I know some of you were anxious to read about Melbourne's latest fashion in the winter. I am sure you had seen a prototype of it in Toronto or in the cities you live. It's the belly-button ring sneaking through a small opening at the front side. But that is old fashion. The teens in Melbourne wore their pants so low, much under the hips so that you could see not only their bellies but the 'dividing line' of their bums. You know what I mean. In order to make it more interesting for the Canadian tourists to watch, they put tattoos on the bums. So the belly-button, nose, eye-lash, even tongue ring worn by the TO girls are all old fashion. Imagine what the scenes would be in summer time :-).

I already knew much about Melbourne since I was in high school. The Australian Broadcasting Commission or Radio Australia had a powerful transmitter with special broadcast beamed to Indonesia (in Indonesian language). It is a radio funded by the Aussie's government to promote the country and most important for me, it had a good English lesson program. That was how I became familiar with their accents. :-) Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia and my sources told me 3 million people live there. The transportation system is pretty good, mostly with trams and trains covering the metropolitan area. They have three zones for the train, Cecilia and I had the opportunity to go as far as Zone 2 only. The one way (2 hours fare) was $ 4.50. If you are just travelling in the city proper or Zone 1, you could buy a daily ticket for $ 5.10, it's $ 2.60 for 2 hours. What I like about other cities transportation system, you could buy a ticket from the driver or there is a ticket vending machine inside the tram. In TO this is impossible, you better have exact change. I have seen several times, unhappy people dropping their dollar bills into the fare collector box in our TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) buses.

Who among you had ever been invited to a 25th wedding anniversary half-a-world apart at 7 PM on a certain day and came exactly on time as the clock stroke the hour? I told you our journey went through several special gates and going to our friend's wedding anniversary party was one of them. Erni and Ben Sugija, a very old friend of mine since my high school days, invited us. He probably didn't believe it either when I said Cecilia and I would take the train to Springvale and walked to the restaurant that he said was just across the station. At exactly 7 PM, we stood at the front door of The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant where Ben and Erni celebrated their silver anniversary that evening. I met a few of my old friends from Indonesia who moved to Melbourne and had burned their bridges. We saved $ 9 for the return fare when F.L. a friend from my Catholic Student Union (PMKRI) days drove us home after the party was over.

Melbourne was a city of surprise, Cecilia had her own pleasant one too and I wouldn't share it with you less you be jealous. I had one more surprise, that was meeting a girl friend I had not seen for about 25 years. What amazed me, when I was a university student, I went to her home almost every day. I tutored her and her three brothers-sister. Yet, when she appeared at Ben's party and was one of the 'party animals' I didn't recognize her at all. On second thought, perhaps the way she dressed must have caused it. She wore a sexy strapless outfit and I may have not paid attention to her face that much. My fault :-), mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Only on the next day when I asked Ben, who his party 'star performer' was, did I learn she was the girl friend I knew. Ben then called her and we arranged a meeting, Indonesian style or over dinner at a nice Thai restaurant in the suburb of Melbourne. She was already married of course and had two girls. When I looked at her, indeed she was the girl I previously knew. I must be getting old :-) but Cecilia had a different theory, she wore lots of clothes that night.

Because of one or two reasons, we canceled our plan to visit and stayed at Phillip Island nature park near Melbourne. The main attraction was to watch live penguins in their nature habitat instead of in the zoo. Well, there will be other opportunity to watch penguins, perhaps in our trip to Antartica one day :-). We used our last days to meet friends and renew acquaintances with our relatives in Melbourne. Prior to our departure to the Melbourne airport, we were able to meet Siauw Tiong Djin, founder of CARI, Committee Against Racism in Indonesia. My NGO (Non- Governmental Organisation) in Toronto, CCEVI, invited him last May to come over to Toronto to attend our annual May Memorial event to never forget that May 1998 tragedy in Jakarta and pray for the victims. He had superlative praise for you guys and gals. He had travelled internationally and he said that our Toronto group is beyond comparison, something like that :-). I was happy to hear from him that all the events we planned went very well, thanks to the hard work of everybody. We went through our last 'special gate' when Tiong Djin escorted us to the Qantas lounge after we checked-in. My fellow travellers who used to go on business would know what that kind of lounge provides. If you have a first-class or a business-class ticket, the airline will put you there so you have a very comfy waiting time. Other than all-you-can-eat food and drink, there are ample readings for the bookworms. If your flight is still several hours away, you can take a shower or a nap in the lounge. Now you know why those who are in power would try as hard as they could to keep their 'platinum card' privileges. They might become THP, The Hurting People, once their power is taken away from them. I know none of you my friends are like that :-).

Well, it is time to finish the last series of my journey across four continents, America to Europe then Asia and Australia. Even though I was told that the grass in our backyard is knee-high, I would repeat this kind of trip and perhaps sell the house and go for a year like the Australians :-). Thank you once again for all your wonderful prayers and best wishes. Without them, this story would not have been possible. Till we meet again, adios, auf wiedersehen, good bye