Sixth day
For the sixth day, I had a couple of weeks to mull things over, and I finalized my plans merely days ago.
See, I really wanted to go to a snow resort. At least that should be one of the highlights of my vacation. However, I also like certain things, like night markets. And extra luggage space. And one-time clothing purchases.
If I wanted to go to a snow resort like Mount Buller or Lake Mountain, not only I’d have to fork money for transportation tours, but I’d also have to pay for snow clothing – warm base layers, jackets and pants. And those are going to take luggage space. But the good part is that I, a mere urchin raised on the sunny scorcher that is Metro Manila, get to somewhere with real mountain winter temps and ride toboggans on the snow.
So with that once-in-many-years temptation, I gave in to the decision of doing a snow resort on this day. It took me three trips to Decathlon to get decent (but relatively cheap) winter clothing though. For the snow boots, I’d rather just rent it. I am not putting five kilos of one-day-only boots in my precious luggage. I found a reputable tour company on Klook to take me to Buller, and that’s largely it.
However, I could not let go of my penchant for night markets. So with that, I booked the earlier tour company for Buller largely because they targeted a Melbourne return on or before 8pm – giving me a decent window to rush to Queen Victoria Market and buy food at the Wednesday Night Market.
That’s the plan for the day – sleep time is around 10pm.
Seventh day
The seventh day is like one of those chill days I prefer – I only booked a few things for Melbourne so this day is for lazing around the fine city.
I booked a ticket for Melbourne Zoo. I plan to go again at Queen Victoria Market for food and maybe some nice things. Buy souvenirs around town, keychains and magnets and all that. Maybe grocery time for what else I might bring for office souvenirs. Museum time if permitting.
This time, maybe I can tolerate a later sleep. Maybe 10-11pm would be nice.
Eighth day
This is my exit day out of Melbourne and into Bali. Fingers crossed there’s no nearby eruptions this time. Flight’s at 3pm so I have decent morning time to spare.
I plan to wake up by 6am, have a good and hearty breakfast around nearby spots. Checkout of the hotel by 10am, and be at the airport by 12pm. This is where I plan to buy some last-minute Aussie souvenirs.
Hate to admit it myself, but airports generally have the best spread of souvenirs that tourists actually want. You get travel vloggers saying “ooh, this is the best spot in the city to buy this and that, save yourself the airport expense” but the spots are often either far out or inconvenient. Airports make a killing at collecting the most desirable souvenirs from a lot of places, stick them at the departure areas, and watch as the money just come like ants to sugar.
Once in the plane, I have nearly 7 hours to log. Probably I’ll try to sleep again. I still have earplugs and eye covers anyway.
By the time I get to Bali, and maybe finish all airport business within an hour, I can take my booked airport transfer to my lodging at Aloft Bali, of which I estimate around 10pm. I’ll probably go order food off Grab for dinner. Hopefully some good late-night options.
So what’s the plan for Bali? To be fair, I largely booked the short 3-night trip to Bali after the Aussie trip, for two reasons – one, I have zero intent to shake off a long flight jetlag in Singapore. I’ve tried it before, it sucked the next day (the 2019 Japan trip). I came back to Singapore from Kyoto on a Sunday evening, and I was not “in” the Monday after – physically present but mentally not really in full gear yet. Not a pleasant experience. But short flights like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur were generally fine – no issues scheduling flights with a workday after regardless of lateness.
So for me, it was either I extend Sydney and Melbourne to one day each and fly Melbourne to Singapore on the day before my vacation leaves’ last day, or book Sydney and Melbourne as staggered 5-4 nights and make a short trip to Bali, spend 3 nights there, and fly back to Singapore nice and jetlag-free for the workday after. At least I get a beach out of it. So here we are.
Second reason was, I want to cross off Indonesia in my countries list, and eat lots of nice Indonesian food. A short detour after Australia makes it nice and easy anyway. That leaves Vietnam and Hong Kong as the last nearby countries I’ve yet to visit.
Also to expand, I booked a hotel in Kuta for a couple of reasons. First, I did my research. I could’ve booked any great hotel to the far north or the far south of Bali Airport, all those near a beach were super nice, but it also entails that I have to consider time. I also was given advice from friends that went to Bali that they padded their checkin/checkout times to account for the Bali traffic. So for me, I had to consider if I would like to also experience that. Nope for me. So I essentially booked a beachfront hotel less than 20km from the Bali Airport, ensuring myself that I can checkout from the hotel as close to the last time as I could, and still make it to the airport for departure with tons of time to spare. Second, it’s attached to a mall. Aloft Bali Kuta – at Beachwalk. That alone could’ve swayed me anywhere else but this one did. That meant I could leave the hotel, windowshop through the mall with a nice jaunt, and go back without fuss. And based on the weather prediction I just saw a few hours ago, very nice.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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