My Australian Journey (Part 5)

DAY 5 June 22, 2010
§ The World is Just not Enough §

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.
(Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881)

As usual….it seemed that I got used to having breakfast with toasted bread and a glass of orange juice (sound so Australian, huh?). We went to campus and dropped off at Caulfield Station to catch the 624 bus to Hawthorn. I met some other students; Aulia Rahman, Andhika, Sarah Akip, Riani, Noni, Dhira, Aya, and Golda.
When the students had their English class, I met Gillian (Hawthorn personnel) to talk about students’ art performance and the praying time. At 10.30, students finished their class and it’s the time for the group to take picture for their ID and internet access, including me.
Today’s special program was a city tour…(I said to myself…the city had been “conquered” by the students…there were no more place to see…hehehhehe) All of us went straight to Kooyong station and got on Flinders train. It was so fun, though, as one coach was full of Indonesian students.
As expected…the places we’re going to see were the ones the students visited the previous two days. But it’s okay, at least this time we didn’t only see the place but also learn more about the history and the story of those places. The first stop was the Cathedral church, we went inside and saw some 100-year old furniture. Going out the church, I took the pictures of Flinders station and the tram. This was the best spot to do that as it’s exactly in the corner of the busy street. Felt like a real pro photographer. Then, we crossed the road to the Federation Square and I intentionally went back to the visitor information center as some students were wondering if they could go to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade. Unfortunately, the cost to go there was so expensive…so mmmm we have to re-consider going there. In the middle of bustle and hustle of Melbourne, our groups explored the city to the very small alleys. As I told before…the destinations were the ones exactly like what we … no… I meant what the students had on Sunday morning….but this time we had it from different direction.
On the way to the meeting point, Dhira asked me to take her to the bank for changing the money, meanwhile, Intan (TN alumni 13 batch who was pursuing her Master’s degree in Human Resource at Melbourne University) was waiting for me in the Federation square. Then, we gathered at Federation Square and spread out as the next program was free activity. We finally met Intan. She didn’t change a lot since the last time I met her when she was still studying at Nanyang Technological University couple years ago. Intan, then took us (the English team) to the State Library…but I preferred staying outside to entering it as I have been there before. It’s about 20 minutes when finally they were out and continued our journey to Melbourne University.
It’s nice, though, walking down the street to Melb. Uni passing through MRIT and public bath. We arrived at Melb Uni 30 minutes before Maghrib prayer, so we decided to stay in the Moslem hall/ praying room waiting for the Maghrib prayer. Once we did that, we went back to Swanston Street in the city to have dinner. Finally, we got another place to hang out: Nando Chicken..this is a Portuguese resto with chicken as the main menu…but most importantly…it’s halal.
Here came some hungry creatures…we ordered two jumbo packages for everything….then I took out my magic stuff….SAOS PEDAS ABC!!!...and I told the waiter that my sauce was much hotter than theirs. Surprisingly, he spoke in Bahasa Indonesia…and said that all waiters were Indonesian. Oalaahhh…mas…mas…sampeyan ni dari Indonesia juga to??? Mbok ya dikasih bonus apa gitu….sesama Indonesia. Then we asked one of them to take our photos with bunch of chicken and chips filling out our table. Then, suddenly…the waiter came to us bringing 7 cups of cold chocolate..and said…karena sama2 dari Indonesia…dikasih bonus coklat.
Since we’re full, we decided to go home and each spent $11 for those chickens. I went straight to Melbourne Central as this is only a stone throw from Nando Resto. I quickly run to the ground floor of the station to platform 2 to catch Frankston train as the sign showed 2 more minutes. The train came and it run off to Ormond where I got off and walked down the road to Annie’s house. Before going sleeping, I sent SMS to my wife asking how was everything in Indonesia…and thank God they were fine.