PEARLYN IS BACK PART TWO

Day 5, Wednesday, 8am

Was awakened rudely, as usual, by Fart. Fart’s alarm was of a siren, and we had gotten a false alarm in the middle of the night because some sort of fire engine or ambulance was driving by and we thought it was Fart’s alarm. Or at least I did.

So we were getting ready to head to Melbourne. It was a one-hour flight, and we had to be at the airport by 11am or so. Human Clock Fart was, of course, counting down the minutes so we would not be late. So dramatic.

Have I mentioned that Maka the Incredible Sulk was contorting her face in unpleasant expressions because of…I don’t know why. But we’ve gotten used to it by then.

(That is me by her side. I was frantically penning down our thoughts in OUR travel journal, but Fart and Maka were notably unhelpful.)

So we took a plane down and was greeted by a jovial Christine, who was going to board HER plane to Singapore in about half an hour. The gods up there must have been laughing at us silly, it’s as if they planned for us to communicate with each other for such a short period of time.

So. Christine was extremely excited, was immediately scooped up by her in this big bear hug. If you have met Christine, you will understand what I mean. I detest hugging people and any other substance (mostly because I am so short that hugging a grown person would result in my head clashing into inappropriate body parts), but Christine is different. Hugging anyone else would have been like hugging a pillar.

So we didn’t have much time with Christine. But Christine was entirely professional and whisked us all to some food place (I can’t even remember where, she was so efficient in dragging us to someplace that I didn’t even look up to see where we were) and briskly instructed, “Pen. Paper.” With that, she grabbed the pen out of Fart’s hands and took our travel journal and proceeded to ramble on about which places we should go to if we wanted cheap food (CHEAP to Christine but insane to us). Also drew out some streets, it was as if Christine had been rehearsing in front of the mirror everyday, because she was just regurgitating everything she knew about Melbourne without even stopping for a breath or without looking at us to see if we could catch up with what she was saying. I noticed Fart’s and Maka’s eyes were all glazed over though, because Christine was speaking THAT quickly.

In all the excitement, Christine sort of forgot that we were all actually on budget, because she was so eager to tell us about this wonderful lemon cake thing.

Christine: OK, go to this place and get a slice of their lemon cake, very VERY nice…hey you know what? Forget it, get the WHOLE cake, only $38!

Fart/Maka/Pearlyn: Stunned

Getting a cake in Australia. I know all 3 of us eat a lot, but…

Alas, it was time for Christine to part. We were sad to see her go, and we were actually very depressed for the rest of the day…because we were dealt with a SECOND blow. Details later.

So anyway. We made a huge blunder with the airport transfer and somehow ended up spending $55 just to get to Bob and Christine’s place (this is a DIFFERENT Christine, mind you. Our real friend Christine is married to a man named Nuowen, not Bob).

So we ended up at Bob and Christine’s lodge, which we found a bit dubious at first. You see, it took a while for someone to come to us, and also because it was like a B&B, a big house. We booked for a 4-bed room, so we were flabbergasted to find out that, SHOCK, there was actually a 4th person already living in our room. Apparently at that moment, that was enough to make us think suicidal thoughts for the rest of the day. We were THAT down-hearted.

Maka was the moodiest. And I am not kidding. As we entered our room, we saw our new roommate and Maka’s face just SANK. But to be honest, our roommate was very very nice. Irish girl named Monica who was living there for a few months. You see, I was sort of talking to her alone while Fart and Maka were somehow around the lodge, and when she told me she was working in Melbourne, I knew that Maka would throw a tantrum because that would mean that she would be there throughout our stay. Then she said she worked night shifts and that seemed to appease Maka a little bit when I told her. Muahaha.

(But Irish, wow. Fart HAD to ask her about U2. Pssh. I wanted to ask her about BWitched but for some reason, that slipped my mind everyday I saw her.)

So Maka was unable to concentrate for the rest of the afternoon. I don’t even remember why we were so down, I guess because we wanted our privacy like how we did at Alfred Park. Muahahaha served us right for booking a 4-bed room.

BUT Monica was really the nicest roommate ever…RIGHT FART?

So for the rest of the day, we spent our time discussing and discussing and discussing if we should move to a 3-bed room. Our world must have been very small, because it was all we were concerned about. In retrospect, I really wonder what we were all so traumatized about. It’s not like Monica hung a sword on top of her bed or anything (we slept in double-deckers).

Went to Subway as usual, because it was the cheapest of all in Australia. At least, as far as we know. We later dubbed it Indian Subway, because the people working there were all Indians and they were blasting Indian music for Maka.

Moved on to Macs, where we stayed for the longest time. Spent the night playing the “1, 2, 3 Game”…it was a game we were very fascinated by but I am too ashamed to put it up on my blog.

Was on our way home, when we decided to walk all the way to Coles, a supermarket which was apparently “5 minutes away” from the lodge. According to Christine that is. Lodge Christine. Not Friend Christine.

So it took us about 25 minutes to walk back to our street. And so we thought that since Coles was just 5 minutes away, it wouldn’t be so bad yeah?

WRONG. I don’t know what sort of watch Christine uses or whether she was travelling by rocket or what. Because Coles was at least FIFTEEN minutes away.

By that time, we were in the mood to punch someone. It was exhausting mind you.

Coles was fascinating, and their house brand foodstuff were actually pretty good. The packaging they use, however, was a little OFF. For example, the Coles cereal box was white in colour, with just a logo on it.

Nothing else.

No picture of the supposed cereal. No name.

Nothing.

Scared us a bit, but we ended up buying some of their foodstuff. Like the garlic bread. Highly recommended, it pulled us thru our darkest days.

So we went back to the lodge, and LO AND BEHOLD, we returned to find a sleeping Monica. At 9.30pm.

Obviously we didn’t know what to do. We could have turned on the light, but we had just arrived that day and knowing King Kong Fart and Moody Maka and Clumsy Me, we’d make a whole lot of noise jingling and jangling because we had to unpack all our stuff.

So we just stood there. For the longest time. Fart was the strangest, she kept staring at Monica’s unconscious head. As if she was willing sleeping Monica to get up all of a sudden.

That didn’t happen though.

So we went to the lounge, where we panicked and paced about endlessly, wondering what our game plan was.

To be honest, I think we brought it upon ourselves. We’re dramatic people I guess, and Monica sleeping was apparently a huge complication. Though now I wonder why.

In our anxiety, I managed to snap a picture of the lounge we were in. Warm and fuzzy, no?

So we decided maybe we should try to get hold of Bob and Christine and ask them if we could move to a 3-bed room, since we hadn’t paid yet. And then came another complication. WHERE WAS BOB AND CHRISTINE?

After about 20 minutes of frustration (we were extremely astonished that Bob and Christine just TOOK OFF like that, leaving the lodge to no one’s care, what if there was an emergency?), we decided we should just CALL Bob and Christine on their emergency number.

And all this while, Bob and Christine were actually in the next room. The TV room.

Let me tell you that Fart had been into the TV room a while before to see if anyone was in there. But FOR SOME REASON, she had COMPLETELY forgotten how Christine looked like. I mean, I would not have been able to recognize Bob, but Christine brought us around the lodge and tended to us in the afternoon, and somehow her face was lost on Fart.

Also, Bob is a Western man while Christine is an Asian woman. I wonder why it never occurred to Fart that it was, in actual fact, Bob and Christine in the TV room when she checked a while before.

So we were panicking and trying to get hold of Bob and Christine at this point yeah? And all that time they were just fifteen steps away. I remember asking Fart this.

Pearlyn: Hey, who was it in the TV room?

Fart: I don’t know, it was really weird. It was a Western guy and an Asian woman, kinda suspicious.

(YES, Fart, you did use the word “suspicious”. I know I love embellishing things, but THAT part is true!)

Pearlyn/Maka: Thought nothing much of it

After a while, I decided that maybe we could ask “the people in the TV room” if they knew where Bob and Christine were. Maybe they could help us if they had been living there for a while.

So we entered the TV room. Fart was first in line so she called out, “Hi, excuse me. Do you know where…” And then I caught up behind her and saw that, good lord, IT WAS BOB AND CHRISTINE. For some reason, Fart STILL had no idea, she still thought they were a strange mixed-race couple, so I had to POKE HER VERY HARD and mumble, “Faaaaaaart? THAT IS CHRISTINE YOU IDIOT.”

Fart was stunned, but she recovered and tried to cover it up, but I think Christine heard us both. Oooooh deeeeeeear.

So we politely asked for a 3-bed room, but were unable to get one. AND FROM THEN ON, Bob was VERY VERY WORRIED about our well-being. I guess he thought we were suffering very much, but I think we were over-dramatizing it a lot. I sincerely apologize, it was just a very bad day for the 3 of us.

We went back up and turned on the light, and NOTHING HAPPENED. Monica didn’t spring up from her bed with a dagger. Nothing of that sort. She just…continued sleeping. I don’t know what we thought she would have done, but anyway we made as little noise as possible because we did not want to disturb her. I mean, she was working as a NURSE. What would we do if she lacked sleep and ended up extracting too much blood from a patient or something? Nooooo, we cannot be responsible for that.

We went back down after that because we felt so bad, worrying Bob and Christine like that. I think they were genuinely concerned. Mostly we were just afraid that Monica’s sleeping hours were early in the night and we did not want to have to disturb her every night, especially since I was always knocking into things when I’m trying to be quiet. So we assured Bob that “everything was absolutely fine” and we could not wish for a better room. Bob was still a little bit worried and kept telling us this.

Bob: Monica, you know, she’s hardly ever around. We don’t really ever see her, she’s gone mostly. In fact, I’m a bit surprised to know that she’s sleeping now…because that isn’t usually the case…(calls out) Christine? Christine? WHY IS MONICA SLEEPING SO MUCH?

Well we were trying hard not to laugh at this point, because we felt so bad for Monica. Like she had no right to be sleeping at all. Muahahaha.

Day 6, Thursday, 8am

Went to breakfast, where we were immediately pounced on by BOB. He kept asking us again and again if everything was OK, and obviously it was because we weren’t exactly strangled in our sleep or anything, but I think we really gave him a fright the night before.

Also, I kept bumping into this girl from Toronto in the morning, we had met her the night before in the lounge. To cut a long story short, she had invited us to go to the Queen Victoria Market with her today, but not only did we already have plans, but we were also unanimous on the fact that she probably would not have been able to take our budget travelling. I mean, I think she would have fainted at how little we spent on food. And how much we spent on transport. Which was NOTHING.

So I kept seeing her and she didn’t seem as friendly as the night before. Maybe she thought we found her disturbing or something, since we declined her invitation. Oooooh deeeeeear.

So. We made our way to the Fitzroy area. Maka was adamant that the parks there are like those in Singapore (for the last time, Maka, Fart and I are still perplexed by that misjudged opinion. Muahahaha) and we made our way to Cook’s cottage, this quaint little house that I really wanted to check out because I like crumbling old historical monuments.

We went to buy our tickets, where we were immediately ambushed by the counterboy and his partner. By partner I mean colleague. They were impressed by how different all 3 of us looked (honestly, it NEVER occurred to us three before how puzzling we look together as a combination, I mean we’ve ALWAYS hung out with each other, and in Singapore we’d be joined by Minah Izzah, who I suppose would have complicated things more because then the Australians would REALLY be wondering where all of us were from) and the counterboy asked Maka and I first what race we were. Indian. Chinese. And then he looked at Fart and exclaimed, “Then what are you?!”

Hahahaha. He meant it in a nice way, of course. Fart had a hard time explaining to him that she was the lovechild of Maka and I, because she was Chindian.

OK, minus the lovechild part.

So we went into the cottage…it disappointed me. It looked moderately huge on the outside and when we went in, it was nothing. It’s like all the wings and the bricks just disappeared or something, because it was just a few rooms. And ta-dah! The end.

Were a bit perplexed with some tourists from China. After seeing the 3 of us, they probably decided that none of us could understand Chinese because they proceeded to speak it in front of us.

They wanted us out of there so they could pose with the old metallic tools or the crumbling fireplace or something. So they were all just hanging around waiting for us to be gone so they could start snapping away. May I just add that I hate to have to rush thru things?

Went back downstairs where we hung around the garden. Met this solitary Polish boy who had the most complicated background as can be. Something about World War II and his grandmother and his sisters or her sisters or some people who were related to him who moved to Australia and left him in Poland and he decided to come down for a visit…

I tuned out after a while.

So the Polish boy was called…Majiek/Machek/Makchik. Well, those 3 names are what all of us heard anyway. He was loitering around with this humongously professional camera but he was alone so he was secretly frustrated because he could not get a picture of himself. So he made friends with us, because apparently we look like we are capable of taking good pictures.

Hmmm. So he kept thrusting his camera at us, getting us to take pictures of him posing next to a statue, next to a tree, next to a bush, in front of the cottage, behind the cottage...and he really liked posing the same way. Arms folded, one leg over the other, with a wide grin.

Maybe it’s a Polish thing?

Guess he was really itching for friends, because he made us take some pictures at this board thing where we put our heads at. Definitely unflattering, and they’re all in HIS professional-looking camera.

See, does it not look big? Of somewhat worthy size at least.

So we left the cottage and moved out to the park area, where there were some other things to see. Bumped into Majiek/Machek/Makchik again, hovering about with a pensive look on his face. He then asked to join us after robbing us of our treasured Melbourne map, because I guess he wanted more pictures of himself around the park area. Otherwise, nice lad. We were wondering how to lose him though, because we had plans to check out the stores around our lodge and obviously we can’t bring him along unless he wanted to get cheap earrings.

Walked around the park area for quite a bit, that Majiek/Machek/Makchik boy kept mumbling about wanting to see some fountains, which was stressing us out for a while because WE COULD NOT FIND THE FOUNTAINS HE WANTED. Also, I was more concerned with looking for some miniature Tudor Village things but he really was more inclined towards fountains.

After seeing his lovely fountains, we managed to find the Tudor Village things that I was so excited about but which really disappointed me because it was…like Polly Pocket stuff. Well, I didn’t know, okaaaaaaayyyyyy.

We look so miniature because Majiek/Machek/Makchik probably did not realize how unprofessional our cameras were compared to his. If we used his camera, we could probably see our pores.

We soon parted, much to our relief. Ended up at Bridge Road, which is the street next to our lodge and where Coles is. Good stores around there, you’d have to dig but you can find pretty good stuff. As much as I pride myself for hating shopping, I’ll have to say I like doing that outside of Singapore because…I don’t know, I just like how they have little brandless stores everywhere in Australia and Europe, where you can find nice-looking things for budget prices. And by budget, I really mean budget because everything I bought was under $15 (trust me, a bulk of the things I bought were under $10…). I made sure I never exceeded that anyway. Unless I’m getting things for people and the price doesn’t matter in that case. And I hate how people buy into brands and all that, I hate branded stuff more than anything because firstly, they don’t even look nice (you can find cheap things which look as good, save on quality but that’s just bull because it’s not like the things I bought from Australia are RAGS or anything) and secondly, because most people do it just to show off, and why do you want to go around looking like everybody else anyway? Getting stuff from brandless stores allow you to mix and match and formulate your own style and stand out on your own. Jeez.

Where was I?

Spent the entire day like that, and the salespeople were very nice too. Maybe because they saw how easily they can trick us into buying things.

Maka was down again, this time because of her plane tickets issue. She needed to get affordable tickets back to Liverpool but the universe was just out to get her. Oh and the fuel prices too.

Also, Maka knows about 10,000 Hakeems. All this while I thought it was one single Hakeem she was talking about, but it turns out there are a ton of them. And I thought Hakeem was just a very happening person, who was constantly around doing things. Turns out they’re all different people, sigh.

Went to Coles as usual, because we needed…I don’t know what we needed. Maybe water? It was there where I saw an Adrian lookalike, he was calmly stacking celery sticks or some vegetable, looking very miserable. Perhaps it really was Adrian, since the season is out anyway and since was unwanted by Real Madrid at that time.

(Found out after that that Adrian was actually at Canizares’ wedding the whole time, how do those two even know each other?! Adrian and his entire family were there, along with his dragon father, so I presume Canizares is his father’s friend, they’re about the same age anyway…why am I talking about this?)

So we were at Coles, and we were frightened by this counterwoman, who was even clumsier than I was (how is that even possible?!). She kept dropping things (OK, maybe only once) and then proceeded to do something which made the woman in front of us drop her credit card twice. We were so afraid that she would, you know, burst open our water bottles or something, so I was on guard, ready to pick up things if need be.

Went back to the lodge, where we had our daily intake of garlic bread, much to the horror of Bob. I suppose we looked a bit pitiful, since we were furtively nibbling on our garlic bread in the kitchen (because we did not want to socialize in the lounge), but Bob was just staring at us like we were lunatics. He exclaimed, “IS THAT ALL YOU’RE EATING?!” I suppose he thought that was our dinner…it wasn’t. We had already eaten 10,000 things before.

So he offered us everything he could find in sight. Which was this dubious-looking cake-like thing (OK, it WAS cake…but it looked like a sponge), and we declined politely because we were actually very very happy with our garlic bread, but he seemed to think we were torturing ourselves. I guess he was afraid that we were secretly miserable, what with the room arrangement and all that, now we were starving ourselves.

If you’re reading this, Bob, we were really very happy.

There was this unhelpful German dude who was also in the kitchen, cooking pasta all for himself and only himself. It was an enormous pot, I’d like to add, and all the while when Bob was chiding us for eating so little, there that German bloke was, calmly scooping his 8,000 spoons of pasta into this lunchbox, so he could eat elsewhere. I suppose only Bob was capable of empathy.

We were feeling ambitious, so we thought we would just WALK all the way to the Observation Deck place, which overlooks all of Melbourne. It’s in the city and the city is 25 minutes away, but we didn’t actually realize that the city itself was big.

We did ask Bob if we could walk though. He looked horrified again, I think he really thought we had no money. Especially since Fart’s credit card could not work on the first day. He must have thought we were living off dimes and pennies.

So Bob gave us our blessings, after staring at us with a concerned expression for the longest time. Hey Bob, we really like walking…

It actually took us about 45 minutes to get there. It was a bloody long walk. Walking to the city at night is bad enough, but it took another 15 minutes to get to the actual place. No wonder Bob was so astonished.

And then guess what. We decided not to go up after all. Because we had to pay about $8 per head. Guess I’ll go headless next time.

So we decided that we should just go back, since it was almost 10pm. Stopped by Macs, as usual, where I just had to get some apple pie. Maka was a bit grouchy, she had fallen into a trance midway thru, and we thought it was because she needed the toilet or something (it wasn’t because of that, she was just secretly tired of walking).

Fart and I were slightly concerned because these men kept chuckling away merrily, so we were wondering if maybe I had, like, a twig in my hair or something. Also, we met a cool counterboy, Kenan. He had the biggest head and the smallest cap (OK, maybe his head wasn’t that big…) and he had the loudest voice which could wake someone in a coma. It was frightful, how he boomed, “TWO APPLE PIES RIGHT AWAY!” And by the way, he totally forgot about my apple pie, and he was very very very apologetic. Good man, good man.

There was another counterboy who looked exactly like him. For a while, Fart thought Kenan kept changing clothes because they really looked similar.

And all of them thought we were checking them out. Sigh. All because I was staring at how similar he and his coworker looked. Pssh.

Walked back home, where Maka confessed that she almost died as a child.

And Fart has burnt cushions/pillows in her storeroom somewhere.

My friends horrify me sometimes.

Day 7, Friday, 10.30am

We were supposed to get up bright and early to go to Queen Victoria Market.

We were also supposed to meet Mysterious Friend BenShane so he could hand us some cryptic top-secret documents to Christine. Friend Christine, not Lodge Christine.

But then, he sent us a very mysterious message.

“Uh…there was a COMPLICATION getting the documents…”

Talk about shady. Are he and Christine holding some people hostage somewhere?

So we decided not to meet him after all and instead decided to spend a longer time at the Melbourne Visitor Centre (or whatever it is called) to talk to Gail, the volunteer who was helping us with our various predicaments.

Predicament 1: How do you get to Dandenong?

Gail: (Hands us a complicated-looking brochure) Here, these are the trains you can take…when you’re in Dandenong, you should look out for the Puffing Billy…

Us: The WHAT?

Gail: The Puffing Billy.

Us: Slightly confused

Gail: It’s a steam train that goes around Dandenong…(yammers on about the Puffing Billy and nothing else, then proceeds to photocopy everything she can about the Puffing Billy)

Don’t get me wrong. Gail was so cute. In the old lady kind of way.

But, uh, the Puffing Billy wasn’t really high on our priority list.

Predicament 2: In your opinion, should we go to Dandenong or Williamstown?

Gail: (Looks at coworker who was helping out someone else) Dandenong or Williamstown? (Coworker tried to help out but was soon cut off by Gail) They’re different kinds of places…but in Dandenong, you have the Puffing Billy…

Puffing Billy.

We looked at the brochure and the front of it showed a picture of the Puffing Billy with a gaggle of CHILDREN in it.

Oh Gail.

Eventually made our way to the Queen Victoria Market. It was great, and Chief Organizer Fart was, as usual, planning our route. We decided to go column by column again, just like Paddy’s Market in Sydney.

Before that, we got some CHURROS. Hola churros! My favourite snack. I wish I had worn my Spain jacket out, so maybe the guy could give me about 15 free churros, because I noticed he was slightly more generous with the old Spanish woman behind me, and the both of them started chattering vigorously in Spanish for the next 3 minutes.

His churros were so good.

I was at Queen Victoria Market last year as well, and I distinctly remember good jam donuts. It was, however, a sorely disappointing event this time round. Fart and I thought it would be so good, so we bought SIX in one go, especially since we met a man devouring it and he insisted that we get it.

We ended up eating two out of the six. Fart was so frustrated that she shoved the remaining four in her bag and groaned everytime she opened her bag and saw them.

There were lots of Spaniards selling stuff. And I was so tempted to get a fake David Villa jersey (believe me, if I had ANY choice at all, I wouldn’t be picking Villa because I like the man but I’d prefer wearing a jersey of a lesser-known player…I really like Senna for instance), but it was dirty. Don’t know what the seller had been doing to the Villa jersey while no one was looking, but it had mud streaks, sigh.

Maka kept whining about wanting some Billions jacket, but after about 50,000 years, she decided not to get it after all.

And there is never a day that goes by when Fart doesn’t panic. She panicked just as the place was closing up because she forgot to get sweet friendship stuff for Neha.

Me? Well, the afternoon ended more pleasantly for me compared to my 2 friends. But I was sad because the churros man was going home and I really wanted more churros and so did Fart and we asked him in our most non-scary voices but he said, “No more! Tomorrow!”

Tomorrow. Pssh. Easy for him to say.

I remember it was also the day that Spain beat Russia 3-0. And my favourite player David Silva scored. And I really wanted to high-five the churros man, you know? But he would have thought I was crazy probably.

Went to the Shrine of Remembrance after that. It was getting colder and colder and Maka kept on whining about something. She even scoffed at a tribute to the war horses.

Well. Uh I suppose it’s not a tribute we see very often. But it’s sweet.

Maka then aggressively requested that we move to a large bonfire, where we stood for the longest time. Eventually, we moved INTO the Shrine of Remembrance, which was really what we were there for in the first place.

It was a very peaceful place, and it was interesting. I’ve always liked museums and anything to do with history, so I was looking forward to that. It didn’t disappoint.

After that, we were hungry so we decided to go get some dinner. Fart somehow managed to devour an entire packet of chocolate balls, after which she started to complain about how she was still hungry.

She ignored the fact that she still had 4 jam donuts in her bag.

I don’t know what she was keeping the donuts in there for. Probably for when we were dying of hunger.

So Maka was forced to eat the donuts.

OK, Fart claims that Maka OFFERED to eat the donuts. But I vaguely remember force. And a frightened Maka.

Went to the Indian Subway. Maka was, as always, unhappy about something.

Day 8, Saturday, 10.30am

Fart fell off her bed at around 5am.

She was sleeping in the bed above mine, and I did see her limbs sticking out after being awakened by her tossing and turning.

I was a bit confused and disoriented, as I always am whenever I get up.

And then suddenly, her limbs started moving out even more. And more. And more.

And I know Fart gets up early to go jogging round the block sometimes, but 5am?

So I thought the best thing to do was to stick my hands out and prod her back up to her bed. Yeah, for some reason, I thought I was strong enough to poke her all the way back up.

THEN SHE STARTED FALLING.

And then I thought, “Hmmm. Maybe she needs the toilet…but why isn’t she taking the ladder? What an ungraceful way to come down.”

Then she lands neatly on her feet next to my bed all of a sudden.

If I wasn’t so puzzled, I would have been shocked.

Pearlyn: Fart, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

Fart: Ohmygod I just had a dream and I fell off.

Pearlyn: WHAT?!

And all the while, Maka the so-called light sleeper was sound asleep. Monica, however, was secretly eavesdropping and was WELL AWARE of what happened, and confessed only in the morning.

So Fart was still rather dazed. And so was I, but I was sane enough to order Fart to sleep with her face SMACK against the wall.

And then she kept whining that she had to sleep facing a certain direction or she would not be able to sleep. Like she had to sleep on her right side.

Basically, it means that she would have to sleep facing Maka or she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.

So it turns out that Fart was actually dreaming about CURRY. And she was arguing with the curry-seller. And I suppose it must have resulted in a violent tussle for his curry because that made her fall off the bed.

That morning, Fart had an “incident” with Bob.

Apparently she got up to go jogging and let in two stranger girls just as she was about to go out.

And Bob snarled, “WHAT DOES THE SIGN SAY?!”

(The sign said that we should not let strangers in.)

Fart was depressed for the entire morning, because she believed that Bob hated her to the core for endangering everyone’s safety in the lodge.

So we were going to go to Williamstown that day, but the ferry man was SICK. And Fart was incredibly disgusted because that meant that we had to change our plans.

We had no backup plan, so we decided to check out some of the cheap stores that Friend Christine was telling us about.

Of course, since we’re the greediest people alive, we’d HAVE to stop by a quaint-looking bakery. It was run by an Asian mother-and-son pair, and everything looked so good and inviting. So what started out as a simple snack ended up as a feast. At first, I ordered a jam tart.

It was so good.

Then I went back, this time with the intention of getting something else.

Asian boy: (Upon seeing me) ANOTHER jam tart?!

He sounded condescending yet incredulous.

I must have looked very hungry.

Well, I decided to get a yo-yo, which is this cookie thing with lots of cream everywhere. And Fart had ordered a donut the first time I think, and then after that she could not control herself and got us a slice of cake to share.

It was MY cranky day, my one and only cranky day on the trip. But for me, I don’t get moody for long, and I tend to be very easily appeased.

What appeased me?

Sushi.

Of course.

Went to the Indian subway again. We had nothing else to do, so we just sat there playing Pictionary. I was really tired so I fell into grouchy mode again, and Fart and Maka were afraid coz I was always such a bright light. Muahahaha.

Maka was strangely crazily delighted that night.

So we played Pictionary, and Fart and Maka ended up in a heated debate about the best way to draw “me”. Maka took a long time perfecting a picture of Maggi Mee, none of which Fart understood. When Fart found out that Maka was just trying to illustrate the word “me”, Fart was flabbergasted and insisted that she would do it some other complicated way that only made sense to her.

It was tension-filled. Being the peace-maker I was, I decided to step in wisely, just as Maka did in Sydney.

“Relaxxxxxx guys…”

Hahahahaha.

So I tried to introduce another game so that everyone would be happy again. I mean, Pictionary was obviously a stressful game.

All right, I was simply bored by Pictionary but I was too shy to say. Instead, I decided to use Fart and Maka’s “fight” as the reason why we should not play Pictionary anymore. Sigh, they actually saw right thru my true intentions.

Also, a rat crawled on my foot. So I ended up kicking the table very violently because I was so horrified. Fart and Maka thought I had a nightmare because I had my eyes closed at that point. Hahahaha.

So for once in our entire trip, Fart was reluctant to go back to the lodge. Usually, she’d be chasing us out of there by 9pm. But this time, she did not want to go back because she was afraid to face Bob, after her boo-boo in the morning.

Maka and I tried telling her that it’s the LAST thing on his mind, but she insisted that he would have held a grudge against her because he was such a stickler for rules. Not only were we not allowed to let strangers in, we were also expected to make sure that the toilet doors were closed at all times (even when not in use), and clothes were not hung over the heater, and doors were not slammed…it was then that we decided that we were going to do EXACTLY all of these things before we left. Let all homeless people in. Open all toilet doors. Hang everybody’s clothes over the heaters. SLAM ALL DOORS.

Nah. We’re not that daring.

So on the way home, Fart practiced her apology to Bob about 60,000 times. I had to pretend to be Bob so that she could do actual role-play, but she was still nervous anyway when we really did see him that night.

Bah. He thought NOTHING of it.

See Fart? Always worrying.

Day 9, Sunday, 9am

Decided to go to Camberwell Market. A secondhand type of thing where people set up makeshift stalls at a carpark.

It started out a bit dull. Fart and I were a bit wary of the things they were selling, like fur carpets and whatnot. I would probably be arrested if I tried to bring that back to Singapore.

We were so disillusioned that we ended up stuffing our faces. Actually saw some SMU people, but I really wanted an SMU-free holiday/term break, so I tried to distract myself by looking at the pet dogs next to me.

And then, came Maka’s $1 jacket purchases.

Very worth it, and still in good condition too.

Then we decided, hell let’s just look around a bit more, maybe we’d find great things.

It started out calm, and ended frantic.

Because all of a sudden, there were all these good sales…sure they’re secondhand but they still look good. And it doesn’t go above $5. Well, the ones I look for anyway.

The place was starting to close up by about 12.25pm, because all of them had to clear out by 12.30pm. By that time, all 3 of us weren’t even really thinking anymore. We just bought stuff that we’d probably never ever need.

Maka was a bit slow though, she processes her thoughts too long.

Tip: Always go towards the end, because that’s when the sellers are at their most desperate. I remember last year when I was there, this dude was just giving out free CDs to passers-by.

Maka then went off to meet her friend after that, leaving Fart and I alone. So we went to the Indian Subway. Again.

And who knew, Maka was actually there with her friend. But Fart and I didn’t see her.

Maka, however, knew we were there and actually saw us walking up and down and ordering stuff and things like that.

But she thought it was “unnecessary” to say hello or give a friendly wave.

Chi chi chi. MAKA.

So Maka was supposed to meet us at 3pm outside Macs. Fart and I had some time after lunch so we walked around the city and was waiting outside Macs when Maka told us she’d be there at 3.30pm.

Chi chi chi. MAKA.

So it’s basically all her fault that we then proceeded to stuff our faces with a cake and fries at Macs, even though we were full from Subway.

When Maka FINALLY arrived, we decided to head on to St. Kilda’s. A beach area. Pretty.

We decided to take Bob’s advice and look out for penguins for free. If we went to Penguin Island, we’d have to pay a lot of money.

Phillip Island?

Yeah, Phillip Island, my bad.

So it was shivering COLD there, because it was the ocean. It was probably the coldest of the entire trip, but it was a lot of fun. Sat by some benches for the longest time just to wait for those stupid penguins to appear.

We waited till it was dark.

NONE.

Well, if you count those penguins huddling in between the rocks behind us, then we saw a grand total of THREE penguins that day.

Moral of the day: Never listen to Bob too seriously.

It was that night that we discovered that Bob was the Phantom of the Lodge. OK, Fart and I are nuts for the Phantom of the Opera. And if you have watched the musical, you’d know that Christine is the female protagonist.

Because we were all a little crazy from the cold, we concluded that Bob was the Phantom of the Lodge.

Also, Maka could not stop showing off her spiffy leather jacket. All for the great price of $12.
See.

She just didn’t wanna take it off.

Ohmygod, how many did she take of herself?

(By the way, Spain was playing the final that night, which explains the jacket.)

THE FINAL.

Sigh.

I was so wanting to catch it ANYWHERE.

HOW WAS I TO KNOW THEY WERE SHOWING IT RIGHT THERE AT THE LODGE, IN THE LOUNGE?

Just as well. There were a ton of Germans living there. I don’t think I’d have gotten out of the room alive. I remember the next day, I was wearing my Spain jacket again because I was so victorious, and this German dude shot me a rather disapproving look.

Sigh.

I’m glad I didn’t have to see this though.

Eventually, we ended up at Macs after zooming thru Luna Park. Because I was greedy, I ate an entire burger. Even though we were clearly having Subway after that.

So Fart was exceptionally jumpy that night. She wanted us to leave Macs ASAP so we could go to Subway to relax.

Pearlyn: Why can’t we relax here in Macs?

Fart: Because I KNOW we have to go to Subway later, so I can’t relax here.

Despite all this, Fart does make sense sometimes.

So we went to Subway.

And then, we were hustled away again by Fart. After our sandwiches, thankfully.

Fart: Can we go back to Macs?

Pearlyn: But you said you wanted to relax here.

Fart: I need the toilet.

Pearlyn: THEN can we relax in Macs?

Fart: OK.

Also, I think it was because she was a bit disconcerted by this punk who kept talking on his phone and standing so close to our table he was practically SITTING on it. Mind you, the place wasn’t even crowded, there wasn’t any other table occupied.

So we went back to Macs.

Then Fart decided that we should leave soon. Because we spent so much time travelling to and from Macs that it was late.

Also, Maka found the most disgusting chewed-up piece of gum in her bag.

Chi chi chi. MAKA.

Day 10, Monday, 10.30am

Because it was apparently the last day of most of the sales, we decided we should head around town to get stuff we needed to get for everybody in our lives.

Made our way to DFO where Maka suddenly fell into a stony trance. Fart and I were too afraid to talk to her, because every reply she gave was monosyllabic.

The day then got worse when Maka received a call from Mama Makalingam. Maka needed to find a scanner, to cut a long story short.

Fart sent out a panicked text message to Friend Christine, who was in Malaysia at the time (wonder how the phone bill would be like). For some reason, Christine thought we wanted to BUY a scanner. From what I understood that is.

So we were sent all over the city, and Christine, who finally understood us, told us to go check out Dinkums/Dumkins. On the way there, we had to meet an exhausted-looking Mysterious Friend BenShane, who had BLOODSHOT EYES.

Fart and Maka claimed there were no bloodshot eyes. But there clearly were. He had stayed up all night watching the final.

THE FINAL WHICH I SHOULD HAVE WATCHED. AND THEN WE COULD HAVE BLOODSHOT EYES TOGETHER.

So BenShane apparently got the documents all neatly put in a package. And he suspiciously whispered in a coded message, “Christine left her keys as well. Hand them to her.”

OK, minus the coded message bit.

He wasn’t very helpful when we asked him how to get to Dinkums/Dumkins by the way. He was like, “…you have to find some baths…and then go past that…and then you’ll see big mama’s kitchen (or something like that)…”

Very cryptic boy.

Well, we finally found the place after going past the dodgy bath place he was talking about.

However, it was only going to be more exhausting for the already lethargic and angsty Maka.

Since we were in the city, we thought maybe we should check out Myer, a department store that Christine recommended.

We were appalled by Christine’s disturbing fashion sense. The clothes were fit for anybody above 45 years old.

Because Fart is Fart, she started getting an anxiety attack because she realized that she needed to get things for like a billion people.

I was cool because I had already got most of it sorted out.

Maka was too grouchy to think if she had gotten her things sorted out.

So we decided to go back after having dinner. On the way back, I dropped back a souvenir store to get a postcard of “Sensual Australian Men” or something like that, especially for Samantha. The postcard had supposedly sexy pictures of surfer dudes and their artificially tanned abs, with muscles bulging in all places I never deemed possible. There was also a bare buttock of a beach boy.

Well, it’s not something that I would want the counterboy to see I’m buying. So I STRATEGICALLY FLIPPED IT DOWN. Plus, the price was written there too.

BUT THAT BUSYBODY DECIDED TO FLIP OVER THE CARD. Chortled to himself for a while, thinking I wouldn’t notice. Grrr.

Hey, Samantha loved it by the way. It would perfectly complement the sexy “Bronzed Australian Males” calendar I got her.

So we were waiting for the tram to bring us back. And we were TRAUMATIZED by this flirtatious lad who only had eyes for Fart. So he walked past, snapped his fingers at Fart, and grinned naughtily.

But because I was with 2 friends who were in another dimension, I was the only one who noticed that.

So I told Fart.

But she was not listening to me.

You know why?

Because she was busy staring at a dude who was sitting on the tram, looking out the door blowing kisses at her and waving frantically.

IT WAS THE SAME MAN!

Fart unwittingly let out an “EEEEEEEEEEE!” squeal, much to the amusement of the man and everyone else within a 50m-radius. The man seemed to find it exciting that he was grossing Fart out so much, so he proceeded to imitate her “EEEEEEEEEEEE!” squeal, while still blowing kisses and waving of course.

And the tram driver JUST WOULDN’T LEAVE.

Those were the longest 2 minutes ever.

The people at the tram stop were fairly amused though.

This reminds me of the time (I can’t remember which day) when we were in the city and this little boy (who looked like Crabbe or Goyle, one of them) suddenly came up to Fart and growled “HOO!”

And I swear he was serious about it.

Like REALLY serious.

When we turned around, he was still staring at her. Glaring at her more like it.

Some Aussie bloke saw that asked her what happened.

Bloke: What happened there?

Fart: Don’t know.

Bloke: But hey, you’re a beautiful girl.

Awwwww.

Fart was disgusted.

Day 11, Tuesday, 10.30am

Monica was strangely never home for the past few days, though we were always very suspicious of her, like maybe she was hiding under the bed or in her locker, just so she could hear us talking about her.

But we saw her this morning. She offered Fart and I hot chocolate while Maka was primping in the toilet.

Maka was deeply hurt that she was not included in the hot chocolate party.

Made our way to Williamstown, where we only had about 2 hours before we had to go. Didn’t really know what to do there, it was a very pretty town but we couldn’t do much within the time we had.

So we went into some quaint little stores which sold candy and all that kinda stuff.

However, a mishap occurred.

Fart stepped on some dog poo.

Maka was rather terrible, she could not stop cackling. Even though if it wasn’t for Fart stepping on it and warning Maka not to, Maka would have too.

Maka vehemently retorted that Fart did no such charitable act.

So for about 20 minutes, Fart acted strangely. She could not really walk properly after that, and she had her fingers twisted in the strangest way because she said that was her coping mechanism?

Never try to understand Fart.

So we entered a cute little bakery. I wanted a yo-yo. And I must have looked like the greediest person alive, because the woman ended up giving me 6 bloody yo-yos for free.

You know, we fully intended on giving that to Bob and Christine, so we didn’t really have to buy them anything before we left.

BUT FART BEING FART ended up CRUSHING all 6 yo-yos.

So no.

Not only was Fart acting strange, but so was Maka. She refused to keep this postcard about love that we were given for free and gripped onto it from the store where we got it to the supermarket where Fart met the dog poo to the bakery and to the toilet and to the train station and to the train.

Don’t know why she was holding onto the postcard for so long.

So we made our way to the Scienceworks Museum. You know, I think we were the oldest people there. Save for the parents of the children there, but we were definitely beyond the average age.

Muahahaha. Fine. It was MY idea to go there.

It was fun though. I mean, some of the stuff were pretty DUH. Like, Maka was rather unimpressed with some exhibits because it was just so brainless…for people our age that is. But we had fun in the sports section, where we cheated in some of the games. There was a goalkeeping game, in which only one person should be the goalkeeper at all times. But all three of us protected the goal.

Enough said.

The computer seemed to know we were cheating though, and warned us, “Hey you, only one at a time please!” But we somehow managed to work around it.

Then we cheated at this other game as well. Some reflex thing. Again, only one person was supposed to do it, but all three of us positioned ourselves so we could win.

Uh, but we lost anyway. Pathetic much. For people our age too.

We were then chased out because it was closing time. Maka was rather displeased because she was in the midst of measuring her height. She frowned at the Scienceworks man but he failed to see that.

Since it was our last night in Melbourne, we decided to have a feast, just like in Sydney. We thought maybe we could go to some of the places that Friend Christine recommended. So we did. We went to Papa Gino’s, an Italian place which was really good.

Maka was traumatized by her lasagna. I mean, I was wondering for the longest time why Maka was just sitting there with a dazed look on her face staring at her plate of lasagna like it held the secret to life on earth. And when Fart asked her how the lasagna was, Maka seemed to not have heard her.

Fart and I were worried of course.

Turned out that it was BEEF. Maka wasn’t supposed to be eating that. The waitress was really nice though, managed to get the chef to change his mind and send out another dish.

Fart and I were so sure that 2 of the waiters there were Singaporean. One of them looked like a beng while the other looked like he acted in Growing Up. I really wanted to test if it was true though, so I planned to shriek “ALAMAKKKKKKKKKKK!” when the Growing Up waiter walked by, and to see if he reacted violently or excitedly. But Fart and Maka stopped me. Sigh.

It was also there that I saw a lovely ginger-haired Casillas. Well, Fart and Maka weren’t very impressed, but I stand by my opinion that he was the spitting image of Casillas. With red hair that is.

Plus he had on stripes. A plus.

Of course, Fart had to comment SO LOUDLY about the stripes and about Casillas and the lookalike and blah blah, failing to notice that the dude in the table beside us ALSO HAD ON STRIPES. He heard bits of what Fart was saying, and obviously felt very good about himself. But nooooo it wasn’t him.

It was then we decided that we SHOULD leave.

Also, Prince Charles was sitting beside us with his family.

OK, “Prince Charles”.

So many lookalikes in that restaurant, it was so exciting.

Went to San Churros for dessert, because I demanded it. Me and my Spanish fetishes. But it was good, very good. Owner’s son really looked like this Spanish TV host called Juanma, and I really wanted to try saying the name “Juanma!” very loudly and see if the son turns or bristles.

It was a good last night. But Fart was as usual, squeamish about so many things. This time, it was a problem that she had that only the 3 of us should know.

Spent the night sadly packing. Bob actually came into our room to ask us about airport arrangements and all that.

He could not stop staring at how large my suitcase was. But he tried not to be obvious about it.

Day 12, Wednesday, 8am

Got up really early because we had to check out by 9.30am. It was sad to leave the place and it was a bit funny because Bob decided to hug us all very awkwardly.

Damn, I miss the place.

Went to the airport, where we had a flight delay.

I mean, I know all 3 of us were hoping that there’d be some delay and we’d have to stay another day. But we didn’t really MEAN it.

A few hours of doing nothing at the airport.

We were a bit down because we were heading home, and the feeling was exacerbated when I kept losing at Tetris on the plane.

Great great trip.

Thank you, my 2 friends, for being as crazy as I am. Good times, good times.

Things we learnt during the trip:

1) Fart is a HOT THANG. Muahahaha.

2) Fart panics VERY easily.

3) Maka has 2 talents. She can do that clicking sound with her tongue that nobody else can do and she can play peanut football.

4) Maka is ashamed to like hip-hop.

5) Bob is Swedish. We could NEVER place his accent.

6) Christine is from HongKong.

7) Germans don’t like going out. They were ALWAYS there. Also…

8) Germans don’t like sharing their food. Bad pasta man.

9) Monica actually seemed to like us. We like you too, Monica.

10) Bob was a sailor who liked trishaws.

11) Maka reads magazines VERY SLOWLY, like it’s a religious text or something.

12) We walked EVERYWHERE. Go us!



Signed,

Sincerely, Me

Pearlyn

PEARLYN IS BACK.

Hello universe.

Got to flog myself for always forgetting this baby. Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks, not to mention a psychotic couple of weeks.

Here is a summary of what is to come. Escape while you can, because it is going to be a borefest.

1) Spain won Euro 2008. Is it possible to be proud and resentful at the same time, as well as victorious and heartache? How can one person be capable of so many emotions without combusting is beyond me.

Proud: Because I have seen the team grow after all these years. And I stand by the decision to leave Raul out because all he did was destabilize the team.

And to think that new coach Del Bosque (Ex-Real Madrid coach, and GROSSLY pro-Raul) is leaving the door open for Raul.

God, please no. Unless you want the team to give up everything they fought for over the past few months.

Liked you once before, Raul, but your presence is like mould. Silent but deadly.

Resentful: Half the world had no idea who David Silva was before Euro 2008.

The other half of the world did not even like the Spanish national team.

As always, after every triumph, there will be new fans popping up from Bora Bora to Tahiti, which pains me to no end.

Guess I should go find a pitiful team to support from now on. Andorra, here I come.

Victorious: Do you know how it feels like to see a team you support win it all? After all these years, they've managed to defeat their enemies -- themselves. Which leads me to my next emotion.

Heartache: Unfortunately, I was only able to feel victorious by reading match reports and watching match highlights.

Because I missed everything.

Everything.

All of it.

Stupidity catches up on me so many times in my life. But it couldn't have waited till after Euro 2008 to strike me, can it?

Noooooo, I had to miss the quarter-final against Italy, the semi-final against Russia and the final against Germany.

Just as well. The good thing was, I avoided a potentially traumatic experience because the Spanish celebrations would have proved too much for me to handle. Casillas in his underwear, frolicking about in glee.

Really not an image I wish to subject my weak heart to. Casillas is lovely with an impeccable jawline sometimes (when his head is facing a certain direction and the light is just right), but he should always be clothed in my opinion.

I apologize if you are reading this, Iker, but shouldn't you be scrubbing your goalkeeping gloves rather than reading a deranged blog?

2) I went to Australia with 2 of my closest friends. Time of my life. Highlight of my world. Story of my universe.

Originally, I thought I would just give you the link to Rekha Makalingam's blog. Which is http://someone-like-me.livejournal.com/

Alternatively, I thought I would just copy and paste the entire travel journal that we wrote during our holiday.

Then I thought it'd be like plagiarism, you know? Since it appeared on Rekha's blog first.

All right, I know I was the one who wrote it in the first place. But I realized there were many things I left out, and some things that I wish to clarify. So I'm going to write an entirely new day-by-day journal right here. Hope I beat the record for the longest blog post ever.

Here we goooooooooooooooo...

Day 0, Friday, 6pm

I was late to the airport.

Well, late by Fart’s standards anyway. Muahaha.

The plane ride was rather unfruitful, since none of us actually slept. Fart and I were trying so hard to make ourselves go to sleep, but the stupid chairs were so stiff and I don’t particularly fancy the idea of reclining my chair because I’d always feel sorry for the poor suffocating bloke behind. So I ended up trying to sleep in a right-angled position, which I can tell you is not the best of choices.

So Fart and I thought that we should choose some mellow music to listen to. You know, something sleep-inducing. Since Fart and I were sharing my mp3 player, Pablo, both of us had to make do with my music list.

Where is Brian McKnight when you need him? We both thought Brian McKnight would have been perfect in putting us to sleep, especially the dreadful songs “Back at One” and the other one which involves counting and numbers as well…six, seven, eight or something, is it? Unfortunately I had neither. Pablo has a standard to uphold and Brian McKnight will not be accepted in Pablo.

So for some reason, we decided that the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA songs would be a good choice.

It started out fine and the initial soft melodies lulled us into complacency. Then came the pounding organs all of a sudden, which stunned us tremendously and caused us both to open our eyes in shock.

Never listen to the phantom when you are trying to sleep.

We finally decided on Nsync…which put Fart to sleep for fifteen minutes or so. Me? Oh I took it upon myself to sing along in my head to test my memory of their lyrics. So, no sleep in the end. Grrr.

After we realized that none of us were going to go to sleep, we decided to amuse ourselves with the entertainment system. We started out playing Hangman, which was such a yawn. And the cartoon man being hung wasn’t even remotely interesting.

Then, Fart and I realized that Maka was utterly silent, as she was intensely playing a game which caused her utmost agitation. The game is called “Twins”, which is basically the computer version of the Memory game. It had a time limit and it was tricky, very tricky.

Maka almost sprained her wrists playing it. It was only because she was rather incompetent in the game, unlike Fart and I who approached the game in a cool, calm and collected manner. Maka could not get past Level 1, while Fart and I got to Level 4. Go us!

I suppose we were also a bit loud on the plane. Maka kept cackling (if you have met Maka, you will understand what I mean by this) insanely in the middle of the night, which was so disturbing on so many levels. At one point, there was a woman who raised her eyebrow at Maka because I believe she was a bit frightened by the sadistic laughter in the dead of the night.

Was a bit intimidated by the white cards we had to fill in. Fart was afraid she would break the law by bringing in an extra pair of sports shoes, because the card stated that such shoes might have infected soil in them.

Resorted to asking the air steward in our desperation. He must never have gotten such a question before (I suppose it WAS quite a ridiculous question, since we were asking if we had to DECLARE Fart’s sports shoes, which sounds VERY dramatic I admit), because the air steward looked a bit stunned. He thought for a long time, and eventually told us, “Well…uh…I suppose you don’t have to declare those shoes…Unless, say, you have, like, a BIG CHUNK of soil stuck there.”

Hahahahahaahaha. We felt so stupid after that. Big chunk of soil. He kept staring at us like we were safari people or aliens after that.

Day 1, Saturday, 5am

So! We arrived in Sydney. None of us could believe it, we were so convinced we were dreaming of it and that suddenly we would walk out and it’ll be Changi Airport. No such cruel joke occurred, thank goodness.

It was a dead hour but we took a cab to our budget accommodations. Alfred Park.

It was a Middle Eastern cab driver, who had good music at first…One Republic. STOP AND STARRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE (not a big fan of One Republic but I don’t mind that particular song, I fancy myself singing it you see). HOWEVER, due to the presence of my 2 friends, the cab driver thought it would be cute to change the radio station to suit THEIR musical tastes. Arabian music for Fart and Maka. I think it was lost on him that neither one of us was actually from there.

We arrived very early. It was about 6.30am or so when we got there, and some China youths let us in, thinking that we were harmless.

I mean, we WERE harmless, but how were they so sure we weren’t armed? Plus, Maka looked like a thug because she was a bit grouchy. And I had mad airplane hair. The China youths were however a bit perplexed, they were wondering where all 3 of us were from because all of us looked like we dropped from the sky. I guess they decided that none of us could understand Chinese because Fart and I overheard them talking. For a while, we wanted to pretend that all 3 of us were internet friends from all over the world or that we were step-siblings or strangers who met at the airport and decided to go on holiday together.

So we were stuck playing the Alphabet game for about 2 ½ hours. We exhausted so many categories. Bands. Songs. Movies. Actors.

Counterman at Alfred Park could NEVER remember us by the way. When he eventually arrived, he spoke to us three like we were old buddies, but within 2 hours, he forgot who we were and things like that. For the next few days, we had to announce to him which room we were in everytime we talked to him. Otherwise, nice man.

Tried to force ourselves to take a nap in the morning once we got our room. Were placed in a 4-bed room despite booking a 6-bed room. Thank goodness the 4th person never did arrive, because we made ourselves VERY comfortable in the room. All our clothes were strewn all over the place, as well as our towels…Fart had a really humongous towel by the way.

Could not force ourselves to take a nap because this live jazz band was playing in the park opposite our hostel. Frank Sinatra. Grrr. Decided to go to the park to kick off our day.

Caught a dogshow. Bark in the Park. Cute much.

As you can see, Maka was not very impressed with some of the dogs. Especially bulldogs.

Went to the Paddington Bazaar. On our way there, we met this German girl named Carolyn/Karolin, who seemed perpetually confused. We told her we were going to WALK all the way to the Bazaar, and she said she was going to take the bus. However, we gave up because some people told us we were crazy. Well, not exactly, but they implied that we were crazy. So we decided to take a bus. And there Carolyn was. Bumped into her again and again and again and again and she perhaps seemed to welcome our presence quite a bit because she invited us to join her at Bondi Beach, which was where she was headed to. We declined because we didn’t think we were going there…but in the end WE DID. She must hate us if she saw us there.

Before Bondi, we went to Kookai. A dodgy-looking place, really, but it was where Fart had her first Australian girl-crush. Rachel Fah!

We could have gotten free clothes but we somehow missed out on that.

Ended up at Bondi Beach. Very very beautiful. It was winter but the place was filled with surfer dudes…surfing obviously. Lots of strange people tanning as well, I guess the fact that it was obviously cold was sort of lost on them. Kept seeing an obscene man as well who refused to put on looser shorts, which ended up in us seeing more than we really wanted to. Plus he kept tossing a rugby ball with his dude friend, so he had to keep jogging in front of us. Trauma.

Maka was a bit cranky at first. Because she THOUGHT she did not bring her camera (she only realized it was in her bag all that time about 2 hours later, when we were in Macs). She was also moody because she hated the birds for pooping in the air while they were flying.

I must remind you, Maka hates any form of living organism other than herself. Even children are not spared.

Beeyooteefulll.

Ended up at Macs. Busy place, and we ended up intimidating a newbie named Nathan. Actually, “we” would be inaccurate. It was really all Fart’s doing. She had to confuse him by asking him for Ice Lemon Tea. And if he was panicked before that trying to push all the buttons, he was about to heave and hyperventilate after Fart gave her insane request. He furrowed his eyebrows, his face turned white, and he whispered pitifully, “Excuse me? What is that you want?”

I suppose Australians don’t drink that?

Nathan got scolded after that.

Went to get cheap fruits after that, as well as lettuce, which Maka secretly harboured a hatred for but was too polite to voice her opinion…

Took a bus back to the hostel. Had a mishap along the way, however. Maka, who was responsible for carrying the two big bottles of water, was totally unable to withstand the pressure of doing so. As a result, she carelessly dropped the said bottles ONTO MY FOOT while we were on the bus, which is not the most pleasant of sensations. As the bus was crowded, in my haste in trying to pick up the bottles, I somehow managed to drop it on some unfortunate punk’s foot. He was not very kind as he gave me a rather steely stare, what a dramatic dude. It was really all Maka’s fault to begin with, but she was too tired to notice.

Day 2, Sunday, 11am

Fart tried to assault me in my sleep. We were sharing 2 large beds, all three of us, and I had the fortune of being next to Fart.

Woke up in cold sweat, obviously.

Was headed to Chinatown that day. We were unsure of the way so we decided to ask a kind-looking old man for directions. He was initially very helpful, but upon seeing my Chinese face, he snarled in a condescending manner because apparently, I was supposed to have a telepathic connection to Chinatown and because of that, I shouldn’t even have to ask for directions. He still helped us nonetheless, but he did keep shooting glances at me whenever he said the word “Chinatown”. And he emphasized it very hard as well.

Along the way, we were asked for directions by Rain.

OK, he really looked like Rain. As in famous Korean man Rain. He was asking for some visa thing. At least, it sounded like “visa”. Or it could be anything that rhymed with “visa”. Pizza?

We sent him away obviously.

If it was really Rain, I’m sorry.

Went to Paddy’s Market. Spent money unnecessarily. On things that none of us would actually need. But that’s the point of holidays yes? Cheap things, obviously. But strange things like loose leather bracelets in my case which I still regret to this day. It made my wrist look diseased.

Maka had cramps, so we went to Macs to relax for a bit. Maka, through her pain, actually managed to sneak in 4 whole packets of sugar into her hot tea while no one was looking, talk about being an ant in her past life.

Met 2 young Asian boys (we strongly suspect HongKongers) who could not stop saying “Hi!” to us. It was really our fault actually, because we started it. But they just did not want to stop. I suppose at their age, greeting people is a tremendously fascinating activity. Maka, being the demon that she is, rudely commented, “Can’t they say something else?” As honourable as her intentions were to expand their vocabulary, Maka came across as a thug.

Went back to Paddy’s Market, where Fart was as usual rather inflexible. Being a master planner, Fart thought it would be perfect if we went column by column, so we did not miss anything out. Organization is her past, present and future.

It was then that we were told that we would not be seeing Christine/Nuowen. We were going to go to Melbourne to surprise her.

And then she told us she was flying back to Singapore, ON THE SAME DAY may I add, to likewise SURPRISE US.

Surprises are never good things.

Went to Sydney Harbour after that. Was entertained by an old man who played a hauntingly pleasant tune on the guitar to entice us to live in Sydney forever. Maka still claims to this day that she can recall that particular tune, but Fart and I have our doubts, and rightly so too.

Walked down the harbour, where we were approached by a little lad who bore a striking resemblance to a young Beckham (to ME anyway). He politely asked for 50cents for some ice cream. A modern-day Oliver Twist I’ll say. Plus the skateboard that is.

So we asked him to do a skateboarding stunt for us to earn his 50cents. I suppose he never ever got that request before in his entire life because he looked horrified for a minute, but he coolly turned around and said “OK” before proceeding to do a non-existent stunt. Which basically involved him jumping on his skateboard. Just that one jump. And his skateboard didn’t even go above the ground.

His little dude friends were more excitable, and was very eager to show us some of THEIR stunts so that they could earn money from us as well.

But uh, they were really lousy.

Charming, but just terrible.

Ended up giving 50cents to the cool leader of the pack, the one who first asked us. The rest of them were grumbling because they didn’t get any money, so we told them to share that one cone. Though the thought of 4 young boys sharing one cone is a little bit amusing.

Fart taught us to do the Mat kiss. It was, unfortunately, an action that me as a Chinese was unable to master, though I still insist that I was able to do it a couple of times. Maka sounded like a lizard.

Also tried to beatbox, because we were bored. I was the best. Maka sounded like she was suffering from a terminal disease.

Spain jacket worn to pay tribute to the team who was playing Italy that night. Not that anyone there knew.

Spent a long time trying to figure out the lyrics to “My Boo”. Fart and Maka were slightly unpleasant during this period, because I was apparently very distracting. SO HURTFUL.

Went to Macs. Maka asked for hot tea again.

And she proceeded to dump 7 packets of sugar into her hot tea.

SO CUNNING.

We then tried to steal some Macs cups, much to the horror of the Asian countergirl who was probably aware of our heist. Pity us, we had nothing in the hostel.

We had our first “quarrel”. Kudos to Maka, who stepped in wisely, like a saint dropped from the sky. All she had to do was go, “Relaxxxxxx guysssssssss…” in her Luna voice, and Fart and I were appeased. So calm, so cool.

Words could not be remembered due to the TENSION.

Muahaha! Maka then admitted that SHE was the cranky one because of bad cramps.

We had Lebanese bread for dinner that night. Frighteningly cheap bread that nobody wanted, which made it very dubious but we bought it anyway since we were on budget. We were so daring.

It didn’t taste too bad actually. At some points it was like rubber, but it was fine as a whole.

Watched UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN on TV. Ohmygod, can I just say what a lousy movie that was? I could feel my hair turning white just watching it, one scene jumped to another and we kept saying it was probably because the TV station was bored with it and fast-forwarded bits of the movie.

Maka went to bed a bit earlier, while Fart and I stayed up to play the Memory Game with my handy pack of cards. Fart was uber competitive, she wanted to win every game, but I was the master of the game and I won it mostly. Maka was grouchy and I think she was awake the entire time, because she kept opening her eyes all of a sudden sometimes.

Can I also say that Maka is a VERY light sleeper? According to Fart, all Fart has to do is to turn and face Maka and Maka would suddenly open her eyes and get up. I don’t really know how many times Maka opened her eyes at night, but apparently she sleeps while anticipating for all sorts of exciting things to happen. Unlike me, a dynamite can go thru the room and I’d still be sleeping soundly.

Day 3, Monday, 1pm

We had no discipline.

Woke up late.

Valley Girl was our friend.

Fart denied me a long-awaited trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Or National Botanic Gardens. Along those lines. There were nude beaches there for Maka.

So that was what we ended up seeing. It wasn’t even slightly BOTANICAL in any way (uh, WHAT is it actually?). But Fart the Human Clock was insistent that we not miss our ferry to Manly Beach.

Ended up in Manly Beach. Took a ferry there which was sleep-inducing for SOME. I was the coolest. Maka was drifiting off to some other dimension while Fart was staring into space.

Went straight to Macs because it was DARK when we got there. So much for our time management. Fart had an Australian boy-crush this time…jailbait! He looked no older than 14. Or 16. Ordered things from him the first time. After that went back to him again for a teaspoon. After that went back to him AGAIN for sugar.

A few hours later, we were back in Macs again and guess who Fart wanted to place her orders with?

Boy looked traumatized. Maka as usual was blissfully unaware because she was caught up in her fantasies of her sugar-filled hot tea.

This time, however, Maka actually had the determination to reduce her intake to a mere 4 packets of sugar. I wonder how her blood looks like. Clumps and chunks of sugar everywhere.

On the way back to mainland Sydney, Maka timidly asked for some Lebanese bread. Like we were starving her or what. Don’t really know what she was so afraid of.

We eventually decided to have cup noodles, but they had a very dreadful range of flavours. Decided on Tandoori Chicken cup noodles after that, plus some cheap sushi for me.

I went on a psychotic sushi rampage in Australia, you know? I ate it night and day. If Maka has balls of sugar in her blood, I’ve got seaweed.

Ate the cup noodles in our room in the hostel, because we did not like to socialize. Besides, the English lads in the kitchen were having a joyous time flirting with this one girl. I suppose we could have marched in with the Tandoori Chicken cup noodles in tow and pretended to be a part of their fascinating conversation about Birmingham, but we decided we would have more fun by ourselves.

After that, on our way downstairs to dispose our trash, we met a strange man. For the longest time, he kept staring at us thru a window. Well I sort of noticed it when we first walked by, but I thought maybe he was staring in disgust at how big my nose was, but after a while I looked back and he was still staring at us. I mean, I know my nose is giganto but no one has really stared at it like it’s the eighth wonder of the world before. Fart sort of found it strange as well so we decided to edge our way back to our room, which unfortunately was on the fourth floor by stairs.

Suddenly, the man started talking to us and staring at us and asking us where we were from and blah blah. For some reason, all 3 of us stared at each other and blurted out at the same time, “Malaysia!”

And then we gave weak smiles and ran all the way up and back to our room. Maka then chided Fart and I for being so childish, but she forgot that she was running frantically as well, faster than me I’ll like to add.

Day 4, Tuesday, 12.30pm

Planned to get up earlier. Really, we did.

But no.

Counterman then, after asking us for the ten thousandth time which room we were from, tried to discourage us from going to the Blue Mountains, because it was apparently too late.

See, Fart and I aren’t really the sort who’d take no for an answer or who would like to change plans all of a sudden. So we stamped our feet and pumped our fists in the air and stood our ground. We were going anyway!

Minus the feet-stamping and the fist-pumping that is.

It was a two-hour train journey on the coolest train ever. There were 3 levels. 3!

And so many seats. Cushioned too. I felt like I had never seen the world before.

Started playing the Alphabet Game. Yet again. That’s the tradition we have to pass time by. Exhausted all categories before, so we added in new ones. Countries. Cities. People we know. Places in Singapore. ANIMALS (Maka really wanted that, she had the most boring category choices).

Also, Maka kept saying “Xena” for “X”. WHATEVER category it was. Name an actor starting with the letter X? Xena. Name a person you know starting with the letter X? Xena. Name an animal starting with the letter X? Xena.

Reached the Blue Mountains, which was in KATOOMBA. Sounds so suspicious eh, like a tribal war chant. It was a very pretty town, too bad we went so late. All we saw was the Three Sisters, but the scenery was just, not to be cheesy or anything, breathtaking.

It was also there that Maka commented rudely, “WHAT DEFORESTATION?”

It IS a lot of trees.

I was so unfit by the way. I took a thousand years to climb these giant step things, while Fart and Maka were merrily prancing up the steps like Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh.

Because it was our last night in Sydney, we decided to give ourselves a treat. For the past few days we had been stealing things from Macs (cups, spoons, ketchup) and eating plain bread with raw tomatoes and things like that. So we decided to get ourselves some PIZZA. Go us!

2 large pizzas to be exact. Plus garlic bread. Plus the larges bottle of Pepsi I have ever seen.

All of which we could not finish.

And Fart and I still had the cheek to get ourselves donuts.

We were going thru some psychotic episode I think.

We decided to bring the excess food down to the kitchen in our hostel, where we offered it to whoever wanted it.

And THE MAN was there. At first, he was a bit hostile and refused to look at us when we offered him our leftovers. The other people in the kitchen were greedier.

However, he warmed up to us when we said the word “pizza”. And we made sure to smile for more than 2 seconds when we saw him there, because we felt bad for the night before.

AND THEN. Fart and I were headed to the toilets late that night and who did we see?

Well, at this point I would like to say Adrian Gonzalez. But alas, no.

THE MAN was edging sneakily out of the toilets. And Fart was, as usual, spacey. I was horrified.

The man seemed to remember us three (though Maka was not there). He chanted and boomed, “ONE CHINESE. ONE MALAY. ONE INDIAN. ALL FROM MALAYSIA. MULTI-RACIAL COUNTRY, VERY GOOD.”

I seem to remember us nodding a bit weakly in return. Wanted to run back to our room but that would have looked really absurd. So we ran to the toilets after making sure he went off.

I think it was just the way he stared at us and how he talked to nobody else but us.

Benefit of the doubt, maybe he was very chatty with everyone else in the hostel too.

And that wraps up the bulk of Sydney for you.

I’d really like to go on to Melbourne instead of stopping at this CLIFFHANGER here. Like, what happened to the man? What did we do next? Was Maka grouchy again?

But I have to go to bed. Mother was very upset that I slept at 620am last night. I know I know, I’m a freak of enormous proportions.

I’ll continue sometime soon with Melbourne.

In the meantime, here are some snapshots of Sydney.

Goodnight.

OK guess what. I’m too lazy to upload anything else. My facebook’s got some pictures if you’re dying to see how Sydney looks like.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn