of Winter so cold and yet so warm - DAY 1

One morning I woke up during SWOT-VAC (study without teaching vacation), and I thought to myself, I need a holiday, a getaway from all this sleepless nights, taxing semester buried with work and stress. So the first thing that came to mind was a week's off from work at both jobs and probably a road trip or two with Blair. The big question was, WITH WHO? Going through my contact list, I couldnt make up my mind with who I should plan this getaway with.

Later that day at work, I received an email on my BB. Usually I wont be any keen on reading mails at work, but it came from a certain someone with the subject: "Melb". I excused myself to the back and read it right away. It says: 

"Would you be kind enough to host me from 29-th June till about 9th July...? :)".

One of the greatest line of words put together I've ever come across! It really was like god-sent. I was super ecstatic. So from then on, emails were travelling back and forth umpama cendawan selepas hujan planning out what and where we can go for the 10 days.

For almost a month I was looking forward to the day I'd pick her up at the airport. It was one of the foggiest days I've ever experience having been in Melbourne for almost a year. So there I went4 to the airport with the excitement of a kid. Thinking to myself, whatever that I planned out, wherever we go or do, its gonna be the best 10 days of my life.

After picking her up, out of a sudden, it was like winter turned to summer. The sun came out and Im pretty sure there was a rainbow somewhere. The weather was marvelous for the first half of the ten days.

Came back to my place to drop the luggage and off we went on foot to discover the great Melbourne city. I made it a point that we were gonna discover cafes that are mentioned on blogs and also Urbanspoon. So to kickstart our little adventure we went to a place called Hardware Societe. I thought it was gonna be rather secluded as Ive never heard of the place before but it was a full-house during brunch! Here's some pictures we took to tingle your taste buds.

 Tal's Hot Chocolate

My Latte

My Bircher 

Tal's PWT Baguette 

The happy kid

Yes, if you hadn't noticed the someone that I was so excited to host was non-other than Crystal Chow!!

 After brunch we took a nice long walk to the centre of it all, Melbourne Central. This is a shot of the infamous shot tower. 

Melbourne Central

Tal with the big clock

 The next stop was at the Victoria State Library and out of nowhere, "Beware The Rhino" was there. We decided to take a picture wit it just because and without knowing, we actually submitted ourselves in the running to ride the rhino win an iPad2! We even got ourselves new pajamas I <3 Trams t-shirts!

Our picture with the Rhino

Tal's in awe of how epic the LaTrobe reading was

In front of the State Library

Later I took her to the Unis that were in the city. RMIT of course to start with. There's nothing much to show since our campus IS the city itself. We then head to Melbourne Uni and swung by Trinity College.

Us in Trinity College

One thing I like/love about Melbourne is how artsy the whole place is, from awesome lanes of grafitis, to random statues along the streets, to a random giant purse on Bourke St.

After a long walk it was already time for the sun to give way. We then head to Federation Square and then down by the Yarra River where I'd used to end some of my days in the first semester.

Us at Federation Square.

The FREE t-shirt we got

 We stopped by at Mekong for fur before going home to freshen up after it got dark. The plan for the night was non other than bubble tea with TekYit, WeiNian, Alicia, Aaron and Siew Hong.

Tekyit and Tal at Fed Square

That was the first time I saw the real side of Alicia and how she can make you ROFLMAO. The whole bunch then walked along Yarra River and we ended up at Crowns where Wei Nian was so excited to show Crystal the fire that'll go off every hour. Here's a clip on his big epic fail.