Sunday, November 18, 2007

Shocks by Melbourne

I have been in Australia for a week. For getting more chances to practice English, I chose to live in homestay. The host family came from India, they are friendly, easy to communicate with. It’s much like a multi-nations home, as there are students in this house, who came from India, Korea and China.

I think I made the right choice for the accommodation, which allow me to settle in this country smoothly, although the food the host serve is totally different from the one in China. I think the India food tend to be spicy, even they cook the food, which I didn’t realized it’s Chinese food until they told me what it is. But it isn’t as that spicy as the one of SiChuan, which is a province in China, where people can’t live without spicy.

While Chinese people mostly live in the city where they work in, people in Melbourne live in suburb even they need to spend more than one hour a day on commuting. I think the reason they chose to live beyond the city is that the suburb is livable, where there is few cars and the air is fresh while the nature is preserved very well. Every morning I would be waked up by birds, and at night, I can hear some noise made by animals, such as cat, or others which is active after sunset. However, there are too many flies in Melbourne, except at home, I can’t stop swaying my hands to keep them away. I was told it is a problem of summer. Maybe this is one of disadvantages of good protection on nature.

People here is friendly, which reflect in many aspects of the daily life. Saying “G’day” or “hey, mate” is very common when meeting someone on the street of the suburb, even I don’t know them. I remember that when I were a child, my parents and teachers in school taught me not to talk with stranger, as they may be the persons intending to kidnap child. So it is a bit of shock for me when someone I didn’t know said hello to me.















I think the building in Melbourne is not just a building, but a piece of art as well. It's not as crowd as Hong Kong. While a lot of modern building standing there, historic buildings are combined with it.


In the famous street, Burke Street, some artists played guitar with fantastic melodies. I had been standing there for 15 minutes for listening to it, as the music they played was so emotional that I couldn't easily got away from it. It really provoked my desire to buy their CD, but I gave up it when I saw the price.








This is a Chinese style building, which means the street is Chinatown. I went into a Cantonese restaurant and had a roast duck with rice, which fortunately is almost same as one I had in China, not a Australian-Chinese food.











I noticed that the street is not only for the people to walk, but also for pigeon.













When coming back from the city, I got lost. Then I asked someone where I could go, the person in the photo said he didn't know as well, but anyway he drove me home following a map book. What a kind person! I didn't know how to express my appreciation at that moment, so asked him to take a photo with me and let me made a memory of this experience.