Home is home but it's not home

I got up a little late and set off to view a house in an area called Footscray. I struggled with the train system as it was my first time and the signs and stuff aren't as straight forward as Korea's. I had to ask people and finally I got to the right stop. But then I couldn't find the actual house. Google maps showed the address in a big square so I went there. It turned out that the area was really new and so it wasn't showing up on maps yet. The house was magnificent. It's fully furnished, tidy, good location, good price. If I took it, my room would have a flatscreen T.V., double bed, air conditioning. What a dream! But the landlord was an anus. He was quite young for a landlord and I'm pretty certain he's gay (for description purposes). He said things like, "If you want to bring anything into the lounge you have to get it approved by me first." He was also concerned about the noise I'd be making when I told him there might be a bit of noi...

Today I started looking for houses online as well as looking for jobs. Flippin' heck it's expensive to live in Melbourne. Average rent price for a decent room on the outskirts of the CBD is around $200. There are a couple that have caught my attention and I'm going to go view a couple tomorrow. I went for a walk around 1pm today to the supermarket to buy some supplies. Bad move! Temperatures hit a high of 37 degrees today in Melbourne. It was sooooo hoooooooot. I say again, I am not a heat person. It wasn't humid like Brisbane but it was yuck as and the wind felt like a heater blowing on your face. The apartment I'm staying in gets zero natural light. It's quite depressing, but today I appreciated it because it meant it was nice and cool in there. The girls work heaps and so I get a lot of alone time in the apartment. It must look funny to them 'cos when they leave I'm on the computer looking for jobs and stuff and when they came back I was in exac...

Today I spent the day writing up my CV and looking through gumtree for a job. Gumtree is sort of like the trademe + SEEK. There are quite a few things up there but today I only applied for a couple. I'm going to try be quite picky at first about what job I take. There are lots of teaching jobs available but most of them are contracts. That would be secure and everything but it'd mean I'm tied down to it for at least 12 months. It'd mean that if by chance an opportunity came up to go somewhere for something else, I couldn't do it. It'd also mean it'd be harder to visit NZ. So, I want to find private students and then make up the rest of my income with one off jobs by meeting people and doing session work - that's what I'm hoping anyway. I know that'll take a long time to build up too because becoming a session musician doesn't happen just like that. I think it'll be tough, but realistic. I've found another website that is advertisi...

I had to wake up at 5am to catch the shuttle to the airport. I was awake but I wasn't awake. When I got to the airport I was faced with the problem of luggage. My ticket didn't include a check-in bag so I had a 10kg allowance in 2 bags - and the bags couldn't exceed 7kg. I went to check in and the guy at the counter was a douche. My main bag was 8kgs and said I'd have to pay another $70 - that's the price of my original ticket! I went off to the side and spent ages sorting my stuff. I got my main bag down to 7kg EXACT and put the rest of my stuff in a plastic bag. Problem was that the second bag was now about 5kgs. Now, I know you're not meant to leave things unattended in airports 'cos people think it's a bomb but I couldn't pay the tiger airways douche an extra $70. So, I found the least busy toilet, went to the furthest cubicle and chucked out a few items on the window sill - a blanket and 2 jackets. I layed it out in the least bomb-like fash...

Kate left early this morning, as she had to go to Uni back in Melbourne later in the day. I'm quite glad I won't be going back to University this year. To be perfectly honest, I would’ve been totally happy with sitting at the hostel doing nothing all day. I’m pretty burnt out. It’s not that I’m not having fun but I just love doing nothing too much and I haven’t done it much recently. Also, I’m really bad with heat and it’s zapping all the energy out of me. But my brain said that would be wasting my time and so I made myself go into town with Cherri and Alice to have a look around Brisbane city. As soon as we started walking around, I regretted my decision. It was sweltering hot and every time we stepped out into the sun I felt like I was being burnt to a crisp. Everyone knows how much Asian people don’t like being in the sun and I’m no different. @ Brisbane botanical garden For the first time in my life, I welcomed the idea of going into stores to browse a...

I’m soooo not a morning person. We arrived at our hostel in Brisbane early in the morning, ahead of schedule (around 9am). Cherri had booked it last night and didn’t realise it was actually about a 45 minute train ride out from the city centre. We checked into the place as we’d already booked and Alice and Kate went to return our rental car as it was due at 10am (it would take about an hour to get there). There was a man wearing all white in the room when Cherri and I went to relax in our room. He was crouched over in a corner and I assumed he must’ve been searching for something he dropped. From his attire, I gathered that maybe he was a navy dude and was spending a night in Brisbane on his way home or something. When he eventually got up, Cherri and I both saw written on his shirt, “Pest control.” That’s when alarm bells rang and Cherri asked him what he was there for and his answer wasn't what we wanted to hear. "Bed bugs." As most people know, bed bu...

We played it real cool when we went to check out early in the morning. I had a minor freak out in my head leading up to the moment though. I had visions of him being so disappointed that I’d lied to him about how many people were sleeping in the room. I wished that he was a dick and would yell at me if he happened to catch me, but he was such a nice guy I could only imagine him being disappointed. It was like how parents don't say anything at all instead of yelling and you know it's baaaaad. As it happened, he didn’t mention a thing and he saw us off with a friendly wave and smile. To be honest, Byron Bay was a bit of a let down. Yes, the beach was as beautiful as the ads. Yes, the people there looked as good as the people in the ads. However, I still didn’t much fancy the town. Admittedly, we had very high hopes for the place to live up to. Byron Bay has a small town feel and I was expecting the usual get-away-from-cityness greatness. So it was quite alienating...