City Circle on a Friday Night

Despite all the turmoil of being thrown to the deep end of the pool where I’m very much left to my own devices, when I’m feeling more settled with the roller coaster of emotions (which pretty much boiled up on the recent weekend) finally dissipated and I can take a step back and gauge the aftermath, I find myself really, really enjoying Melbourne.

Perhaps it’s the cooling winter that I’ve finally gotten accustomed to, but a walk around Melbourne – or even aboard the tram – elicited sights and sounds I found refreshingly new and soothing. The pedestrian crossing system, for instance, is utterly efficient that it allows anyone at all to walk around safely in the city, and because of this and the ridiculously high prices for parking, most people elect to walk and take a train/tram as a mode of transport. I’ve found Hong Kong to be particularly stifling with the heat and the suffocating amount of people converging everywhere, but Melbourne.. it’s a different thing altogether. It sounds almost ridiculous saying this, but there’s something beautifully poetic about crossing the road when the pedestrian’s traffic light turns green – that loud, rapid “tik tik tik” sound, a horde of people crossing and passing each other in an organised manner at that instant, the blinking red which signifies that you shouldn’t cross if you’ve yet to do so, and the final static red.

Motorcycles, for instance, nearly don’t exist. Where in the dusty, almost smoggy roads of Kuala Lumpur you’ll find kapchais (cheapo motorcycles) zipping through the streets in the traditional Mat Rempit style, in Melbourne you’ll find nothing of that sort – just some Hayabusas occasionally parked by the street, and I’ve never seen them in action yet.

So really, travelling to and fro from my place to the CBD often brings about a new experience of sorts – I overheard this Japanese guy while I’m in the City Circle Tram speaking in Japanese to his Japanese girl-friends, and later on, turning towards a European friend of his, he speaks English with a flawless Aussie accent that I was taken aback. Which reminds me of the time I boarded the AirAsia X plane to Melbourne where this Chinese senior citizen who at first spoke the Aussie-accented English to the passengers sitting next to him, and when he asked them if they’re more comfortable with speaking English or Chinese and they chose the latter, his Chinese was impeccable – the melodious mainland Chinese accent reverberated through his every word, and I was suitably impressed. It’s being very proficient in two very different languages that I strive to achieve, and when someone else is able to do that, I can’t help but have a sense of envious admiration.

I found this to be really amusing – I was sitting on the City Circle tram last Friday night when I was on the way to the University of Melbourne for the free astronomy lecture and the announcements made were just bloody hilarious. If you’ve never sat on the City Circle, then you must know that they have pre-recorded announcements informing visitors which stop they’re at, what famous landmarks and must-visit places are nearby said stops, etc – and I didn’t know this till then, but apparently on Friday nights they have funny announcements being made instead, because I heard something like this: “So tonight is a Friday night, and if you’re drinking don’t sit on the tram. Take a taxi instead. Wait, maybe you shouldn’t even sit in a taxi” or something along those lines lol.

And walking through the city nets you a myriad of multicultural music – mostly performers who want to sell their albums or elicit donations – such as how I encountered a Chinese man playing an unidentified Chinese instrument in the morning and passed by a blues magician at night. And at Queen Victoria Market, depending on what time you go, you may be able to hear a quartet of South African musicians performing.

Earlier this morning, I awoke to the sound of construction and loud repairs being done to our shower room – and when I passed by the tradies fixing it, one of them called out “Hey there buddy” in a rather thick Australian accent. And yesterday at Bourke St as I was about to cross the street diagonally and didn’t see that the road was blocked, a tradie waved me away and said, “Honey, you’re not supposed to cross here” wtf.

Melbourne – or Australia in general – still amuses me even two weeks after arriving here. At every turn and corner there are hidden surprises and fascinating things that you’d never discover in a 4D3N tour package, and even if I were to be here for just a semester, I’d like to think that I’d be satisfied having experienced a day in a life in Melbourne.

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In other unrelated news, I found out that I actually don’t have any evening classes – I attended one earlier at 5.30pm after my first Empirical Studies lecture ended before that (which was pretty interesting btw, and I doubt I’d get the same quality of teaching back in Malaysia so I’m kinda glad I managed to do it here first, even though I think it’s quite time-consuming and work-intensive over here for this particular subject, which my lecturer described as “very flexible”), and on entering, I see many.. working people. And when the International Trade lecturer talked about very similar things as he did on yesterday (Monday), I had the faint suspicion that this could be the class for the part-timers – I asked the Indian dude sitting next to me, and he confirmed my suspicious. I couldn’t be more happy learning about this, as this basically freed up my schedule to do more of other things. :)