Day 8 – Melbourne-Bali
I woke up quite early – 6am. I slept at 10pm yesterday so I got a decent chunk of sleep, and I felt good that morning. After a quick coffee and sandwich, I turned on the TV for my Netflix to watch some cycling documentary – still the Tour de France series – and started packing up my luggage.
My next flight was with Jetstar again, so the check-in luggage limit was at 20kg according to my booking, so I had to keep an eye on the limit. As expected, I had to make some creative decision with my clothes – I had to use several as de facto cushions for the more fragile items. I’ve done this a lot of times so the luggage tetris game is like enjoyable for me. After an hour, I ended up using my backpack’s space to hold some of the luggage items that didn’t make a good fit. But fortunately, all that configuring helped – my final luggage weight was a snug 19.2kg (which later I re-verified at the airport, became 19.4kg). All that got me hungry, so I ate the breakfast banana.
I checked out of the hotel by 9.30am (before their imposed 10am checkout for all guests), and after a cursory check, I was out and headed to Flagstaff Station. After thirty minutes of walking and train rides, I was back in another Skybus, headed towards Tullamarine Airport. This time, it was nice that the weather that day was perfectly sunny – not too hot but just the right amount of warm that I did not need a jacket – so I enjoyed the road sights from the top deck of the bus. I’ll just say it – the charms of Melbourne’s buildings and city feel started fading away the nearer we got to the airport. Like, the charm’s over back at the city and not much near the airport… dare I say, isolated from the city. I got in the airport at around 12pm and proceeded to check in with my luggage.
I got kind of embarassed at the self-bagdrop section. I was holding my passport after checking in the automated check-in machines, and I proceeded to the bagdrop machine to have my luggage taken. I inadvertently put my passport on top of my luggage while attending to the things I had to do with the machine’s touch screen as well as putting on the tags, and when the machine started its conveyor belt and moved my luggage, I noticed my passport was still on top of my luggage and I immediately snatched it off right before it went to the second conveyor section – however, my hand tripped the sensors and had the machine stop for a bit as a warning. Someone at the airport staff helped me with the situation, but I was embarassed that I looked like a clueless hick in the face of advanced machines. Learning happens, so I resolved to be more mindful of where I put my passport on.
After checking in and moving through the necessary departure protocols – very much routine for me by now – I was in the departure areas, just waiting for my flight to allow people in the gates. As I had a couple of hours to kill, I just spent a lot of time going around Terminal 2.
As it was, unfortunately some of the best tourist t-shirts for Melbourne WAS in the airport all along. I bought two nice t-shirts for my father and brother-in-law, hopefully the appreciated the more premium feel of those. To cap it off, I bought kangaroo jerky. Unfortunately, it was seasoned aggressively. Too salty for me, but I felt it would be excellent paired with steamed bok choy and a side of rice to counter the salt. I also spent nearly an hour inside Brunetti, a cafe that serves coffee and desserts. I had a cafe latte, a big slice of lasagna, and a big ball of arancini. I particularly loved that the Brunetti cafe was small so that the smell of coffee wafted in my direction often and it made me feel fancy for some reason.
Also, I have to note something I noticed – Tullamarine T2 had some unfortunate lighting in the walkable pathways and alleys. I prefer terminals with sufficient lighting, and T2 didn’t have that. Lots of shadows and dim ambient lighting owing to some of the overhead/ceiling lights – some of them were strong and had good white light, others were spotty and clearly in need of replacement and/or servicing. Kind of similar to KLIA’s departure areas in terms of questionable lighting choices. The gates’ interior, fortunately, was lighted well as all the ceiling lights were strongly lit. Just a nitpicky preference.
After a few hours of cafe lounging and sightseeing (and yes, buying more shit), my flight’s gate opened up and started allowing in people. On the way to Bali, then.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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