s okay, we’ll take you to where you need to go!”, yet the guy just zoomed off down the road. It was HILARIOUS. We first began hypothesising as to how the guy got on the bus in the first place. The driver had only looked away from the bus for about five minutes to go around the corner to fetch a couple of members of the group. Apparently at that point, the guy just hopped on the bus. He must’ve seen the penguins on the bus and went, “Ooh! Penguins! I’ll take some of that!” and jumped on.

I mean, WHAT?!

Naturally, that put us behind schedule a bit, and the driver was sure to let us know that. He said that he was going to push us through the first half of the day very quickly to ensure that we got to spend as much time on The Great Ocean Road as possible. The first few hours of the drive was on the freeway, and I soaked up as much of the driveby scenery as I could. In other words, I well and truly SPONGED. My parents warned me that this tour would be the most exhausting day of the trip; a 13 hour day. While it was going to be a long day, I was enjoying the sitting down. I’d spent the last two days on my feet, walking around, going back to my hotel room with sore ankles.

I was more than happy to spend the first couple of hours on my arse staring out the window at scenes like this.

And naturally, while I’m not an avid AFL watcher (they screen a big highlights package on pay TV in New Zealand every Tuesday when the season is in progress), as a tribute to Tully, I took a wee video when we drove past Kardinia Park, the home of the Geelong Cats. Some of you might remember her rather… vigorous… celebrations when they won the championship last year. I promptly texted Tully as we went on past and her reply was instantaneous and rather predictable. “Go Cats!”

Yeah okay I know that the quality of the video is shit and you can’t really see much but I’m being the best blogger I can, aight?

As we went along, I started to get thirsty. Lucky for me, not long after, we stopped at an aboriginal cultural centre, no doubt to try and get us to shove some money in their direction, in exchange for a bit of an aboriginal cultural lesson. In the centre there was artwork, aboriginal weapons, didgeridoos, mock ups of traditional aboriginal homes.

I appreciated the stop, and tried to politely listen to the presentation given by Kirsty, a trainee presenter in aboriginal culture and history. I did enjoy looking at the weapons. Spears, boomerangs, clubs with insane knobby bits at the end for a more thug-like ass-kicking experience, oh my.

And there was the two-headed didgeridoo.

We were given a bit of time to wander around. Though there wasn’t much to see. Of course, it was trying to give us enough time to spend our money in the gift shop. Instead, I tried to spend as much time wandering around outside, and I spotted a couple of big stones with aboriginal artwork drawn onto it.

A nice touch, I thought.

Because didgeridoos are not permitted to be played by females, our driver got one of the guys who works at the centre to play for us.

Male or female, playing that fucker is WAY harder than it looks. You have to be able to master a particular form of blowing out and breathing in at the same time. (?!!??!)

We moved on, our next stop, Bells Beach, near the small surfing township of Torquay.

It really was beautiful. Though the driver had really hammered home to us that he wanted everything in the morning to go quickly so that we could take more advantage of the spectacular sights on The Great Ocean Road.

He must have been used to tourists not listening to him. He said very urgently that we were only going to spend 10 minutes at Bells Beach before moving on. 8 minutes after we stopped, all of us were sitting back on the bus, and the driver was shocked. "What?! Are you guys sure you're not from the French Legion or something? You all ACTUALLY listen to me!"

From there, he began hyping everyone up by talking about the greatest man made structure on the planet. The structure that would have us tearing up our postcards of the Arc De Triomphe, The Great Wall of China, and The Golden Gate Bridge.

Oh yes, the structure of all structures, we bring to you...

...The Great Ocean Road Memorial Archway.

TA-DA!!!

Climax fail?

Again, the driver asked us to spend only 10 minutes at the archway, and 7 minutes later, we were sitting on the bus ready to head on.

We were a couple of hours away from our lunchtime stop at Apollo Bay, and saw some pretty... err... pretty, scenes along the way.

As we drove past a lookout, everyone on the bus "Oooo"-ed so much that the driver did a cheeky little reverse down the lane and back into the lookout parking area and gave us a few minutes to stop and take a photo. And hey, like always, we were prompt in getting back on the bus, so it's not like he could COMPLAIN or anything!

Before we hit Apollo Bay, we drove through an area of forest where the tops of the trees had been completely stripped bare. The driver told us that this is evidence of where Koalas live, as they eat through the best tasting leaves at the top, completely stripping the tree. He would go past the sleeping ones - all a novelty to us, who would protest as we zoomed past - saying, "Ugh, there's another BORING one", and finally, he spotted one he liked and stopped the bus.

Trust me, the grey thingey-thing sitting in that tree is a koala. And he's munching.

We got back on the bus, and didn't stop again until we were in Apollo Bay, our lunchtime stop. I ordered a Thai Chicken Burger, with the presumption that it was unhealthy. [Yeah I wanted to eat something unhealthy, dammit!] But they tricked me, and it was burger made with flaked chicken breast and thai green curry paste with heaps of veggies on a wholemeal bun. And no fries on the side. Ah bloody hell.

So after I gobbled it, I went walkabout in the final 5 minutes left in the lunchtime.

And just my luck, look at what I stumbled upon.

Another chocolateir! 'Fantastic!', I thought, 'I can continue buying chocolate everywhere I go!' Though when I walked into the shop and asked the woman which chocolates she had available. She said she had none. HUH? What kind of chocolateir has NO CHOCOLATES??? Because I felt bad, I bought a cookie and took it back onto the bus. How bizarre?

From there, we got onto the good stuff.

The Twelve Apostles...

Loch Ard Gorge...

The Razorback...

And London Bridge.

What you can't really see from the photos is how wet, cold and windy it is.

So much, that delusion began to set in.

Oh dear!

After that, it was back on the bus for a loooong bus ride back into Melbourne; the only stop being in Colac for some piping hot noodles (which went down a treat in the cold) and some awful coffee courtesy of McCafe (which has been kind to me in the past; I hope it was an isolated incident!)

It really was a great day. On a great road. Pun totally intended, and totally deserving.

Chomping at the Churro

2008-08-18T20:30:00.004+12:00

I started off the day with another run. This time, I wanted to make sure I had my camera with me, given that the first time I had gone running, I didn’t have my camera with me. It was a shame because it was such a peaceful morning and it really was beautiful.

This time, the run was not so peaceful. People were beginning to scurry, getting to work, or trying to squeeze in a gym workout before the working week began.

Still, I made my way down Lonsdale Street, running past a curious collection of finance firms, accounting firms, and lawyer firms in amongst strip clubs and massage parlours. As I ran I couldn’t help but think, “I sense a theme…”

The reason why I had chosen to run in this direction today was that I wanted to check out the Telstra Dome. Out of all of the destinations in Melbourne that I had listed to visit, two of them were at no one’s recommendation. As in, I, and only I wanted to go to them. The first was the MCG, the second, the Telstra Dome. (Hah… I sense a theme with those two as well.)

I had planned out where I was going to go, though when I arrived at Spencer Street, I began looking for the footbridge to take me to the Telstra Dome. Most of the famous Spencer Street/Southern Cross station was closed off due to it being so early in the day, so I completely missed it. I felt myself getting further and further away from the Telstra Dome, so I began to run in the direction of where I thought it was. As I ran up the hill, I looked over my right shoulder, and I saw the footbridge right in the distance.

Ah bloody hell. Never mind, I would go across the footbridge on the way back.

What annoyed me greatly was that at this point, the battery on my camera decided to die. It was a beautiful morning, and the pink sky over the Docklands and lashing above and behind the Telstra Dome were just gorgeous, and I was seriously pissed off that the battery happened to die at that point. It’s as though someone up there didn’t want me taking photos - the day before I didn’t even have the camera with me, and today the battery died. Goddamn!

I looped around the Docklands, taking in the crazily coloured buildings and random sculptures and artwork then went up the steps of the Telstra Dome.

I did a lap of the stadium, then crossed the foot bridge and headed back to the city, running down a different street.

By the time I got back to the hotel, it was over an hour since I had headed out. And the back wasn’t complaining at all. Running really is much better for me in Melbourne than at home. Hopefully this’ll be better for me when I get back to Auckland and get into the hills again - though perhaps I should look at finding a flat route to run on.

After going home and having a shower and washing my hair, I promptly headed back down Swanston Street, snapping a few photos of the cathedral before getting on a train at Flinders Street.

I was only going as far as Southern Cross, as all I wanted to do was get some goddamn photos of the Telstra Dome to make up for the morning’s madness.

Just like in the morning, the place was deserted.

As was the Docklands. It was a quiet place, great place to stand and look out to the sea and enter a daydream.

I made a mad dash to get back to the hotel, change into my exercise gear and make a beeline for the Borders. This was the part of my trip that I was easily most excited about - above the shopping, the chocolate, the Telstra Dome and the MCG. I was meeting Desci, who writes Melbourne Human Female, for some Body Combat and some lunch. You may have seen Desci’s comments on DYHAXLIT, though what you guys don’t get to see are the emails that she’s sent me when I’m down. These emails have touched me so much that I keep them starred in my inbox, and revisit them when I’m having a bad day.

She was waiting for me near her gym of choice. I do think it’s a great idea if you’re meeting a blogger to begin with a fun exercise meet. It really loosens you up and instils a strange comradeship that can’t be explained.

Being the passionate Les Mills-er that I am, it was great to see the reach that the Les Mills classes has had all over the world. And it made me feel that much closer to home in a foreign country - to be able to get on a plane and do the same choreography that I would do at New Lynn; it makes it so much easier to get over the intimidation of being in a new scary place.

The the gym we went to was a quaint thing, two studios with wooden floors that were smaller than the smaller studio in New Lynn. What was quite cool was the window at the back of the studio that looked out across the city. Unless someone was abseiling down the window, no one could check out your ass while you were Doing Your Thang in the studio.

The instructor was a great bundle of energy, and reminded me very much of Kris - with a little less crazy. I really enjoyed the class, and gave my vocal chords a good working out, getting into the shouting and whatnot very easily. I did notice though that I was the only one who was breathing so heavily that I could barely speak at the end of each track. I’d like to think it was because I was pushing myself hard rather than because everyone else was fitter than me. Let me be just a little bit arrogant, people.

I enjoyed the class, and was thrilled that I got a hardcore workout in. The fact that it was the second in workout in the day made it even sweeter - I didn’t think I’d manage to do the two-workouts-in-one-day thing while I was over here; undoubtedly there’ll be a couple of days where I’ll be too tired to exercise, so getting two great workouts in is a real bonus.

After the class, I went on a few weights machines and did a bit of stretching, before heading off to the showers. I shake my fist at Australia’s water restrictions - we really are a privileged lot in New Zealand; even when we are in the midst of a crisis, I can’t remember when we are restricted by legislation.

When we were done at the gym, I brought Desci up to my hotel room for some lunch time lovin’, rrrrrrrr!

…

Okay, okay, I lie.

We dumped our gear, and then had a wander down to Desci’s chosen lunch destination - Oriental Tea House.

There, Desci and I just babbled like mad, it was fantastic how we both clicked.

The food was delicious, and the tea!

I bought two packets, one for myself, one for Worker Kay, to take home, it was that tasty. Oriental Tea house is what I’d regard as a slightly upmarket, western-targeted Yum Cha place; making Yum Cha less intimidating for the masses. My experiences with Yum Cha have always been with my Chinese friends, and they’ve taken me to places where they didn’t speak English and the menus written in Cantonese. (And yes, this is in Auckland. I expected that sort of thing when I was in Hong Kong, but I was surprised by the insulated nature of the Yum Cha places.

Oriental Tea House has a great range of high quality, fresh Chinese fare. Desci and I ordered a set lunch menu. Every item was delicious, hot, and fresh. It also helped that the conversation was in abundance and the company was great.

Even after our food was done, we continued to sit and chat. It was only when I got up to find out which delicious tea we had drunk that we made a move. Even after we walked back up to the hotel, we sat down for a while and chatted for a bit longer.

I was ecstatic when Desci suggested that on Wednesday morning we meet up for a bit of breakfast. I enjoyed her company today, and knowing that I was going to see her again? That news probably made my whole week.

I went back to my hotel, had a shower to get ready to meet Tully. Despite being in the middle of a house move, she asked me if I was free to meet her in the evening.

Tully met me and we walked towards Fitzroy, the flat where she will be moving out from and into the suburbs.

The walk was short, nice, and through the Carlton gardens, past the fountain (turned off, again, I shake my fist at Australian water restrictions. Can I give Australia some of New Zealand’s rain, yes?), and the old exhibition hall.

Tully and I chatted for a while at her place, and then after a while, headed off down the road to have dinner at a tapas bar - Anada, on Gertrude Street..

I had never been to a tapas bar before - even though they are popping up in Auckland and I am very curious about them - so the whole experience was very interesting. I would almost call it Mediterranean Yum Cha. We ordered a number of dishes and got to sample many delicious flavour combinations. Well, we looked at the menu and ordered whatever items we could understand. For a lot of the items, I bet you would’ve been able to see the huge question marks floating above our heads, we were that puzzled about it.

Everything that we ate was gorgeous - though I did notice that I seemed to be getting the larger half of everything. Hmmmm, pass it all to the tourist, they’re on holiday, they’re allowed to eat more! Mind you, I *was* staring at everything longingly, so I would gobble up The Larger Half Of Everything with great gusto. And I told myself I’d been for a run AND done Body Combat, so why don’t I just neutralise everything out with the NOM.

The meal ended with some absolutely delectable churros; which I remember Shauna writing about - though I did not consume mine with tea, I dunked those things in the warm melty chocolate like those things had never been dunked before. Really, I would drop one in there and say loudly, “Ah GODDAMMIT” and spend another five minutes trying to fish the bloody thing out. By then, the churro was well and truly dunked.

Tully and her flatmate very kindly drove me around the city, along with Aussie vs. Kiwi banter to boot. It was quite an eye opener seeing the city at night. For the past few days that I’ve been here, I’ve always been cooped up in the hotel at night - seeing nothing but the view from my hotel room - so being able to look at the city at night was a different sort of beauty. Some of the older buildings were lit up, and glowed against the night sky. We went past one building and I went, “oh my god, it’s GREEN!”, as the lights that were alight outside it were, indeed, green. You don’t get to see that during the day.

It had been a long day, though definitely the best day of this trip so far. Desci, Tully, Body Combat, Dumplings and Churros? A damn good day.

Going to the Chapel

2008-08-17T20:30:00.003+12:00

One of the best ways to explore somewhere new is to go for a run, and that’s what I wanted to do this morning, before heading off for a packed day.

I got up just as dawn hit the Melbourne Skyline, and set off down Swanston Street. The city was quiet, peaceful. The only other people out on the streets were those who were still out from the night before; I passed several people surrounded by empty alcohol bottles.

I ran past Melbourne Town Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, and was stunned when I found myself near Federation Square and the Flinders Street train station. These were the places that I had been told to catch a tram to. I hadn’t even been running for 5 minutes! I was amazed that there were so many places nearby, just a stone’s throw from my hotel.

As I crossed the bridge, I looked down on the Yarra River, and out to the MCG. I was going to be taking a trip to the MCG today, and getting a sneak preview on foot was pretty awesome. I ran past the Alexandra Gardens and the Queen Victoria Gardens, as well as the Victorian College of the Arts and the NGV. All were stunning in the crisp, cool morning.

I could’ve easily kept on running. The roads in Melbourne are flat, unlike Auckland which has the privilege of being built on 40 volcanoes. Though of course, however far you run in one direction, you need to run back, so before I ran all the way to St Kilda, I made the turn and headed back to the hotel. Just as well, I built up a small amount of puff on the way back. Nonetheless, nowhere near as taxing as my runs at home.

After a shower and a… very nutritious breakfast of a chocolate biscuit (look, it’s the only food I had at this time, all right?) I quickly headed up to Queen Victoria markets to get some food. I mean really, the chocolate biscuits were all that I had. Take a look at my fridge!

The markets were nowhere near as jam packed as they were yesterday, as I timed myself to stroll on in 15 minutes after they had opened. It was good timing, as most of the stalls had opened up. I had my shopping list, and got everything on it. I got a piece of Tasmanian salmon (which will be my dinner for tonight), some fillets of Dory, some marinated chicken breasts, some broccoli, carrots, lemons, limes, a slab of Turkish bread, and just for good measure, a gingerbread loaf. All I need now is some milk and cereal and I am sorted for food.

I dumped all of my groceries at the hotel, and admired my newly stocked fridge.

It was nice to be able to look into it and see all of the produce, just waiting there to be tucked in ito.

It would have to wait until the evening, though.

I went and took my first look at Melbourne’s train network. I bought a day pass and got on a train from Melbourne Central to Jolimont, and took a short stroll over to the MCG.

I was in awe by the sheer size of the stadium, and took in all of the statues, giving tribute to the Victorian sporting legends.

Despite being a sunny day, it was not a good time for me to rock up at the MCG.

My initial plans had been to check out the National Sports Museum that is there at the MCG, yet the AFL had other plans. The Hawthorne Hawks and Richmond Tigers were playing at the MCG, and getting into the stadium as a member of the public was nigh on impossible. I made a note to come back again another day.

As I began walking over to the Richmond Train Station, I passed many caravans selling greasy food to the AFL game crowd. Remember that all I had eaten by this stage was a single chocolate biscuit, so I was getting pretty hungry. I made a resolution that I would not succumb to the call of the caravans enticing me with hot dogs, fish and chips and burgers, and that instead, I would sit down to a café meal on Chapel Street.

A quick train ride from Richmond to Prahan, and I was on Chapel Street.

The way I see Chapel Street is of a street which is having a bit of an identity crisis. There are elegant boutiques that line the length of the street in amongst run down stores. Add to that the abundance of stunning cafes as well as the rather haggard youth that seem to wander about the streets, and you end up with me describing it as K-Road meets Remuera meets High Street meets South Auckland. To which every Aucklander goes “WHAT?!”

After a bit of wandering, and resisting temptation of barging into the first café I saw, I stumbled upon a nice looking café called The Merino Club.

I walked in, and a waitress promptly greeted me and asked me if I wanted a table. A quick glance around had me deciding that, yes, I indeed wanted a table. I sat down and briefly glanced over their menu. There salads, pastas, sandwiches, though I flipped over to the breakfast menu. It was nearing midday at this point, yet despite this, I wanted something breakfast-ish.

Before I had decided on what I wanted, the waitress asked me if I wanted a drink.

“Yes I’ll have a tri… err… a skinny mocha, thanks.”

Thank goodness for blogging. If it weren’t for my perusing on Skinny Latte, I wouldn’t have realised that specifying low fat milk in Australia is via the ‘skinny’ term rather than in New Zealand where you say ‘trim’. Well, I can’t let Philippa take all the credit for that either - Amanda, when she came to New Zealand, giggled when Lee ordered a ‘trim’ chai latte, and said that she was glad that she’d hear Lee order her drink first as in Australia they call it skinny. It’s all about the branding, I guess - In New Zealand, the main brand of milk’s low fat product is called ‘Trim’ and ‘Supertrim’, and I presume in Australia, it’d be the same thing. I guess I’ll find out when I go to buy the milk when I’m back in the CBD.

I placed my order for a big breakfast. A delectable sounding assortment of eggs, bacon, sausages, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash brown and toast. Hey, I was eating for two meals here. And I HAD gone for a run in the morning. And I had Subway for dinner last night! Come on, people, this was my first PROPER meal in Melbourne!

And it was delicious - though I nearly burned my mouth on the super fresh hash brown. But damn, that hash brown, NOM. If ever you’re in Chapel Street, go to Merino Club and have a hash brown. I swear, while everything on my plate was amazing, that hash brown was the highlight. Oh and the coffee. The coffee was fabulous. A mocha, made with actual chocolate flakes rather than cocoa powder. Oh boy, the difference is monumental. Auckland cafes, take note!

I went searching the streets for a good deal, though everything was out of my price league. I did, though make a stop into Chapel Street Bazaar, an antique and second hand dealer which is chock full of incredible nick nacks and vintage items. The jewellery, oh man. Cranky, I did it for you!

I did leave Chapel Street with one thing other than a full belly. I stopped off into my first chocolateir, and bought a small box with a sample of truffles. In Auckland, there are only three places where you can get fantastic chocolate - Parnell, Sylvia Park, and Devonport. In Melbourne, top quality and adventurous chocolate is everywhere; having already been drawn into the famous Max Brenner store in Melbourne Central (I left though when the store girl kept ignoring me. I’ll be back though, I’m sure.)

From there, I had planned to get onto a tram to go to St Kilda. Having never used a tram before, I gathered up the courage to ask a guy waiting at the tram stop how the trams worked, which one was going to St Kilda, and how did you pay. (Even though I’d bought a day pass for the trains, I wasn’t sure if like Auckland, that the modes of transport were different). The conversation with the guy was bizarre.

Him	Haven’t you caught a tram before?
Marshmallow	No, I haven’t
Him	How can you have not caught a tram before?
Marshmallow	Oh you see, I’m from out of town, I only landed in the country yesterday
Him	Oh, okay. goes quiet
Marshmallow	…
Marshmallow	…
Marshmallow	:-/

The tram arrived and I got on. I thought I’d ask the driver for help. Queue another bizarre conversation.

Marshmallow	Hi, does this tram go to St Kilda
Driver	taps ferociously on sign that says ‘Do not speak to the driver’
Marshmallow	But I’m a tourist, I have no idea where to go
Driver	angrily Read the sign!
Marshmallow	…

I quietly sat down on the tram, hoping that I’d gotten on the right one. I guess I’d find out.

As the tram went along, I got a sinking feeling that I had, indeed gotten on the wrong one. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it just didn’t feel right. I seemed to have an idea in my head of which direction we should have been going in to reach St Kilda, and the travel on the tram didn’t seem to match up to it.

So when I saw a stop for Bridge Road, Richmond, I got off straight away. It wasn’t St Kilda, but it was one of my desired destinations. A road full of factory outlet stores? Sounds like the shopping win!

I walked off in the wrong direction down Bridge Road, where there were no outlet stores, just cafes upon cafes upon cafes. However, I happened upon another gorgeous little chocolateir, and bought another small selection of truffles.

Haw haw! I shall leave my mark on Melbourne with a chocolate purchase wherever I go, yip yip!

When I turned around and made it back to the factory outlet stores, I began to get excited. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. Every store was a disappointment. I would walk in, and there would be no styles I liked, or styles I liked with no sizes, or a style I liked in my size that was exactly the same as something I had at home. It was more of the no styles I liked thing. I adore coats. Though I hate double breasted coats. And that seems to be in fashion at the moment. As with poofy tops that make me look like I’m about to either explode or balloon up into the air. I know with the factory outlet mall in Auckland that it can be very much the luck factor that determines what you get from the factory outlet mall, and I guess I lucked out today.

I settled down in another café with another skinny mocha and a piece of pecan pie.

The coffee wasn’t as good as what I’d had in Chapel Street; it was lukewarm and the beans had been burnt. Not quite Starbucks burnt, but still, burnt. The pecan pie, while nice, was massive, and slightly off in terms of nut-to-pie-filling ratio. I’m comparing to the best pecan pie I’ve had from Pandoro, in Auckland. I have to control myself from getting a slice every time I buy a loaf of bread from there for my grandparents.

Now that I had been on a tram that went in the wrong direction, and having observed the way that people got on and off the trams, I now understood how to use them. I thought about the amount of time I had left in the day and decided that St Kilda would have to wait for another day. I got on (the correct) tram and headed back to the city. I popped into Coles and bought some milk and cereal, and headed back to the hotel, with very sore ankles.

I tucked into my Tasmanian Salmon for dinner, and after some time sitting up in bed writing this diary, I tucked myself in to bed.

Tomorrow will be the most exciting part of my trip thus far. Meeting Desci.

Marshmallow in Melbourne

2008-08-16T20:30:00.004+12:00

The day started off incredibly early, and I mean, early, like, 4am early! I did a whole lot of packing till midnight, so we’re talking only about four hours sleep here, ouch!

My parents took me to the airport and quite honestly, I felt sick to my stomach. This was a very different trip to what I had initially planned it to be. I was going to be all by myself. No company, no one to have dinner with, just me. No one to split the cost with, no one to accompany you in the scratching heads over how to decipher the timetable, and as I discovered when I arrived at the airport, no one to say, “Hey… my bag’s getting pretty full, can I put some of my stuff in yours?”

When I weighed my luggage, it came in at 17kg. My jaw dropped. I had hardly anything in there! How on earth would I be able to take advantage of the Melbourne shopping if I only had 3kg weight to play with?!

For most of my time waiting, I began strategising as to how I would try to ‘smuggle’ most of my clothes back to Auckland. First thing would be to wear all of my packed underwear at once, layered on top of each other. Same with the socks and with the few singlets and t-shirts I’d brought. You can call me insane all you like.

I was really thankful that my Mum and Dad stayed with me for as long as they could, right up until I went through into security, the passengers’ only area. I hugged them goodbye, knowing that I would miss them terribly.

During the flight, one of the attendants’ spilt water all down my side, then fifteen minutes later, another attendant spilt MILK down the same side! What is it with these people?!

Because I’m a big kid, I didn’t watch any of the intelligent movies that they were showing in their 82 movie selection (!?!?!), and opted for… hehehe… Kung Fu Panda and Cars. I have no shame in it people, I have no shame.

We landed at the airport on time, and was looking forward to setting foot on Melbourne soil. My stomach was in knots, this time, I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t hunger or excitement or sheer OMG I WANNA GO HOME.

However, when the airport went to taxi to the gate, there was another plane using it. We were initially told that it would be a few minutes until the plane moved away from the gate and we could then leave the aircraft. This turned into 15 minutes, into half an hour, then before you knew it, we were waiting for an HOUR. You could feel everyone getting irritable and restless.

And that before going through the customs and baggage claim waiting times. Ugh.

So that chewed up a significant amount of time. What also chewed up a bit of time was trying to find out where the hell my airport transfer was. Thankfully, I found it and was the lone passenger on a minibus from Melbourne Airport to the inner city. As we pulled away from the airport, Melbourne’s weather didn’t feel much different to what I had left behind in Auckland. If anything, it was the same but a couple of degrees cooler. (Just how I like it. Hee!)

When I arrived at my hotel, my room wasn’t ready, and so I was told to come back a few hours later. I asked them if I could leave my luggage with them at reception, and thankfully, they let me. It was then that I went for my first walkabout.

15 minutes later, I had spent $150. HUH?!

I ventured to the Queen Victoria markets and was drawn in by the call of luscious leather jackets, in chocolate brown. I was a little terrified when the girl handed me a size 18, for a moment all like, “ExCUSE ME?”, though I’ve always found that market clothing tends to from crazy destinations and the sizing is all kinds of bizarre. I do recall a great post that Kenz wrote about the ups and downs of clothes sizing due to woefully inconsistent sizes.

Queen Victoria markets are incredible. Wall to wall of amazing produce, great deals… I really do no justice trying to describe it. You might say I was lucky to come out of it with only one jacket’s worth of damage. I was though, tempted by a t-shirt that said, “But… what if Google was wrong?” Oh say it ain’t so!

Then, I wandered around Melbourne Central Plaza, the mall right next to my hotel. In fact, I can actually see it now, as I type this. It was like a labyrinth, that place. Incredible, but the maze of all mazes. I look forward to being able to explore it a little better sometime.

All of this took place over a four hour period. When I arrived back at the hotel, it’d only just been cleaned. I finally got to go up to my room and take a break. I put the Olympics on TV, unpacked my things (which reconfirmed that I really, had not brought much), and set up my laptop on the desk.

The room feels a lot like Sarah-II’s old apartment in Auckland City, so I strangely felt very comfortable. I planned out the next day’s events, and did a bit of writing on the laptop. And ate some Mallowpuffs that got damaged in transit. (Too busted up to be gifted to anyone. For real.)

While it’s somewhat sad that my first dinner in Melbourne was a foot long chicken fillet sub from Subway, I wanted to go back to the market tomorrow with a LIST of what I needed; else I’d be very easily drawn into buying the whole damn place.

So, Melbourne. Here I am. Get ready for me, I will unleash myself tomorrow.

Them Japs and their Marshmallows

2008-05-11T12:56:00.001+12:00

It's official. The Japanese are freaking awesome.

I don't understand you. Can you please repeat that?

2008-04-21T07:59:00.004+12:00

The company that I work for has two sides of its operations. The first side of it is CRM Software development, which is the side of the business that I work on.

The other side - which is the more stressful side - is the call routing side, where we deploy and support systems for call centres; phone menus 'Press 1 for [...]', etc.

Worker Bee was on the phone, as he often is, and being the lucky person who gets to sit next to him, I hear his end of a lot of conversations.

One day though, he was on the phone, and I heard a very different sort of conversation.

Worker Bee	...
Worker Bee	Phone's cut off
Worker Bee	...
Worker Bee	Phone's cut off
Worker Bee	...
Worker Bee	Phone's cut off
Worker Bee	...
Worker Bee	Cut off
Worker Bee	...
Worker Bee	Cut off
Worker Bee	...
Worker Bee	Cut off
Marshmallow	Oh my god WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING TO?!

His phone at home had been cut off due to some overzealous line workers, and he was calling through to the company to let them know about it. They didn't have a traditional 'Press 1 for...' menu like the ones that we deploy, they had a speech recognition menu. Supposedly the 'next level up' in terms of call routing technology. The menu said to Worker Bee, "Please tell us whether you would like to pay your account, or if you're phone's cut off."

Worker Bee, told the menu, "Phone's cut off."

The menu said, "I don't understand you. Can you please repeat that?"

In the end, he sent them an email.

And let the evil commence

2008-04-07T07:37:00.002+12:00

Daylight savings ended yesterday and everyone around me is depressed.

...

Which has me thrilled to bits. Mwahaaha. Me likes it when other people a grumpy.

No seriously. I've always hated Summer with a passion, and I'm treated like some sort of antisocial nutjob because of it. Now, I *am* an antisocial nutjob, but not for THAT reason.

Even in casual conversation between normal people, I 'pretend' to think the way that summer lovin' bunnies do. I pretend to agree with them that it's a beautiful day, and that we'd better enjoy it because when Winter comes we'll miss these days.

Pffft! Patooey!

I get very tired and often, depressed in Summer. I have no energy, but cannot sleep because of the heat. Having a fan in the bedroom does nothing, it just blows the heat around, like a hairdryer. I initially started exercising twice, three times a day just so I would get so tired physically that I could get some sleep. And while the exercise is exhausting, it wasn't as exhausting as the lack of sleep.

But now! Daylight savings has ended! I don't need to wake up in the dark anymore, we can do Body Jam at night with the darkness around us - feels just like a night club, yo. Light in the morning, dark in the evening makes SO much more sense to me than the other way around.

And while everyone around me grumbles, I, inside, will be doing a happy dance.

<_<

>_>

*does a happy dance*

Seven Deadly Sins

2008-03-27T17:59:00.005+13:00

Greed:	Very Low
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Very Low
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Very Low
Pride:	Low

I think it's official. I'm the most boring person on the planet. I only got high ratings for 'Sloth' because I showed no moral objection to sleeping in past noon, and for 'Envy' because I said I'd get peeved if I caught my significant other looking at someone else. I don't have a significant other, so I was just guessing.

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

I beat up my last boss

2008-03-18T18:14:00.005+13:00

I spotted this article in my news feed reader, listing the top 10 job interview gaffes.

Reading these makes me think I did pretty good in my job interviews.

Candidate answered cell phone and asked the interviewer to leave her own office because it was a "private" conversation.

Candidate told the interviewer he wouldn't be able to stay with the job long because he thought he might get an inheritance if his uncle died - and his uncle wasn't "looking too good".

Candidate asked the interviewer for a ride home after the interview.

Candidate smelled his armpits on the way to the interview room.

Candidate said she could not provide a writing sample because all of her writing had been for the CIA and it was "classified".

Candidate told the interviewer he was fired for beating up his last boss.

When an applicant was offered food before the interview, he declined saying he didn't want to line his stomach with grease before going out drinking.

A candidate for an accounting position said she was a "people person" not a "numbers person".

Candidate took out a hair brush and brushed her hair.

Though there is one that made myself and Worker Bee absolutely splutter. The stupidity - it just blew us away.

Candidate flushed the toilet while talking to interviewer during phone interview.

I mean, what?! SERIOUSLY?

If I were George Clooney

2008-03-11T12:32:00.003+13:00

George Clooney apparently has been trolling the internets and has responded to the randomnessness.

On Fabio saying he would win in a fight: "Yeah, that's probably true. He's a big guy. There is a moment when you are actually in the argument and you're thinking, 'If I do get beaten down by Fabio, that will be far worse than the pain. I wouldn't shake that."
On a website calling him "gay, gay, gay": "No, I'm gay, gay. The third gay – that was pushing it."
On Rupert Everett calling the Oceans movies a "cancer" that are "destroying us": "Where did that come from? You kind of go, Dude, weren't you in Dunston Checks in?"

And my personal favourite.

On Brad Pitt: "Well, you know, if I was a girl and he was a girl, and I was a lesbian and he was a lesbian, I'd be all over him."

My respect for him just increased nine times.

Anyone who can be that random deserves points.

What? I'm just reading...

2008-03-09T11:47:00.004+13:00

A bunch of relatives came over for dinner last night. I always despise these gatherings on so many levels - firstly because dinner typically gets served at about 10pm, and I've managed to devour a loaf and a half of bread by then due to the hunger.

But mostly because of the abusive behaviour. My relatives are nasty nasty people, and since I fail on so many requirements of their Ideal Indian Girl criteria, they feel the need to point out my 'flaws' every opportunity they get. You're too fat. You're not a lawyer. You're not a doctor. You're not married. You don't have kids. You don't speak the language and I don't care if noone taught you because you should know anyway. And so forth.

They also seem to 'help themselves' to me. Grabbing my limbs and bit of my body to point out "Eh! Look at how flabby this is!", since I am not a human, and I do not therefore, deserve respect.

As demonstrated by my grandmother last night.

Marshmallow's grandmother walks up to her and starts poking at her right breast
Marshmallow	splutters Excuse me?!
Marshmallow grabs grandmother's hand and pulls it away from her
Marshmallow	Just what do you think you're doing?!
Marshmallow's grandmother makes a face
Grandmother	I was just reading your shirt
Marshmallow	There's no need for you to poke and prod AT MY BOOBS to read my shirt!
Marshmallow's grandmother laughs
Grandmother	You're a very strange girl
Marshmallow	:-S

And we have... err... lift off.

2008-03-07T22:57:00.001+13:00

Prettyness has been completed.

Now I just need to find some funny stuff to blog about.

Hmm. I foresee this to be a rather challenging task.

Is this thing on?

2008-03-05T11:18:00.003+13:00

Errr... sorry its been so long.

There really hasn't been much funnies going on.

Though watch this space. I'll be redoing the CSS for this blog, and once it's all pretty to my standards, there'll be more to come.

Hot Coffee Girl: crankier old lady

2007-08-24T12:04:00.000+12:00

I've been using a 'Recommended Reading' category on DYHAXLIT for weight loss related posts, though upon reading this awesome rant by Hot Coffee Girl, I think it's about time I started a category on here for the same thing.

Things are different back than they were in my day. Women have the right to vote, they are in the workforce, they can fix cars. You, as a gender, are not nearly as instrumental as you once were to our survival. Hell, gals these days can even stop off at a store and get things that can take your spot (pun intended) in the bedroom. Consider this when you walk around like you are god's gift to women. You're replaceable. Get over yourselves.

Read! Stat!

Extremely Supportive

2007-07-25T14:43:00.000+12:00

My work building just had a fire alarm go off, and the whole building had to be evacuated.

But before I go into that, let me explain a bit about the support calls I take at work. The company I work for support a major telecommunications company (think along the lines of Vodafone or Telstra- let's call them... errr... Pingu), and when they have problems with their call centre software, they ring us up and ask us to fix it.

I'm currently in training, so I take the calls that don't get answered by the other two support staff. They've actually started getting lazy while I've been here and deliberately don't answer the phone because they both know that I'll pick it up. I don't have a proper support phone, so the calls that they miss get diverted to a cellphone, which sits on my desk. I guess the idea is that I can walk around with it and ask the others for help and so on and so forth.

So we just had this fire alarm. We evacuated the building, and while all of us were standing outside, one of the other support staff gasped and said, "Who's got the support cellphone??? What's going to happen if we get a Pingu call and noone answers it???"

:-/

It's a fire alarm causing an evacuation, I think they'll understand.

Heart of Ice

2007-07-23T08:53:00.000+12:00

It was pretty cold this morning. Nothing worthy of complaining about, I had hot water in the morning, no pipes had burst, we still had electricity (before any South Islanders begin whinging about poncy Aucklanders - honestly, *some* Aucklanders have better things to do than whinge all day.), so I was just getting on with it. Sure, I would've preferred staying in bed and not going to work. Sure, I would've liked to have snuggle up with a hot chocolate and the latest Harry Potter book. But such is life; you're better off just getting on with it instead of wasting energy and time complaining.

When I leave the house after having breakfast, this is what my routine is.

Walk down the driveway.
Turn on the car's engine.
Turn the heater on - both to warm up the car, and demist the inside of all of the windows
Walk around the outside of the car, using a squeegee to wipe down the outsides of the windows.

1, 2 and 3 all went to plan. Though when I made the first movement with the squeegee on the front windscreen to wipe off the condensation, I heard a KRSHHHHH and saw that the windscreen appeared to be as it was before - meaning, opaque. You couldn't see through it.

That was when I realised. My windscreen was freaking FROZEN. That wasn't condensation on it, it was ICE.

I've heard of The Days when the windscreen used to freeze in the morning, but apparently Global Warming had taken care of that. I guess New Zealand's winters have other ideas.

Oddly enough? I didn't find this irritating or horrifying or angrifying in the slightest. I thought it was freakishly cool.

Adieu, fair students - Part 1

2007-07-17T17:08:00.000+12:00

It was rather fortunate that my last semester as a University tutor had me come across probably a nicer bunch of students than I've had to deal with in the past.

The very first semester I tutored, the whole of the class was fine apart from one student who was crazy upon crazy. Sarah-II said that she'd never encountered a student like this one, EVER. And to make this even more memorable, others in the department said it must've been about thirty years at least since a student like this one came along. So how lucky was I to have such a problematic student to deal with first off the mark?

The second semester, it wasn't ONE student that was causing all the problems, but a collection of them, whose favourite past time seemed to be whinging about how they couldn't do the work that they never put any effort into. The one moment that sticks in my head about that semester was when a gaggle of them followed me from the lab to Sarah-II's office - Sarah-II was sick at the time and had told the students to leave her alone since she didn't want to infect them (how considerate) - to whinge about how they couldn't do the lab work. Sarah-II went back to her worksheets to try to make them easier, but then got angry with them all since it was a STRUGGLE to make the tasks any easier.

The semester following that, there was one guy who smelt very bad, one guy who had a problem with authority and kept on challenging you in an arrogant sort of way, a deaf student who was incredibly talented but didn't sit the test because he went to a camp in the South Island (yeah... I'm puzzled by that one too), and another student who used to take ten minutes to ask a question. As in, it took him ten minutes to get the words out. AND he used to ask questions at that pace in class. Oh sweet mother of mercy.

This final semester - there was no sign of the crazy students who would harass us for hours with demented justification as to why they deserved an A+, not a C. No sign of students who would whinge about how exercises were just soooooooo hard without putting any work into it. No sign of arrogant sorts, no talented deaf people who took off to the South Island when the largest assessment before the exam was upon them, no bad smelling students, and no students who took ten minutes to ask a question.

There weren't even any signifiant plagiarisers. We had dramas in the past of students copying quite badly. I was beginning to think that this was going to be a boring semester.

I attended one lecture - Sarah-II probably thinks I was being a good tutor, but really this was my coping strategy from staying away from the cafeteria line - and Sarah-II covered some certain material. Sounds fair? A guy comes down to ask her some questions about the assignment after the lecture is over. Fair enough, I've seen this sort of thing before. And Sarah-II is very approachable, unlike several lecturers I've encountered before.

I later attended another lecture, where Sarah-II covered some different material. The same guy comes down to see her after class to ask her questions; but on the material that was covered in the last class I'd attended. This would be okay, if he was asking for clarification on content he didn't understand, but in actual fact, he was asking how to do a certain thing in the assignment. Sarah-II is much too nice to the students in that she says, "This is how you do [x] in the assignment" when she's teaching the content.

Apparently, this was a common thing for Sarah-II. Every time after class he'd come down to ask her questions on how to do the assignment when she'd clearly stipulated them in the previous lectures. You'd think by the sixth or seventh time he'd actually realise that the stuff taught in class is ACTUALLY USED in the assignments? Perhaps?

I mean WHY would you come to class, and spend a whole hour sitting there, if you were only going to ask questions about it later? I totally get it if you don't understand something, or tried to do something and got stuck, but this guy hadn't even attempted the stuff and was wandering on up to Sarah-II as if she'd never taught the material before.

She HAD, and he was THERE when she taught it. I saw it with mine own two eyes.

What clean teeths you have

2007-07-05T08:18:00.001+12:00

Seeing as it's been omgwtfbbq length of time since I've updated this blog, I thought the natural thing to blog about upon my return would be another thing that I've abandoned looking after.

My teeth.

On the 6th of June, I went to the dentist for the first time in about 5 years. Needless to say, I was terrified. Every time I'd been to the dentist thus far, someone had looked at my teeth, gone, "Your teeth are fine", and then charged me $70 for it. Now, after a bit of tartar build up and a more importantly because of a discount being run at a new dentistry , I decided to brave a visit.

I haven't ever had a professional teeth cleaning before, so when the dentist sat me down and explained that my teeth might be a bit sensitive afterwards, and that 'a bit of bleeding is normal', the first thing that crossed my mind was "Huh... NOW I see why people hate dentists."

He told me that if things got a bit uncomfortable, I could stick my hand up and he'd back off and give me a break. Of course, I wanted to be all macho and impress everyone and tolerate THE PAYN without taking any breaks at all.

The first few minutes were fine. A bit of scratching and grinding against my teeth, that while feeling odd, weren't paiful. But THEN when he got to the area where the teeth meets the gum, it got SORE. Oh so sore. SO DAMN SORE. I was trying to scrunch my face up in pain, but given that I had a bazillion different dental instruments stuck in my mouth keeping it wide open, there wasn't much face scrunching going on. It felt like an age, but he wasn't moving on. He was working over the same set of teeth, and I kept on trying to tell myself that once he move on to different teeth, that it'd be okay. He was working very hard to get 5 years worth of build up off there, but it hurt. After a couple more minutes and some tears that had managed to slip out from the sides of my eyes, I sheepishly stuck my hand up. Immediately he backed off and let me sit up and take a break. So much for being macho.

This went on for about 45 minutes, and several more hand-stick-ups for pain reprieves.

You would think after that, I would have stunning white teeth that gleamed in the sun like someone from a dishwashing liquid commercial. I looked in the mirror and didn't immediately see anything different. I thought, "45 minutes of pain for THAT?!" But upon closer inspection, he'd gotten rid of all of the tartar from my bottom front teeth, and there was a lot of build up there. What was also there was the scabs from the blood. And they continued to hurt for days to come. Eeesh. Whoever thought that soft bread rolls and soup could look so comforting?

Monkey on the seat

2007-03-05T23:04:00.000+13:00

In some kind of freakish follow on from the last toilet post, I spotted this in the Engineering building at Uni today.

I so raise my eyebrow in a quizzical manner.

'Herb Infused' Chicken

2007-03-01T23:09:00.000+13:00

Now this is damn hilarious.

Police and fire safety officers are carrying out investigations after finding 1,000 cannabis plants at the scene of a fire north west of Auckland.

Eight fire appliances were needed at the rural address near Coatesville where a single story chicken shed was ablaze.

Police say fire-fighters smashed a hole in the side of the chicken shed thinking they were going to rescue thousands of chickens. But once inside, instead of poultry they found more than 1,000 cannabis plants growing in the shed.

Police spokesman Kevin Loughlin says the cause of the fire was an overloaded switchbox which had been generating a considerable amount of electricity to assist with the growth of the plants.

The owner of the farm is being questioned by police.

Public Issues

2007-02-22T22:52:00.000+13:00

After getting off the bus one day I paid a visit to the public facilities, and spotted this helpful sign.

Do I want to know the reason why?

Probably not.