10AM – After check-out, I was outside the 14°C streets of Flinders sitting on my luggage as I wait for my ride.
Ahhh.. UBER, my old friend.
If you’re a young professional who often works late and is located in cities riddled with crime, pretty sure I can speak for you. The absence of UBER in the Philippine market is upsetting. It’s been a month as I write this and I am well within my right to still be annoyed by such turnabout.
Before I go back to my Aussie log: If you want to read more sentiments about UBER leaving the SE/PH market, the Twitterverse got you covered.
Going back to Australia
For practicality, I could’ve easily walked from Accommodation #1 to Accommodation #2 but I don’t want another round of struggle transporting my half-my-size luggage along with some other stuff. To be fair, I’ve carried, dragged, dropped (by accident of course), and even made two trips of subway staircases just to transport suitcases from one floor to another. My rebellion to deter suffering justified my laziness.. but to my great disappointment….
I entered the wrong pin location on the App and ended up walking anyway (while dragging my baggage). After 5, okay.. 10. After 10 minutes of looking for Accom # 2, as it was still early for check-in, they were kind enough to store my luggage for free.
My mind is set on Brunswick, got 9.5 hours to spare until I meet my sister who’s flying out from QLD. It’s Day 2 and I still don’t know how to use the tram. Since Accom #2 is located around Power Street, nearest station would be Flinders Street Station. It was a nice breezy walk to the station, the trees were golden and the sun has allowed the sky to be as blue as it can be. Everything is at the height of perfection until something tragic happened – I can’t find my earphones! LOL
Touchdown Brunswick— A hip Melbournian suburb filled with brewery, live music, unique shops and so much more. Sky’s getting cloudy tho’.
To address my headset drama, I passed by a shop that sells cheap items and grabbed the first headset I could find.
I immediately got wired up to test the sound quality and yes, it sounds very sht. For some bizarre reason, it was quite a listening experience.. like listening to an old scratchy vinyl record. I momentarily felt like I was in a 70’s-80’s movie or something. Maybe because I was listening to the likes of The Beatles to Bob Dylan; and the charm of Brunswick heightened and added a cinematic feel to it.
As I was waiting to cross the street. I heard a screech and within my peripheral was an old man on a bike asking a very uncomfortable question. He delivered his query in such a hasty and loud manner. The haste in his inquiry would make you think that you were in a game show and the pressure to answer was on.
“AREYOUMARIED?!!!! DOYOUHAVEABOYFRIEND?!!!” No “Hello”, no “Hi”, dude went straight.
I’ve decided to be open-minded and kind. Maybe he was just asking about the health of my non-existent marriage and would just like to offer marital advice as a follow-up. Maybe he was on the brink of a scientific discovery (explains the haste) and the next logical step is to specifically find the spouse of the first 5ft+ person he sees on the street to affirm his breakthrough.
There’s no way that he’d ask a complete stranger to be his partner, right? “Who would do that to someone” I said to myself while I was checking for leaks in my metaphorical bubble of being-oblivious-to-things.
That or I just robbed the world a cure for cancer.
“WHAT’SYOURNAME?”
The guy prompted, totally ignoring my unresponsiveness. I turned to him and managed to put on a friendly face, me:
Then I quickly walked away when the long-awaited pedestrian signal flashed the literal green light of safety. Always be irrationally afraid, a nudge from my inner anxiety.
I took the trouble of walking a great distance (a whopping 2km walk, LOL) because I was looking for a particular foreign exchange company. I once converted my USD at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport last year and suffered a US$100 loss due to bad rate. Never again.
This time, I only loss US$22. Yay?
15:20 – I started to get hungry after a session of street photography plus I need to temporarily retreat to some place warm. I passed by a lovely restaurant called Lucy Lockett.
Half an hour later, he ended my misery when he saw Hobbit-me struggle to finish my plate.
“Are you done with your dish, darling? Would you like me to take your plate away?”
Defeated, I nodded.
Not that it wasn’t good, it was actually delicious! I was pleased with the saltiness + potato + crisp ratio of the fries too. It’s just that I don’t have enough real estate in my tummy anymore 😉
https://www.facebook.com/lucylockettbrunswick/
18:00 – I was supposed to go to St Kilda for some BBQ with a couple of people from Couchsurfing but I was wearing something that would make hypothermia the cause of my untimely death. So I just went back to Southbank to check-in at Accommodation #2.
On my way back, the wind blew at my direction and the smell tripped up my olfactory system. It was from a GIANT truck full of lambs (pronounced as waambs, you’re welcome). Lambs! Layers and layers of wambs. My goodness, that made me stop my stroll to admire the wittle wambs. The truck was so big it made my head scan panoramically. Not exaggerating.
The fuzziness in my heart was immediately replaced by a stabbing realization: By object association of.. again, a GIANT truck full of lambs plus the uncertainty in the air.. my brain has processed the bitter information I was trying to suppress and concluded that *insert really foul language here* they’re going to be slaughtered. That made me really emotional as I was on my period that time. I felt pain and was terribly heartbroken for my wooly friends.
I tried to erase what I saw and conjured up a self-therapy session for myself by myself. So.. that didn’t work. I guess I’ll just be unhappy forever.
21:00 – Met with my sister who arrived from Brisbane along with the rest of the Melby gang. Capped off the night with a frustrating Nintendo Switch game of Overcooked after a fulfilling dinner of catching up, pizza, and more pizza.
