First Australian Post

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February 16, 2007

First Australian Post

It’s been almost a week since I got to Melbourne. It’s been the craziest first few but yesterday I was able to get a breather and now I’m able to blog a little about it.

The weather in Melbourne’s fine, just a few degrees hotter than back home, but somehow I feel the heat is more comfortable here than Malaysia.. perhaps it’s the humidity.

On the way here, I had a stopover at Singapore’s Changi Airport. It was HUGE. I was so blown away by it’s scale. Really made KLIA look like a peanut. Interestingly, I bumped into Adrian Levinraj before entering the gate to Melbourne.. quite a surprise.

SIA service I’ll have to say is NOT as good as MAS. They weren’t as efficient (which was a surprise) and I somehow didn’t get that warm cozy feel I did with Malaysian. It was a good change nevertheless. I couldn’t sleep in the flight due to my blocked nose.. and I really needed the sleep. Arriving at Melbourne airport was uneventful. But flying over Melbourne, I could see many dry rivers.. huge outlining rivers with no water in them. This drought problem is serious..

The uni provided me with a free transportation service straight to my house for new international students. The house itself is about 15 minutes walk from the main campus where I would be taking a shuttle bus to my campus in Berwick. Might plan to get a bicycle to cut short the time it needs to get to Clayton.

I’m still yet to get my house number need to ask my housemate again. I’m sharing with 4 others. At the moment only 2 of them are here and one more should be arriving sometime later today. I’ll talk more about my housemates at a later time.

Anyways, when I got here.. my housemate wasn’t at home.. so sent an SOS to Dee Jun.. and she came to the rescue! She came over and collected me and my stuff for the time being. While waiting, Fui Chan’s sister, Hui Ming (I think that’s how it’s spelt) needed to get something done. She just got in 2 days before me. So I thought I’d might as well get mine done and out of the way too. So we settled our bank accounts and mobile plans. I got the 3 package with a $29 cap, meaning I only pay $29 a month if I don’t exceed $120 worth’s of calls. I also got a new phone too in the process.. a Sony Ericson K610i for FREE! Haha.. pretty sweet ha? Oh, and another surprise – I bumped into Darren Chow who was working at the 3 shop. The son of our Honorary Captain, Mr. Tony Chow. What a small small world..

My new phone..

After getting all those done, we headed back to Deej’s place. I helped her and Hui Ming fix up some furniture from Ikea. After that was done, I was ready to see my new home for the first time.

Setting up furniture at Deej’s place
Generally, I’m extremely happy with the place for what it’s worth.. has a kitchen bathroom and furnished rooms for only $90 per week.. a very good deal.

My new home

Kitchen & Dining Area

My Bedroom

View of the garden

Anyways, my house address is
                57A Evelyn St
                Clayton 3168
                Victoria, Melbourne
                Australia
                Mobile number: +61430127726

After settling in and a nice dinner in Clayton town.. I was ready to get my first sleep in more than 40 hours in my new home.

The next day I went to for the International Students orientation at Berwick campus. The shuttle bus wasn’t operating yet, so I had to take a train at Clayton which was about 20 minutes walk form home. The train took another 15 minutes to reach Berwick, but it was just a 5 minute walk from the Berwick Station. The campus was small, but was located at a very nice laidback suburb. Since it was new, it had all the latest equipment and was generally really sleek. I managed to make a few friends there. Breakfast and lunch were provided for free. We went through a bunch of orientation stuff on my second day at Melbourne. The next day I went to uni again to complete my unit enrolment.

Monash Berwick

The following days I met up with my cousin, Natalie, and she brought me and my sister, who was visiting from Sydney, around for some shopping. I even spent a night at her place. During the new year, we’ll probably do the same. So that’s about it.. just nicely settling into my new home and life.. missing some people back home.. but it’ll be awhile till I miss everyone.

Oh, I’d like to thank all those who sent me off at the airport:

From family: Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa and my 3 aunts
From 3^rd KL: Mr Lawrence, Jie Cong, Steve Ong and Huey Ding
From 2^nd SJ: Theresa, Seki, Ally, Veron, Grace, Ruth, Benji and Ann Li
From 10^th KL: Xin Wei, Mark Tan, Daniel, Debbie, Benjamin and Jeremy

Did I miss out anyone?

Also wanna thanks all those who wished me well. Thanks so much for being part of my life. I’ll be back to resume our friendship when this ordeal is done.