Day 31 - October 23

The main purpose of today was to find a nice pair of walking shoes. My Converse and dress shoes are hurting me at work. Note to other backpackers, bring comfortable walking shoes. I sacrificed comfort for style. Big mistake.

I googled the biggest mall in Melbourne and Chadstone shopping mall came up. It has 530 stores and is the oldest mall in Victoria. It is apparently the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere.

I started off in the Athlete's Foot store. The guy measured my feet. Apparently my left foot is a size 9 and my right foot is a size 9.5 and I have a size E for foot width. Then he asked me to walk across a machine that pinpoints where all the pressure is when I walk (called Fitprint Analysis). The machine determined that I roll in when I walk. Pretty neat. He was all gung ho with the feet technology. Though in my eyes I think the machine is more of a 'sales pitch'. In the end, they are still just shoes salesmen, with maybe a shinier pen than Sportchek or something.

I narrowed it down to 2 shoes, the Nike Free Run +2 ($179) and the Asics GT-2160 ($199).





I told the guy I would come back after I looked around since I just started shopping. He wrote down what shoes I wanted on a piece of paper and handed it to me so that if I come back and want the shoes, I would just give them the paper. It also had his name on it, I guess this would prevent sales from being stolen by other workers.

I was already on the top floor of the mall, so I decided to start at the top and work my way to the bottom. It wasn't long till I started working my way through the shops on the bottom level since all the expensive stores were at the top. Stores on the top floor included: LV, Chanel, A/X, Gucci, Ted Baker, etc, stores that are not backpacker friendly. Heck, I bought a button up shirt from Target last week for work, and I would never in my lifetime buy clothes from there, not that I'm against people who do or anything, I'm just not into the homeless look haha.

I started getting thirsty too (the weather was about 25 degrees, nice and hot). I actually wore my sunglasses today! Finally some nice weather. I went to New Zealand Natural for a Chillo (pretty much like a frappachino from Starbucks). It was delicious!

These stores are everywhere

I went into a couple of the Mens clothing stores and the store Politix has really nice jackets. It's a little like Underground, but a lot more stylish. The jackets have a Japanese style to them. When I was in Japan a few years ago I bought a couple and they are still my favourite jackets. Another store, Roger David, had really nice ties. They were styled ties that were not symmetrical. Ties with edge. I was in tie heaven. I may have to come back to this store on the last leg of my trip to buy some and bring home.

There was a part of the mall where there was live cooking. At the time I was there, an asian chef was prepping dim sum, or should I say yum cha, for about 30 people. The show after was decorating cupcakes. Neat idea for a shopping mall.

aka the dollar store

I also passed by a store called 'The reject shop', funny enough I didn't find myself in there. Self serviced haha.









I went to a couple of more shoe stores and the last one I went to was Foot Locker. The same Asics shoes were $129 here, a lot cheaper than the first store I went to. The only problem was that they didn't have my size!! Rahhhhh!

To calm my anger, I went for a snack in the food court. It was about 30 mins before the mall closed and some of the restaurants had food deals. I bought a $2 cup of fried stuff. It had a smiley face, fries, wedges and shui mai. What an odd combination of food. Ketchup was extra at $0.20 per packette. Damn you Australia and your expensiveness.








When I sat down, I couldn't figure out how to get the ketchup out. About 10 seconds later, I squeezed the ends together and BAM! I just saw the greatest invention ever (next to high speed internet). Now I get why it's $0.20 per packette.

The mall closed at 5:00pm, but the bigger department stores closed at 6:00pm. I went into Myers and David Jones (like The Bay) and looked for some clothing for the Melbourne Cup on November 1st. It's dubbed the race that stops a nation. Lots of people dress up for this event. Not just dress shirt and ties, but bow ties and suspenders style. I looked for some shirts and weird bow ties. I found a black and white checkered shirt and a yellow bow tie. Bingo. Looked retarded enough for me.

Day 30 - October 22

Worked a late shift again, 7:30pm - 2:30am.

The party out in the pavilion section was for an after wedding party. Very formal and dressy. The party inside was a costume party. A little early for a Halloween party if you ask me.

Dolores bartended the costume party while Adam bartended the other one. The costume party drank a lot of shots. There was only 15 partiers and they bought at least 50 shots!

The wedding party brought a cake as well. It was decorated poorly. The icing was not smooth on the cake. It looked like stucco. It also tasted stale and dry. After having my sisters cake, no one else come close.

Day 29 - October 21

Worked a long shift today, 15 hours. Fridays are when the cafe gets crazy. There were a lot of surrounding business buildings and that's where the majority of the customers came from. The odd tourist would stop in as well since we are the first cafe along the harbour.

For lunch I tried something different. I tried the Arinchini, which is pretty much pasta and rice rolled in a ball with bolognese sauce on top, and salad on the side with fruit. The apple and blackcurrent juice was really good too! I know Rob Foster would love this.









We all got a second break since we were working a long shift. My second meal was a spicy pepperoni pandini. First it's microwaved for 45 seconds, then it's in a flat iron press for about 2 minutes so that it's crispy. I think I want one when I come back to Canada.

Since I had extra time on my break, I decided to walk along the docks on the other side of the water. It was all restaurants. Some were even on boats. I also passed by a place where they serve dim sum, only they call it 'yum cha' here, which is how dim sum is pronounced in Cantonese. Funny. This ain't no dim sum boy, it's yum cha bitches!

While walking along the docks, there were a lot of stars on the ground, but I only recognized one, Wolverine!

When I walked back to the cafe from my break, I passed by the famous 'Cow in Tree' sculpture by John Kelly. This calls for a wikipedia moment: At the famous Coubertin Foundation, just outside Paris, Kelly created his iconic ‘Cow up a Tree’ sculpture, an 8 metre high, four ton bronze sculpture that reproduces Dobell’s camouflage cows upside down, high in the branches of an Australian gum tree. This surreal sculpture, based on flood imagery from Australia, caused a Parisian sensation and was commented upon in worldwide media including in The Times, ‘Cows and debris put Paris back on modern art map’. This sculpture, one of three in the edition travelled back to Melbourne where it has been on permanent public exhibition as part of Melbourne’s Docklands precinct.

The cafe usually closes at 4:00pm, except on Thursdays and Fridays where people can come in for alcoholic drinks and snacks till 6:00pm. Then it turns into a party venue (if it's booked out). There were two parties that night, both 21st birthdays: one was for a brown guy, the other for a white chick. Julie, a student from France (early 20's), PK, Adam and Grace and I were working that night.

The brown party was awesome. While I was offering hors d'oeuvres to everyone, all the girls were talking about my accent. They were saying "I love your accent", then I replied "I love YOUR accent" or "I don't have an accent, you have an accent" which never fails to make them laugh.

There was about 60 of them, about 30% were the parents. Everyone looked like they were having a good time and I was having a lot of fun talking and serving them too.

Adam was the bartender for the brown party while Grace was the bartender for the other party. Julie was mostly in the back helping PK and also serving food to the white party (I'm not being racist, I swear). I helped serve the other party as well, but they were no fun at all. They weren't even hungry. A lot of the times there would be a lot of food we would bring back to the kitchen after making the rounds. The staff and I would just pick at it. With the brown crew, they ate everything, they know not to waste food haha.

Some dude, Jenn, me, KB

One of the brown girls came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said 'you're the best, I'm going to tell your boss that you're awesome!". Sweet, I wonder if I'll get a raise. She later returned with 2 of her other friends. Their names were Tara, Jenn and KB. They were a lot of fun. This serving gig is awesome!

Me, Julie, PK, Adam

After the parties were over at 1:00am, we cleaned till 2:00am. Grace had already left at 1:00am. Adam said we celebrate a hard nights work with beers. I tried a Pure Blond. Just as I though, tastes like all other beer I've had.

I looked up online on how to get home and I had to walk to the Crown casino where a night rider bus was running every 30 mins between 1:00am till 3:00am. There was about 10 of these busses and the one I needed to catch was by the casino. It took about 45 mins to get home. It was about 3:30am by the time I got home. What an exhausting day. I haven't worked like that in a long time (if you are an employee from the Elbow River Casino reading this, what I really mean is that all this hard work reminds me of my working days back at the casino).

mX

Day 28 - October 20

Worked 10am to 6pm. My first real shift. I talked to PK and Adam more. It's so much easier to get along with other guys. The girls on the other hand are so uptight and tense. Burn, the barista, just keeps barking orders and complains. The same goes with Rhiann. She was telling me how to wrap up the sandwiches and what not, but she was giving me this face of anger and just walks off. The next time I saw her, I asked her if I did something wrong and she replied no. But she did continue to say that she was fed up with everyone trying to train me at the same time. It was true though, everyone was telling me things at the same time and even things that contradicted each other. One person would say we start taking the sandwiches into the kitchen at 1:30pm, another person says that we take them in at 2:00pm.

Rhiann later apologized to me for looking angry at me and that it was nothing personal towards me. Adam told me that Irish people are usually angry looking and sounding as well haha. 

It was kinda weird when I was sweeping and mopping. Only about a month ago I had my own comfy leather office desk, I could take a break whenever I wanted, ate free food, and I could tell other people to sweep and mop if I wanted to. Now I'm the one at the bottom of the ladder doing the mopping and sweeping. I smiled for some reason when I thought of that. Just seemed funny. The thought "don't take things for granted" passed through my mind though.

My new dodgeball team.

Today was the first day of dodgeball. The owner of this league, Tyler Bowman,  is from Calgary. He came to live in Melbourne and decided to start up his own league. Smart guy. It was a lot different than what I was used to back home though. The balls were like volleyballs, very light and thin. When the ball was thrown, because it was so light, it would drift in weird directions. Also, no matter how hard you throw it, it was still pretty slow. Other different rules: they can bounce the ball at any time and also ditch it anywhere they want (even on their own side), you can hold more than 1 ball, and the ball doesn't have to pass half when thrown. We had about 8 players on our team. Tyler put me together with Sara's team, called Scared Hitless. We won by 2 points. It didn't really matter anyways since it was a 'friendly' game. The real season starts in 3 weeks.

Ooops, forgot about the mX yesterday

Day 27 - October 19

Observation day. I worked from 9:00am to 6:00pm. I met Adam, tall English dude (mid 20's or so), who was going to be training me. He was super nice and chill, been there for 7 months. Also met Rhiann, Irish chick (early 20's), who's been there for 4 months, Dolores, Kiwi on her second day (early 20's), and Burnadette (Burn for short) who was the Barista (mid 30's).

Grace said that Adam would be training me. He told me the basic stuff like greeting customers, bring them their food by matching the number on the receipt with the number that we give them when they order and stuff like that. At the same time, while Adam was training me, Rihann and Burn would butt in and tell me other stuff at the same time. I had so many people telling me so many things at once, it was annoying.

Later on I met the kitchen crew, PK whom is from India (23) and has been there for 2 years and Sylvia, Australian (late 20's). PK was cool too. Sylvia seemed like she kept more to herself, but the more I talked to her, the more she opened up.

It got really busy during the lunch rush. My job was to listen for the bell, which means that either coffee or food was ready to be brought out. That bell didn't stop ringing for at least an hour. Constant running around all day.

Rihann said it was my lunch break. She said I could pick anything for lunch to eat. For some reason I had a big grin on my face and replied "anything?!". I went for the ham and spicy meat focaccia sandwich and salad. The sandwich is first mircowaved for 45 seconds, then it's flattened in a flat grill. It was crispy and delicious! I also made a side salad that had avacado, tomatoes, olives, pumpkin and onion. I ate outside. The view was awesome. I could get used to this.

My view while I had lunch

After my shift was over, Grace said she wanted me on board. She was also interested in my marketing background and what I did. I gave her some ideas about what I could do for her; design some signage, check out the other nearby cafes to see what their specials were, what their coffee prices were compared to our, etc.

Sweet, I got the job!

I celebrated by buying steak for dinner. I also saw kangaroo meat at Coles, but I didn't buy it. I'll have to look that up on how to cook it for next time.

Didn't seem expensive

Good ol fashioned steak with rice and corn

Day 26 - October 18

It took about 20 mins to get to the cafe from my house. It was located by the Etihad stadium (where they play AFL, soccer, concerts and stuff).

When I went in the cafe and asked for Grace, she was busy with clients talking about setting up events at the place. After about 20 mins, she finally came to talk to me. She said that she wasn't expecting me to be asian as I told on the phone that I was from Canada. I knew she was asian when I talked to her on the phone last night, I could tell from the fob accent, even with the Australian accent. I was thinking 'didn't you read my resume? Last name is Lam and I also mentioned that I am fluent in Cantonese and there are mass populations of asians in Canada'. The interview went well, as usual (as I dust dirt off my shoulder). She asked a lot about my managing skills and mentioned that she will also be looking for a supervisor to help her out. She also asked if I was a bartender before and I replied no. She said I had the personality fit for it and that she'll probably just get me to learn it along the way. After the interview I was asked to come back tomorrow at 8:30am for a trial.

It was about 12:00pm and I decided to check out where the DFO shopping outlets were that my friend Jenn had mentioned to me. DFO is District Factory Outlet. It was a 20 minute walk from where I was.

On the way to the mall, I walked past a giant anemometer (device used to measure wind speed). It was kinda cool that every part was moving as it was a tad windy.

The shopping mall was about 3 levels, a little bit smaller than the renovated Chinook Mall. The deals weren't even deals. For example, the Adidas outlet had shoes for $100. That was the lowest price I found at that outlet. That's crazy. In Canada, especially in the US, the prices are way lower than that. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything there.

I went back to the CBD and went into Target. I bought a black dress shirt for the Harbour kitchen trial. It was only $17, sweet deal. They don't charge GST (I think it's already worked into the pricing) and they abolished the penny in 1966. They round to the nearest nickel. I hear Canada is also thinking about getting rid of the penny.

When I got home, I wanted to wash my bed cover, blanket cover and the rest of my clothes. I washed about 3 loads, the washing machine is tiny. I had to hang the first load outside on the drying wire, but the last 2 loads I brought to the nearest laundromat to dry. The sign said 'absolutely no just drying', meh.


Our old fashioned spinning clothesline, Zangief style.



Day 23-25 - October 15-17

Focused on applying for more jobs on the weekend. Most of my time was at the State library again.
Of all the 25 places I applied to online, I finally got a call back from one place. The woman on the phone sounded asian. Her name was Grace. She asked for me to come in for an interview the next day at Harbour Kitchen by the Victorian Docklands. Sweet!