Melbourne Trip

Good ol' Melbourne. It was nice to come back.
Two weeks ago I was at Melbourne for a sales training - the notion of that is itself worth a whole blog entry. Me going for a sales training? in Melbourne? Ok, I'm going to blog on how fascinating and how enjoyable the sales training was after this entry.

Back to Melbourne after so many years... I think it was at least 7 years ago when my friend Mun Lan and I last visited, two or so years after we left after graduating.

University and working life view of Melbourne is very different. Here are some of my processor dumps -
* Shopping - Walking through the streets of Melbourne after training and on the one or two occasions I was off early - I had nothing I wanted to buy! Imagine, after having worked for 10 years, I have the money and NOTHING I wanted to buy. I remembered when I was in university, Saturdays or Sundays we will occasionally go to the City (that's what we called it then!) and have yum-cha, watch a movie, go to ta-kei (play gaming machines) and then maybe consider shopping at Myers/other shops at Bourke Street, etc. Chadstone was the great shopping centre of my days then! Now I walked through the streets of Melbourne and it was just two question - 1) Why do the shops close this early 2) What shall I eat later? and the occasional "hmm... LV near my hotel"...

* Working
- Walking to work? - I walked about 15 minutes from the hotel I was staying in - Hyatt on Collins to Melbourne Central Tower. I noticed girls walk to work in skirts and sneakers! I was told they change shoes in the office.
- Its 530pm? - Where are the people? They are all gone by 530pm! This is really a city where people work at a clockwork schedule - there's no such thing as working overtime! The training finished approximately 5pm daily and on one or two occasions, it finished at 10 or 15 mins past, the trainers were so apologetic....! People here have balanced lifestyle, I guess.

* Fashion - Fashion in melbourne is a little boring. It did not come just from the Singaporeans I was chatting with, it also came from my observation that the working class women mostly wore black suit/skirt/pants sets. The guys look good though, as all of them wear suits to work. It gives the younger ones a little bit more class and evens out the age factor a bit.

* Food - My tolerance for extremely huge meals has gone down the drain. Took a look at the enormous sandwiches and felt nauseous - but I ate them all the same. Balanced meal! I think I actually ate more chinese food out in the one week I was in Melbourne than a month of eating outside in Malaysia! The Antz Bistro I went out with my uni-mates deserves a big mention- I liked the originality of the food style and the ants deco! A pretty decent place. The Greco (spell?) cafe in the Crown Casino block was the same as I remembered it - but my desire for the great selection of cakes has declined - it still tasted quite good however.

* Golf - Ah, my love affair with the game never ends... I can even end up playing in Melbourne! Thanks much to an old friend, Thomas, I had my first 'public' golf couse experience in Melbourne, and left with much lower expectations than I came in with!
- Shopping or golfing? - Was I expecting to be carting my golf-cart around? I guess I am spoilt - I need vehicles! Even though some walking courses exist in Malaysia, I have been spoilt by the buggy/turf-mate... nevertheless dragging the cart turned out to be less strenuous as I expected, likely due to the simple terrain the course had - I could not imagine doing this in some of the malaysian commando courses - I think I would've collapsed after 3 holes!
- Is there still wooden clubs? - Thomas Ting has wooden clubs. I've only seen those on TV when they show history of the Augusta Masters! They were really woods! Now, there's a good piece of real wood if I were to ever see one... Makes me wonder why they don't just call the woods now err irons?
- Autumn weather game? - Really cool! I loved it! I think I can get used to this instead of the lousy heat in Malaysia.
- Lack of water, literally? - There are no water hazards! I guess that means you can always retrieve your ball as long as it is not too far out! Plus, Melbourne also having a water rationing excercise... some holes are literally sand traps all the way!

* Monash - Alma Mater. Ancora Imparo. Lots to be said about the unchanged environment of my 15 minutes comeback tour of Monash, thanks to Gijsbert and Juliana. Much of the old university is unchanged, but a little bit of the awe and charm is lost in the development and in some area, lack of development process. Large car park bays, slightly cramped faculty buildings, no changes to the halls of residences, news of protests,... nostalgia... everything remains in a slow mode, but I've moved on...

What did I think of my trip? I enjoyed myself tremendously, learning from the training, knowing my Aussie counterparts, meeting people, and coming back to a beautiful city.

Still a lot of sting in good ol' melbourne!