Pubgaine 2009

Sunday, 9th August 2009:

I was at the Swanston Library and saw this dude watching porn and some redtube in full view of other people – he wasn’t even in some corner and I’m amazed at the gall that he had. Even more amazing is the fact that my uni doesn’t actually block porno sites but filesharing sites.

Monday, 10th August 2009:
I read this poem and it made my heart twirl – the words and the images leapt out to me and I floated amidst the faint line of existence in those words. It made me want to actually start writing poetry again, and maybe I might just do that one of these days.

Tuesday, 11th August 2009:
Went to the fortnightly CouchSurfing Zone event at Sister Bella again at about 8pm – I stayed right in my uni’s computer lab to do some research for my Empirical Studies (lecture was cancelled today, and there won’t be one next week as well but both lectures will be replaced on a Saturday :(), then headed there alone.

On arriving, there were multiple groups chatting among themselves and I had to somehow jump into one of them. I hesitated, the level of awkwardness was rising rapidly as I was standing there, semi-hoping that someone would notice me and drag me into a conversation – and hence whatever group they were in – immediately. But I spoke to a European girl (forgot where she was from exactly, sorry!), sat next to her, then slowly started migrating to another group when it dispersed.

I got to know Cassie, a local Aussie girl, whom I was engaged in a fairly rapid conversation with (apparently there was a Singaporean guy who dropped by earlier and my arrival sort of replaced him lol). Then when Cam arrived at about 8.45pm, I went over to his table, which Cassie did as well – apparently both of them knew each other already beforehand, and I’d imagine so as they have been in Melbourne and participate actively in the local CS Melbourne events.

Later on we moved back towards the corner of where the meeting was when more and more people were leaving – I ended up talking shitloads to Natalia (from Barcelona, Spain) who’s currently working here and was supposedly in Australia for a year plus now, Bobster (from England) who used to be a lecturer in Melbourne and is currently teaching in a high school (he used to lecture business-related studies too), and Mat, Natalia’s flatmate. Pretty swell bunch as we were just talking the whole night away. (Some of these details may be slightly inaccurate as I had ordered a jug of sangria ($15) which I shared some with like two other people.)

We eventually wound up to be the last CSers to remain, split up with Natalia and Mat, and I walked with Bobster till he left at Melbourne Central Station. Didn’t snap any pictures, but it was a rad night.

Wednesday, 12th August 2009:

Watching Howl’s Moving Castle (cheesy English dubs, sadly :/) at the State Library! It was free and open to the public at its Experimedia hall – and it’s awesome because the chairs are as depicted in the picture in a relaxing, informal manner, plus there were beanbags that we can use too if we so wish! Beautiful animation, splendid, quirky tale, though a wee bit Disney-ish with its happily-ever-after ending.

I found out about this on the CouchSurfing Melbourne’s board where Olad (from Israel) posted up about it, so I met up with him along with Cassie and a few others. We went to grab some after-movie dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant (great food – my meal costs about $8.50) and coincidentally, Natalia and Mat were at the same restaurant too! Apparently they were there to meet up with some other friends of theirs.

Cassie, Olad, and another girl (didn’t get her name) decided to go to a pub called Lala Land but I thought against joining them as I had been drinking a fair bit lately, plus I had some work to do. Regretted it a little, but I suppose I’d see them around again one day.

Thursday, 13th August 2009:
Fun is how you make it to be – I could be an anti-social loner or I could participate in things I want to do even though I wouldn’t know anyone else. By now I’ve gotten really used to meeting and interacting with strangers, so it’s not a big deal – thus joining Pubgaine organised by RMIT Outdoors Club was probably one of my best decisions ever.

After walking around the CBD shopping for a jacket with Ethan, I got myself a $50 waterproof jacket and we ate with his friend, Martin. I left to go to RMIT on Swanston St to use its toilets then went to Bowen Lane, where we were supposed to gather, at nearly 6pm sharp. Understandably there were few people there, but I got myself grouped up with 3 others who didn’t have a group as well – Chiko (mixed Indian, South African, and Australian, who’s also in the navy now but currently studying computer science), Diana (Croatian girl who has been living in Australia all her life), and Florence (aka Eika) (of Singapore, whom I found out actually shared three same classes as me this semester!).

Some guy went up on a tree to make an announcement.

My team, the Fab 4 (Chiko’s idea)! From left to right: me, Florence, Diana, Chiko.

It’s 3.30am at the time of writing so I’ll keep this short – I reckon that having Chiko in our team was a great asset as he’s a great navigator (Diana’s wicked at map-reading too), has incredible stamina, and basically plotted the basic strategy for us (a rough route to use to go through the city) right before we sprinted away. The entire idea of Pubgaine is this: a map is given to us with some 20 marked pubs scattered throughout the city (some in the suburbs); and we have a list of questions for each pub which should we answer correctly, we gain a certain amount of points; and if we order a round of drinks for all 4 of us, we’ll gain double the points! (We actually ordered a round of Coke most of time, just to remain sober and stuff, and we didn’t even finish our Coke each round too. I only paid a round once as I didn’t have enough money on – as was Florence – and both Chiko and Diana seem to be the ones paying the drinks most of the time =/)

And so.. we ran towards our bars. We jogged, we sprinted, we ran across red traffic lights, and Chiko nearly got himself killed when he ran right in front of an oncoming tram near Flinders St. Unfortunately Florence tripped and fell and she sprained her ankle and couldn’t continue – but after confirming with Anne, the organiser, on the phone, we were told that we could continue with just the 3 of us, and in our hurry we left Florence behind to catch a cab by herself wtf.

Don’t know if you can see it clearly ‘cause the camerawork’s pretty bad, but I reckon it could give you a peek at what we were doing. :) We didn’t run too much in the video, but as you can see, Chiko and Diana had time to smoke while running on the go – Diana even had her high heels on!

A few bars that I liked: The Sherlock Holmes, and there was one pretty funky bar at Bourke St (forgot its name) that has elaborate statues/models of ostriches, giraffes, etc. We ordered a round of something non-alcoholic for once – I had a Carlton Draught, and later on some white wine that was similar to what Diana ordered.

We immediately ran out to run straight back to our initial starting point as time was running out (there were some penalties for every minute late) and we managed to jog back on time! Notwithstanding I had alcohol running through my head pretty good after all the runs we made in winter which exaggerate the effects further, but in the end we returned to fun and happiness and relief that we managed to complete it on time, even with an injured team member. In particular, I was glad that I managed to participate in an Amazing Race-like… race, that I’ve always wanted to do which I didn’t actually do in Malaysia due to a lack of interest among my friends.

We had free BBQ (mostly bread with sausages, which ran out pretty quick), some free beer, and as we chatted and mingled out with the others – I recall chatting with a Kiwi guy who was also in the military, who had been to the Batu Caves, the Taman Negara, and Cameron Highland’s (I told him I’ve never been to the first two that he has mentioned); I recall listening to and participating in an animated discussion of Vietnam and the possibilities of a Stripgaine with a Vietnamese guy (who has a pretty damn thick Aussie accent) and Diana; Chiko was getting increasingly drunk and very happy and kissed me on the cheek, and then immediately said that he wasn’t gay but just a bit drunk lol; and overall – I was feeling on-top-of-the-world the whole time.

The following videos are pretty dark, but sigh anyway:

Anne announcing the 3rd prize winners – us!!! It was wholly unexpected, but we must’ve been to like 10 different bars and ordered a drink at nearly every bar, so that must’ve boosted our winning chances considerably. This video was cut short unexpectedly sigh, ‘cause I think I accidentally stopped it.

The winners were being announced.

As third prize winners, we won a 4L wine cask, which we couldn’t drink properly as we didn’t have a glass, so we drank in the following manner:

Drinking wine straight out from the cask – when Chiko did it to me, I had wine just pouring down my shirt and seeping into the fabric.

The New Zealander drinking right out from the cask.

I had a scare myself when I was about to leave, opened the locker to my bag and discovered it was completely empty. Reeling in a minor shock as I had alcohol in my system, I went to complain the matter to Anne, who then directed me to another guy who’d have the Security’s number. But I was told to visit the Security straight away instead which I did, and when buzzed through the intercom, the other guy at the other end of the line asked simply, “Have you checked the other lockers as there are 2 sets of lockers with the same numbers?”

No, I didn’t do that nor was I aware of that at all, and when I went to check the lockers again properly this time around, yes I found my baggage and jacket snugly resting in my locker (which was all completely electronically locked!).

I left at around 11pm and walked all the way back home, reeling from the high from all the fun and alcohol I had, sweaty and smelly – completely stunk of bread, wine, and sweat all rolled into one. It’s times like these that made me love Melbourne very much.

Friday, 14th August 2009:

Enrique of CouchSurfing (the one who organised the social ballroom dancing event previously) messaged me on Facebook asking if I had anything on for tonight – I had none (I told him I that I’ve decided to just stay back at home, and he asked if I could suggest him for something to do (with his housemates and a Korean girl he met) that required only little funds. I suggested watching a movie, but in the end it was decided that we’d either just watch a movie or generally hang out.

I washed up a bit and ran straight out to Flagstaff Station, missed a train by a few seconds ‘cause I was hesitating to enter it and didn’t know where exactly to go, asked the lady at the information counter then went to Platform 2 to take the train to Richmond – and while I was on the way there, I texted Enrique, and when I arrived at the platform, I received two text messages: one indicated that I had a miss-call from Enrique, while the other (also from Enrique) told me that his housemates cancelled on his last minute.. which meant that I had to do the trek back home in reverse, sigh.

CouchSurfing rocks – its Melbourne board particularly – and my only regret is not checking it out more often back when I was in Malaysia.