velleyjie

One of the happiest thing to happen is when you wake up to find that your toothbrush+toothpaste and towel has already been laid out for you. To add sugar to that would be to have an extremely sweet dream the night before. *Bliss*

10:00am: Jie and Qi treads out of 101 to continue their 2nd day of adventure. Being a student sometimes does have its perks when it comes to discounts. This particular morning, we got to enjoy 1 for 1 coffee at Gloria Jeans before heading down to good ol Vic Mart to have breakfast: a big juicy hot dog to start the day!

11:00am: Took a stroll at Vic Mart. We managed to get some strawberries, a honey dew and a pineapple. Sometimes we should be thankful to be able to grow up in a country like Singapore, where the fruits come cheap. Over here down south, you would have to be extremely lucky to find fruits that were on sale. Jie has since taken on a new perspective on honey dews and pineapples. Some of these fruits were like delicacies here in Mel instead of being free after-dinner giveaways back in SZ. Speaking on fruits, Jie was utterly amazed about how much these southerners know about tropical fruits. A question on the Australian "Who wants to be a Millionaire" asked, "Which of the following answers is the name of an actual tropical fruit?" The choices were "1) lemonsteen 2) mangosteen 3)applesteen 4)limesteen". A Singaporean with the intellect of an 8 year old would have gotten the correct answer! And the question was worth a few thousand dollars!! Sheesh, oh wells, so much for tropical fuits and intelligence.

12:00pm: After dropping off our prized fruits, we continued our journey on tram to Chapel Street. Chapel Street was another one of those shopping precints much like Bridge Road. But only at chapel Street, you find more international brands and things at higher prizes too. This destination was a "touch and go" place for us. Our priority was to explore some part of Chapel Street which Jie and Qi didn’t get to visit the last time they were here. Shopping here was quite different from shopping in SZ. The stuff here can be quite cool and pretty and they dun come cheap. But the nerve wrecking thing was that they were all "made in china"!! Qi was complaining how come we didn’t manage to find them while we were in SZ. Jie shall wreak his brains a bit more to find out where these little treasure could be found back in SZ. Its really quite silly to travel thousands of miles to buy something that was eventually "made in china" HaHa!!

 

2:00pm: Not having found anything to fancy our wallets, we manged to find instead something to tickle our tummies. We ordered a Tim Tam Cheesecake at Cafe Grecco’s where we rested our feets a little while. The weather outside was cloudy and extremely windy. But we didn’t really care, since we were thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.

 

3:00pm: Off to Smith Steet! One of Jie’s favourite place to visit. I suppose guys would like it here since they had factory outlets of Nike, Adidas and Fila, just to name a few. Tucked in a little corner was a Crumpler bag store. Whenever Jie visited it, it was like a kid visiting a candy store. The colours were fanciful except that crumpler bags could not be eaten. They even have a tailor-made section to customise your own designs and stuff. Well, actually Jie did not visit the store today because it would have been "tough" to leave the store without buying anything. Jie wouldn’t want to leave wailing and crying and bringing loads of embarrassment to Qi. Oh the pain and agony, of not being able to add another crumpler to his colletion. HeeHee…

4:00pm: But we did visit one of Qi’s favorite store. Selling the likes of Quiksilver and Roxy stuff. If you were lucky and looked hard enough, some of the things here were a bargain. Just like the checkered Roxy shirt and short Roxy denim skirt which Qi managed to find. Jie has a sneaky feeling Qi is trying to collect all the different skirts with the different "Roxy" prints right at the buttocks of the skirt. Well, he’s not complaining, because a happy Qi is a happy Jie!

5:00pm: Took the tram back to 101 to unload our stuff. *rest rest rest*.

6:30pm: Walked to the Shanghainese Noodle House to have our dinner. *munch munch munch* If you were asians like us, it would have been wise to share a bowl of noodles with someone. If you were stubborn enough to want to have a whole bowl to yourself, you could forget about eating the famous dumplings there. By the time you had finished a whole bowl of noodles, it would have felt like you had swallowed a whole elephant. To eat another plate of dumplings after that would be to stuff in another giraffe. THAT, was how full we felt after our dinner.

7:45pm: On the way back to 101, we stopped by at the Asian Grocey store called "Wing Cheong" to grab some tinned fruit cocktails. Jie was the first to notice that almost all the asian grocey stores in Mel had to have the word "Wing" inside it. The ones in smith street and other places of the city were likewise. It seemed that any store without a "Wing" in them was not an authentic asian store. But non of it mattered to us, as long as Jie and Qie can find what they wanted, it was a good store.

9:00pm: And finally we came back to embark on our Konnyaku jelly making excercise. Qi had bought those cute rubbery ice trays from Ikea that were shaped in a heart. We had wanted to use them to shape our jelly but realised that there was too much jelly and too little trays. But not to worry, the small soup bowls served that purpose just as well.

And so we made our 1 tray of heart shaped konnyaku jellies, and 4 bowls of jelly puddings.

10:00pm: Jie makes a call to book a tour package for our Great Ocean Road day for the coming monday. *excited excited excited*

10:15pm: Lights were off and again we began watching our daily dose of "Full House".

12:30am: Jie and Qi drifts off to slumberland.

Goodnight my love..

Dreams of a silly goose and a princess, a castle and pretty clothes and shoes, and a happily ever after…..ZZZzzZZZ

12 years of learning mathematics proved to be extremely useful when counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds before Jie could see Qi once again. It was many months before when we last saw each other but today felt like all the waiting was worth while. A good ten days break from the city of sz and into the city where Qi currently resides..

10:45am: Touchdown!!! Jie reminds himself to fill up his arrival card properly this time. Because the last time he came in February, he was in such a rush and hurry to clear the customs to get to Qi, that he accidentally checked the box which says he has a criminal record!! And thus had to be detained and questioned for the longest of times. . HAHA! But today it was a breeze…. Phew…

11:00am: Hugs, hugs and more hugs! It really was a pretty day; cool yet sunny at the same time. Walking with Qi hand in hand, what more could a man ask for. We chatted, we laughed, we hugged, we held hands, and exchanged bewilded looks with each other about the non-native taxi driver who didn’t seem to fully understand the destination we wanted to go. Nonetheless we arrived back at 101 and quickly got down to unpacking Jie’s luggage. Time was precious, and not a moment to lose!

12:00pm: We left the Qi’s apartment and headed for the tram stop to take a tram to our first destination of our itinery, Bridge Road. It was a place full of factory outlets for various Australian brands and a haven for shoppers who have a bit of money to spare. The polo-Ts from Cotton-On were so eye catching that Jie couldn’t keep his eyes off all the colours and design. And they were on sale too! *grab grab grab*! For those who have no idea what Cotton-On was, just imagine that it is the Australian equivalent of Giordano, but with much much much better designs and factory outlet prices. Never has Jie shopped so madly before.

2:00pm: Next stop, UFO. No its not a clothing store; well sort of if you consider lingerie and underwear to be part of normal clothing. And I have no idea what UFO stands for anyways. “Underwear for Oldies?” It does seem that 80% of the things they sell were more likely bought by people aged 80 years and above. But the other 20% really pretty and alright, so I shall say they were pretty alright then. Qi managed to buy some stuff at a good bargain though. It had lots of frills on it. Whatever Jie had fancied didn’t have sizes left. Then another wild thought came over Jie’s mind, “Underwear for the Obese”?

3:00pm: We chanced upon Jeans West slightly further on. It was Qi’s time to go gaga at the price of the stuff. Our hands were full by the time we got out of that place. It was on average $5 for a piece of garment. How cool is that!?!

4:00pm: It was time for our pockets and wallets to take rest. We went to this café to grab a bite to eat: chicken with avocado, cheese and sundried tomatoes, 2 lattes. Having lived in SZ for so long, not only was the sandwich a mouthful to eat, if was actually quite a mouthful to say the name of it too. “Chicken with avado, keese and….. Chicken avocado with cheese sand.. oh sorry chicken with avocado and sundried ..err what was it again ..Chicken with avocado, cheese and dundried toma… sundried tomatoes. Yes that’s it. And 2 kopis… I mean 2 lattes” It’s amazing how western cuisine names actually tell you what’s inside the dish. Oh oh oh. . we had fun playing with the foam of the lattes too! Milk moustaches for the both of us. Mmmm.

5:00pm: Just a couple of minutes more before the shops closed for the day. We went window shopping from one place to another. Making mental notes of which shop to come back to when our pockets were well and fully recovered.

 

5:30pm: Tram back to the city. We stopped at Saveway to buy a bottle of red wine for our dinner that night. The good thing about restaurants in Melbourne was that you could BYO. No its not a commonly used colloquial Singlish word, but an acronym for Bring Your Own. For those who are not too familiar with the term, its also does not mean bringing your own dinner partner. It means you could bring your own wine.

7:00pm: After taking a rest back at 101, we changed and made our way out for dinner at Lygon street. We settled for an Italian restaurant which served pastas and pizzas. The choice of food was obvious. Lygon street is after all the “little Italy” of Melbourne. A huge plate of lasagna, and huge plate of spaghetti marinara and a bottle of red wine was what we had that evening.

It was dead wonderful. How we wished everyday could be just like this little evening which we shared together.

9:00pm: With the effects of the alcohol taking effect, we decided to freshen ourselves up. What more could be more refreshing than to have gelato on a freezing winter night! *Brrrrr* Sharing a gelato cone, we walked hand in hand back to 101.

   

10:00pm: Cuddled together and watched a Korean drama called “Full house” on Jitsu. It was by some actor/singer called Rain and a petite little Korean lady. And for the benefit of readers, Rain is the name of a guy, not a girl. So it’s a romance comedy and not a story about 2 sisters.

12:00pm: Finished 2 episodes. Switched off the lights, and we were off to slumberland.

The past 4 months of waiting seemed like a dream. Now that you are in my arms baby, I will cherish every single second of it.

*sweet dreams and good nite my love*

It was a day of anxious waiting, waiting and more waiting. Because it’s the day the silly goose will fly south, doing his bi-annual migration from the land of stir-fries to the land of french-fries. This is a land where hotdogs come as easily as you can say “cheese”, and quite literally too. But most importantly, that’s where the silly goose’s princess is. Waiting at her 101 to be rescued from the evil clutches of “Doc Mel”. Preparations were already on the way at 101, as the princess binds and ties the balloons to be used as welcoming signals and fairy lights which were supposed to be landing lights.

After establishing last contacts with his princess in distress, the silly goose was packed into a giant tin-can with wings, ready for his flight. At 11:45pm sharp, he was off!!! And his saga continues…..