The Suzuki Night Market

As mentioned previously in my previous post, I’m going to deviate from chronicling my New Zealand trip—if anyone does read them anyway—due to severe time constraints. My earlier plans of gaming like crazy was replaced with a workaholic being, whose daily life here is serenely pleasing with nary an incident—and that, in itself, is its own doom. I go through a routine 12-6 period of working on HS in a library, 7 days a week—and all this assisted by the libraries’ opening hours. My uni’s library doesn’t open on the weekends after our exams, so this is conveniently replaced with a trip to the State Library of Victoria (these 4 words often echo in my head, in that man’s voice booming from the free City Circle Tram whenever it stops at Swanston St) which serves me well, practically a stone’s throw away from my uni’s Swanston St campus.

Since I’m putting my posts on the remainder of my NZ trip in an indefinite backlog, I’ll narrate instead from when I touched down in Melbourne from Christchurch onwards, on the 1st December on Tuesday morning.

My mind was encased in a strange numbing cocoon—I felt tired from my previous night’s somewhat unconventional bed (read: in an airport’s corridor, in a sleeping bag, while trying not to have my bags stolen), and my paranoia of getting through customs kicked in (god knows since when I’ve developed this strange fear), but only in a muted manner. Australian customs have a strict reputation that precedes it—I suppose watching Borders Security almost weekly with my Walsh St Boys has ingrained that fear, even though I wasn’t doing nor bringing in anything illegal.

I found this sign so hilarious I had to snap photos of it: “Channel 7 is filming its Borders Security TV show here today. Please contact the TV crew if you do not wish to be filmed.”. They had it posted at quite a number of places.

So yeah, I cleared customs pretty quickly even though I ticked the checkbox that says yes, I’ve been hiking and have mud in my shoes and have been near freshwater lakes in the last few months, even though I wasn’t sure if I did have mud anyway (my Timberland shoes with its rotting soles may have picked up a few organisms).

Getting on the SkyBus, whose return ticket I bought when I first departed from Southern Cross Station to the airport. Also the dude in red at the centre-right of this pic was in kilts, which I found amusing and oddly fascinating. No one wears kilts in public! (At least in Melbourne.)

As I walked along Spencer St (where the Southern Cross Station is) with approximately 15 kilogrammes of (two) bags in all that 20 minutes back home—home in Melbourne is that AUD$802/month rented room—this rejuvenation spilled forth all over me as if from a spring. The fatigue from my mind lifted slowly like a veil, as the all-too-familiar Flagstaff Gardens came to view, a tram passing by with its horn that sounds like a bell—and best of all, it wasn’t hot. So with two burgers purchased from Burger King at the Southern Cross Station in my hand, I walked that length slowly, occasionally adjusting my bag, wondering if I’ll ever miss the presence of my two neighbours whom I’ve gotten close over a short period of time.

My dusty room greeted me after I said hello to Gloria, my Chinese housemate, and it opened to comfort and familiarity. I sat down, turned on my laptop, watched a Nip/Tuck episode while munching hungrily on my burgers, then went out to the Queen Victoria Market on my own to purchase some broccoli quickly.

On my way to my uni to return 5 copies of library books due on that very day, I saw Ivan who just returned from the market. “For some reason,” he said, “I think you look much older now. I don’t know why..”. Perhaps that acute fatigue I thought was in the backseat surfaced in my face, but I laughed it off and went on with that black PVC RMIT bag containing all my books.

I can’t remember what I did the rest of the day, but I think I stayed on in the library to use its fast Internet connection there, and did some grocery shopping to fill up my fridge (bought a 200pk Homebrand black teabags for AUD$2.39, I’ve actually gotten quite acquainted to sipping tea thanks to my NZ trip whose hostels supplied a ton of those stuff). I cooked minced beef with broccoli and carrots for dinner, but it wasn’t that good.

The next day—a Wednesday—on the 2nd December, I went to the Suzuki Night Market with Ivan, Neil, Kelvin, and Kelvin’s Sibu girlfriend who’s visiting here for about a month, Alexandria.

It was about 7pm+ when we went, and boy was it packed. Apparently it just started a week prior and there weren’t that many people then, but word must’ve got out and more people got to know about it. It will also continue to run every Wednesday night, with performances galore, towards the end of February.

Food stalls with cuisines and other delectables across the world make their appearance there—the above picture shows an African coffee stall and what clearly is a stall selling Australian “delicacies”.

Shitloads of people.

There’s even a lemonade stall! After snapping this pic, it was only then I realised that they have a sign stating no pics should be taken of that stall lol.

I eventually split up with the rest to look for the food we want to eat, and I eventually settled for the Australian stall, for which there was already a long queue.

The menu.

My croc burger for $9, which tasted strangely like chicken. It was terribly annoying to sit there as there were flies buzzing around our food—that brings non-too-sweet memories of Malaysia’s dirty food stalls.

Sangria for $7.50 each. I actually preferred the one sold at Sister Bella’s or even Uno’s in Subang—maybe I should give it a go there at Sister Bella sometime soon.

Ivan and Neil.

Even more people as the sun started to set.

Neil and Ivan buying some fried dumplings (iirc).

We decided to leave with our desserts, but the guards wouldn’t allow Ivan and me to pass as we’ve yet to finish our drinks. I seemed to have forgotten the rule where you can’t drink nor carry alcoholic drinks in public.

A BMW in twilight parked near our place, with a funny car plate.

Chilling out in our balcony, for the lack of a proper word.

A slightly off-centre group pic!

The next day on the 3rd, I was chopping up my broccoli when Ivan hollered from his room’s window, which is just above our kitchen window. I then asked if he wanted to cook together, to which he agreed to, and then Kelvin and Alexandria decided to join in, along with Neil. It almost feels like the good ol’ days again, except that I was with a different set of the Walsh St Boys this time. My dish of minced beef + broccoli + carrots were thankfully alright this time around.

Neil went upstairs briefly, and to my surprise, he whipped out his analog camera and he seemed really excited to show it to me—almost like a kid would with his shiny toy (“Yeah you’ve shown it to me before” Ivan said, lol). And it is a nifty camera. I’ve never handled the classic 35mm camera before, and with this, you’d have to turn a dial in order to hit the shutter button, and hear the mechanical workings in its insides tick—it’s really quite magical. That strong sliding sound from a gear or something inside when you press the shutter feels remarkably satisfying—it’s hard to explain till you get a hold of it, if you’re even remotely interested in photography.

The Canadian with a 1/4 Chinese blood (grandpa’s from China). “That’s why my arms aren’t hairy” lol.

Sweet Alexandria!

And on Saturday the 5th, we were supposed to go to Little Creatures on Brunswick St (a brewery, Ivan told me it was), but we ended up going to Neil’s friend’s place along Swanston St near Melbourne Uni. We took a cab from Elizabeth St / Franklin St to our destination—and it was my first time being in a cab in Melbourne wtf.

I drank some beer, and talked to this Malay dude, Syazwan or sommat (Neil’s friend’s housemate I assume), who has a bloody good command of English with a hint of an Aussie accent—he has been here for nearly 4 years now or so, studying engineering at Melbourne Uni, and he’s actually on scholarship from Petronas with all expenses fully sponsored. When I commented that’s absolutely fantastic as that means he’d also be guaranteed a job (even though he’d be tied down for 10 years WTF), he told me, “Nah, I don’t like the Malay office culture there”. I think I like the dude already hahaha.

Through the haze of my inebriety, we managed to have a very intelligent conversation about education, Haruki Murakami (he reads his books too! +10 points wtf), and my wish to continue with my postgrad in Creative Writing. He commented, “You don’t need to have a Masters in Creative Writing in order to write—perhaps you can look for a workshop in writing or something, which would be much cheaper. Even Haruki Murakami doesn’t have a degree in writing—he merely has a degree in philosophy [which honestly, would really explain his mind-boggling books].” I was fairly amazed at this new insight—and I was quite inclined to agree at that time.

But an MFA in Creative Writing would still be a worthwhile experience I feel—which at this point, I feel like giving up to even pursue it due to the immense amount of effort and money needed to even apply.

But I digress.

He has very valid points though, and he thoughtfully looked it up in Monash’s website or something on his iPhone, as he thought he saw a Creative Writing course offered by them in Malaysia (turns out that it was a different course altogether that he had recalled). We were briefly interrupted when his Aussie girl-friend was leaving (in a very drunken state I must say), and he wanted to make sure that she got home safely.

I stayed on, spilled a bottle of beer on the carpet, listened to the conversations around (a funny European guy (French?), who was also drunk wtf, was in the midst of shooting his mouth away), and then finally left when they wanted to go to a bar in the city at 2am—Neil was already going to call a few cabs to ferry 10 people away.

Surprisingly, the tram was still running, so I took it all the way to La Trobe St before walking back on my own.

Banana pancakes I made on the evening of the 6th December. Well technically, Ivan was the one who did all the flipping, while I only did the mix, but it turned out to be a pretty filling dinner! We had it with some cream soup Ivan had (which I had to take with my Lactase pill).

A closer look.

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Esther would be arriving in Melbourne tomorrow, and I’m excited to meet her! Which would also help break this monotony.