Last Thursday, around 1:00 pm, we escaped from the office and went over to the main campus of Monash University in Clayton for lunch. We just hopped on the 900 bus service, which got us the Clayton in about 15-20 minutes.
Here's Liz and Steph on the bus! Comfy seats, I must say. Once we got there, we starting walking around. We didn't get too far before we ran into a big tent that had a ton of people in it. We went to explore...
Inside was a big multicultural expo going on. This was a choir of little kids performing for part of the time. There were a ton of booths set up by different groups and clubs on campus, representing all sorts of ethnicities. At one of the booths, they were selling kangaroo, emu, and buffalo sausages...
So of course I tried my first bite of kangaroo! It made me sad to think of eating a kangaroo, but it didn't taste bad. Not my favorite meat, but it reminded me of just a hamburger. Instead of hamburger buns, they just gave me a slice of white bread to hold it in, and I put some ketchup on it too. It was a big sausage! Sorry Casey, my kangaroo buddy, don't take it personally- I still love kangaroos, and I won't eat them again.
I was excited as we explored around some more and I found the Biomedical Engineering Centre!! Yay Bioengineers!
They had huge beautiful sports fields that were incredibly green. Here are Steph and I next to their footy goal posts.
And a wider view of the goal posts/field.
They had lots of buildings, and the campus reminded me a lot of UCSD, although significantly smaller. They had a lot of random art pieces decorating the campus, just like UCSD. There were a lot of students walking around, as it was a Thursday and their winter break was over a week ago.
The campus was very pretty, lots of trees, a few little ponds here and there for decoration.
In the middle of campus, where they had their food court and lots of random stores, was the Monash University Campus Centre. It was like Price Center, but inside. They had a ton of places to eat, convenience stores, bank atms, even a hair salon. There was one place, called Wholefoods, that was a vegetarian hippie hangout- it was so cool!
I thought it was a grocery store at first (because of the name- "Whole Foods") but when I went inside, it was a vegetarian restaurant and store with a ton of places to sit and lounge around. Lots of signs about "No Meat" and flyers about different causes to support, such as working against animal cruelty and environmental causes. They even had a stage where bands could play- and there were a lot of people eating and hanging around in the place. I liked it =)
Then, and I am not making this up, we found "Boob Lawn." This is a picture of the boob, right in the middle of a flat grass lawn. And it really is called Boob Lawn haha. I was amused.
On that lawn, a club was having a BBQ to promote an upcoming dance, so we talked to some Monash engineers and got free slushies!
When we got back to the Caulfield campus, it was drizzling a little bit, and we looked up and saw this beautiful rainbow! Very pretty, and a reminder of God's promise.That night, we went back to Crown Plaza because we wanted to check out the Rockstar Karaoke they have on Thursday nights. On the way there, I got this beautiful picture of the city at night:
Here's Steph and me with the city lights behind us.
The entrance to Crown Plaza & Casino.
Inside, they had these race cars on display, so of course all the guys HAD to take a picture pretending they owned it.
Haha, I love this one. Andres is holding the keys to unlock the car.
We made our way to the karaoke place, and it turned out to be really neat inside. 
Michelle's mom and sister are visiting for this week (they arrived on Wednesday) so her sister Lisa joined us on our outing.
Lisa is second from the right- she was a lot of fun to dance with =D
Here's the band that was playing. How the karaoke worked was that the person who signed up to do karaoke would pick a song, then the band would play it behind them on stage. It was like you were a real rockstar! Very fun. None of us tried it, because you had to sign up ahead of time. The band would play for 30 minutes, and 7 or so people would sing. Then at the end the crowd would pick a winner (by applause). Many of the people who performed turned out to be really good! And some of them really rocked out- yelling and jumping up and down and everything lol. I wish they had a place like this in the US!Friday night, we joined three German students we met at the Claremont who are here in Australia for a few weeks doing internships, kind of like what we are doing. Except their internships aren't related to grid computing as far as I know =P.
We found a little place where a live band was performing (I don't know what the place was called). It was a lot of fun, and we stayed listening to the band and dancing a little bit until we caught a train back to the Claremont.
The band was very good- I was impressed!
Here's John, Michaela, and me on our way to the train.On Saturday, we woke up early to catch a 9:00 am train to Ballarat. This was the first time we had taken a train outside of the city, and it was an enjoyable ride. It took us about an hour and a half to reach our destination.
Here's our train waiting at Platform 8!
Steph and Liz ready to go!
A view out the window from my seat on the train.
Michelle's mom and sister joined us too.
PRIMErs on the train!
The train took us inland, in a direction we hadn't been before, through some desert areas. Everything was still really green though! 
Finally, we got to Ballarat!
There was a shuttle right at the station which took us straight to Sovereign Hill, one of Victoria's top attractions!
Soveriegn Hill is basically a mock up of an 1850 mining town. Ballarat is where the Australian gold rush happened, and thus it is where Melbourne first started. It is the first established city, as people moved there looking for gold.
Here we are just before we entered!
Inside they had a little museum with lots of statues talking about the Australian gold rush and immigration to Ballarat and Australia.
Saleh was making friends with the fake people... and dogs too!
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Here's Sovereign Hill! It was like stepping into a time machine... with a couple hundred other tourists too lol.
There was this huge fat cat just sitting on the steps of one of the stores! He was so tame- he would let anyone pet him. He was so cute! I wanted to take him home with me.
Some more pictures of the town.
It was VERY cold in Ballarat- I think it is one of the coldest towns in Melbourne. Cold air comes rushing over the desert with the wind and hits Ballarat. Brrrrrr... here we are huddled around a fire pit to keep warm. I think the smoke was flying in Michelle's face hehe.
They had a ton of 1850-style hates for sale! Very fun- of course I had to try on as many as possible.
Some colorful yarn and thimbles for sale.
A cute little dog they had running around the park (I'm not sure whether to call the place an amusement park or not, because it was a theme park, but that phrase makes me think of Disneyland- and it was nothing like Disneyland. I guess frontierland in Disneyland gets somewhat close to what this was...)
Awesome dresses that reminded me of Gone with the Wind.
I tried on a golfers hat, so here is me taking an imaginary swing. (It was a hole in one by the way =D)
It was very cold!!
A shot from far away of the gold mine.
They had a building with a lot of big, old machines in it, including this steam engine.
The room was very loud with all the machines running.
Sheep!
We signed up for a gold mine tour, which was totally worth it!
Here is Darin, our tour guide.
Showing off our tickets...
This was the mine we went into. We had to walk down a hill to get to the entrance, then the tunnel went into the side of the hill. Most of the mine was not a real mine, so it only went a couple hundred feet underground, but apparently real mines can be as deep as 3500 feet!! Yikes!"Into the mines!" -Gimli (for all you Lord of the Rings fans out there- shout out to my brother James!!)
This is where all the workers would take their break for lunch. If they worked 10 hours, they would get 30 minutes for lunch. This is a replica- not a real mine, but the last room we went into was a real mine that they found when creating Sovereign Hill- very cool! I think mines go under the same category as caves- I love exploring them!
At the end of the tour, we got to go on an underground train ride! So much fun- it got going pretty fast too! And no seat belts on this one- although they weren't really needed. So long as you aren't dumb enough to try to stand up during the ride of course.
Here was a guy making metal stuff using tools from the 1850s- in this picture he was creating candle holders.
They had a candle dipping shop too, and inside there was another cat! This one was all black, and I think he is enjoying the heat from the hot wax containers next to him.
This is the candle dipping place.
I didn't pet the cat, because you could only go back there if you were making candles, which we didn't do.
This is a wax drippings decoration they had on display- pretty creative. It has layer upon layer of wax that has dripped down from burning candles.
A Wesleyan Methodist Church, just like you would have found back in the mining town.
Next to the church, they had this bowling alley replicating how it would have been in the late 1800's! It was all made out of wood, and the lane was really long! They played with these heavy balls that you had to heave using both hands. There were no finger holes in these bowling balls.
Here is Steph giving it a shot. It was actually pretty hard! Steph's ball didn't even make it to the bowling pins lol.
Umm.... don't ask. Lol. Maybe I thought Sumo wrestler style would help my technique? But yes, that is me. Even with all this effort, my ball only barely reached the bowling pins, tapped the front pin, and stopped. Not a single pin knocked over haha.
Here is the ball next to the big wooden pins. The highest score was given if you could knock over all of the pins except the front one.
Michelle giving it her best!
They also had this game, which I guess they played back then too. The goal is to jump over balls horizontally or vertically until only one ball is left. Each time you jump over a ball, the ball that was jumped over is removed.
I tried it, but I had about 3 balls left when I was done.
Amazingly, Saleh lost after jumping only 6 balls! An amazing feat- I was dumbfounded.
Here we are with a family from the 1850's! They had people dressed up as if they lived in that town walking around in random places all during the day. These little kids were so cute! I'm not sure they even realized that they were working. Child labor!!! Haha, jk.
The Redcoats went marching by us as we were waiting for a coach ride.
Here is the coach that went around the park (a lot like Knott's Berry Farm).
Four beautiful clydesdale horses were pulling the coach. They sure had a lot of foam on their mouths!!
We got in the coach for a ride, and Saleh sat in front with the coach driver. Liz, Steph and me were inside. Here is a view from the coach.
The girls in the back!
Smile! The ride was a lot of fun.
Saleh and Liz with Sovereign Hill behind them. Way in the distance are the suburbs of Ballarat.
Me and Steph!
Saleh and Steph decided to check out the authentic looking outhouse to see if anyone was in it.
Here's me mingling with the locals in one of the houses.
So rebellious...
Steph is ringing the bell for school to start!
An awesome authentic coach from that era.
Faster Saleh! Faster!
Yeehaw!
Heading down into Red Hill Mine for our self guided tour. This was my favorite part, because halfway through the tour, after we watched some virtual miners strike it rich, the guiding voices stopped and the tour stopped. Usually, the lights in the tunnel ahead turn on to let you know you should proceed, but they never did! So we had to find our way through the rest of the mine in the dark haha. It was like being in a real mine! One person had a flashlight, and I think another person was trying to use their phone for some light. We made it out, although in one of the rooms, usually a safe opens to show the gold nugget inside, but it wasnt working so we didn't get to see the nugget. No worries though- I had fun trying to get through the pitch darkness!!
Here is the creek where people could pan for gold! We didn't try it because it was too darn cold!! But we watched some other people try it for a little while.
Back at the museum, here is Saleh traveling with some other immigrants!
And the best display in the whole place was this one!
After the bus drove us back to the train station from Sovereign Hill, Michelle and her mom and sis decided to head back to Melbourne city. Saleh, Liz, Steph, and me decided to stick around and explore the city a bit. There were some cool old buildings to look at, including lots of little stores. A lot of them were closed though, since it was 4:30 already.
Some photos of the town.
This is a shot down the center divider of the street- everything is always so green here!
We found a lot of neat little places- such as this chocolate shop. Looked good, but we weren't too hungry, so we didn't buy any to try it.
Here's Liz trying to help Saleh figure out the map to see where we should go.
Steph was excited to find a store named after her!
I wish this store had been open so I could have gone inside! But sadly... they were not.
And I found my cathedral!!! St. Patrick's!! (For those of you who are confused- my birthday is on St. Patrick's Day)
We caught a pretty sunset over the town before we went inside to warm up and get something to eat.
Here's where we went for food- "Hog's Breath" lol. I had a crispy chicken burger, which was a lot of food but turned out to be very tasty. We found out though, that it is actually illegal to take food away (like in a to-go box) from a restaurant if you don't finish it! Apparently, you can only get food to-go if it is a take-away place. Very strange law if you ask me...
OH!! AND I FOUND THE BEST SIGN EVER INSIDE THE RESTAURANT!!! I WAS SO EXCITED!! =DAfter eating, we walked back to the train station and caught the train back to Southern Cross station in Melbourne city. We left just in time, because it was starting to rain. I couldn't believe how cold it was there! We couldn't stay any longer or we would have frozen to death. Once home, I curled up in bed nice and cozy so I could defrost haha.
On Sunday, we went to Monash to help out with Open Day. It is a day to advertise the Uni to students who are considering applying to Monash University. We went to help represent the DSSE lab, and talk to students about what we did there. And, best of all, we got cool Monash IT shirts!!
We got there around 10:45, to the Caulfield campus, where Blair was setting up video teleconferencing with the Clayton Campus to show prospective students some of the technology they use a lot.
I was so happy- because I finally got a free Monash bag! I have been wanting one since the first week, when they were handing them out to Grad students during an orientation. They were handing out those same bags at the front door to our building, and they gave me one!
Ew, look what Michelle found in her bag. Yuck!
Here's all of us sporting our awesome shirts!
This is what the video teleconferencing (VTC) looked like. We could talk with people in the room at the Clayton campus.
Liz showing off the free frisbees that they were handing out as well.
We started an indoor frisbee game during the down-time when no students were coming in- it was fun, although I'm not very good at frisbee haha.
Slavisa and Wojtek were pretty good at it though!After open day, I went to the 5:00 pm service at Collins Street Baptist Church. I think I liked the night service better- it seemed a bit more laid back. I was talking to people until about 7:15, when I had to hurry back to the Claremont so I didn't miss the premier of the next Australian Idol season!! Haha, Liz, Steph and I all crammed into my room to watch it together. It was the first episode, so it was all people trying out for Australian Idol. It was pretty similar to American Idol, just different judges and MC's. After that, we hung out downstairs for a while, then headed off to bed!
A good weekend indeed. Now, time to get some more work done! Only 2 weeks left!!!
Cheers!
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