Australian Open + Australia Day public
holidays: taking my mom, who still plays tennis 6 days a week, for a short
retreat to Melbourne! The last time I was in Melbourne (and also the first
time) was ten years ago: I came with two med school friends and I remember
driving and driving along the Great Ocean Road and when I drove into the city I
got really confused by the tram tracks! This time I didn’t have to drive at
all! Took public transport for AO, one day tour for Ballarat, and had a kind hearted friend who took us around in his car!
It felt like an
“eagle’s eye view” flying a small plane to Melbourne (but missing the sense of
the wind blowing). Back in my childhood, I enjoyed jumping from high places
because it made me feel mighty (actually I still do now), I like racing with
the other kids to see who ran/ ice-skated/ swam the fastest, etc. I even liked
grabbing lizards and white mice to play with! I was used to doing things
independently and making important decisions for myself from a young age. A day
before embarking on this Melbourne trip, someone prayed with me. From my
background, she had an impression that I am like an eagle: do not like being
“ruled over by others”, need a large personal space to “flap my wings”, do not
like to be geographically restricted to one place but prefers being able to
cross the nations. Although I have a high sense of achievement, I feel a weak
sense of relational attachment with people. Five years ago, the sudden passing
away of my father made me
revaluate my relationship with him and realised that I did not make space for
quality time with him while he was alive. It was by the grace of God that he
accepted Christ two days before he suddenly passed away. Therefore, I’ve been
trying to slow my pace down in the last few years to make room for family and friends
in my life. I still have significant deficits in the area of interpersonal
relationships, but everyone’s speed of growth is different in different areas,
and I can only do so much.
By the time we got to the Southern Cross
Station via the Skybus, it was pretty late. We took the tram to the Victorian
Markets, which was still very crowded at 9:30pm.
I think we got more than what we bargained
for with the Thursday AO day ticket: we watched three games, with the number
one and number two females included! The final game became an extended game:
initially Kerber didn’t play well in the first game, caught up in the second
game, and we really couldn’t tell who would win by the third game!
Came to Sovereign Hill on Australia Day.
It’s like a time travel to Australia 170 years ago. In 1850 quite a lot of
Chinese came to the area for gold. Some lost their lives in this dangerous
environment, some stayed and had Caucasian wives, so some locals look Caucasian
but have Chinese surnames. Found gold smelting interesting, but my mom didn’t find it as exciting because my grandfather was a goldsmith.
We also visited the
Ballarat Wild Life Park and St Anne’s Vineyards. Got to see the quokka and the
wedge-tailed eagle!
Ate some specialty
foods:
·
Mr Miyagi (Very
unique but in small bites and very expensive. The person paying the bill felt
like crying from “the damage”.) https://mrmiyagi.com.au/
·
Ling Nan
Restaurant’s seafood
·
The Glass
Den (Very colour foods, but confuses people’s taste buds, eg. The green flaky
material makes people expect something sour instead of parmesan cheese) https://www.facebook.com/TheGlassDenCoburg/
Visited a few areas: Chadstone
Shopping Centre (for rich people); Brighton Beach (got some very colourful
bathing boxes); Docklands
