Life on Sydney Road
As much as my (non-biological) mother wants me to live in Sydney with her during my stay here,I can't fulfil her wish but I choose to be on Sydney Road in Melbourne, the road that will take me to Sydney if I drive all the way from here.
Sydney road connects the Royal Parad road where one side of the University of Melbourne Parkville Campus lies. This is one of the busy roads in the city of Melbourne. The area is called Brunswick where I stay and up north, it is call Coburg. As busy and lively as it is, Sydney Road houses a large number of the Muslim community. One can find clothes shop from Muslim people, butcher shop selling Halas meat and food, grocery store for Middle Eastern food, Turkey food and coffee and so on. One can also find herself expose to the noise of the traffic on the road particularly during the evening of Friday and Sunday when all the youngsters boost their power and anti-social behaviors with each other by driving at the fastest speed, ignoring all the risks they are exposing for themselves and other people associate.
There is only one tram route on this road, tram 19, which departs from the city and carries passengers all the way to North Coberg. There are many buses connecting diffierent route crossing Sydney Road but I never take one. I board the tram 19everyday, but get to travel in it half way mostly, from my house to the university or the farthest is to the last stop in the city. I have never travelled up to North Coberg. It is not a bad idea and one day I will go all the way to see how north Coberg is!!! During rush hours there are two consecutive trams on this root as there are just too many people rushing after they are getting up too late and don’t want to miss work or their 9am classes. Don’t even imagine of getting the seats if it is during the after-work rush house (between 4 to 6.30 pm). Sometime I can’t even manage to squeeze my slim body in let alone find the seat. So it is better to stay late at the university. That way it is not so hectic and you benefit from long hour of study, if you truly stay up to study.
One weird observation I have about the tram riding in Melbourne as in other city I have been too. People travel on the tram together everyday. They eventually must be familiar with faces of people that got on or off at certain stops but the weirdest things is that no one hardly utters words to each other. As multi-cultural as it is, Melbournians stick to the strictest concept of individualism when they get themselves on tram. Unlike the tradition and custom in Cambodia, where if you live in the same community everyone know everyone else business or if you take the bus to province together, you will not talk maybe in the first 15 minutes and then the conversation starts along the way even though one hardly knows each other. But here, people either chat with someone miles away via their populous IPhone without bothering how personal their conversation is to the fellow passengers or engage immensely with their music and headset or books. Each morning, I find myself fascinated as I observe all this and also learned to focus on myself checking email on tram too because I have nothing else to do. Hard to read because it is too crowded sometimes!!! During my first few days when I took the tram, I used to lean outside and look at the number of the tram stop as I have so bad sense of direction.
This month, Brunswick hosts its 23rd Music Festival as during every other year. Today in particular is the Street Festival which last from noon till early evening. It was my second time to join the Street Festival. The previous experience dated back to 2008 when I was in Melbourne and a friend took me to join Italian and Spanish festival somewhere in the city (could not remember the place because terribly bad with geographical location). The food and drink were always great and the street dance was just so fun. In my country, the communal dancing takes place during the period of the Lunar Calendar New Year, Khmer New Year, which falls in mid April. From where I lived in Phnom Penh, they dance about two weeks before the actual New Year time as during New Year, everyone goes to their respective hometown. I am going to miss two consecutive New Year in my country being in Melbourne but I always missed anyway due to travels.
The Brunswick Street Festival is not different from my previous experiences: lots of stalls along the roads where food, drinks, snack clothes and other stuff are sold at a reasonably cheap price, many place spots for musical group and band performance, pub open during the day so that Australian can drink beers I was mingling around the street alone checking the stall of food and drinks. Some of my friends asked me to join them at the pub but it was too busy and no preference for beer during the day anyway. I ended up, as most people, purchasing a cup of snow ice with lemon syrup… Just be a little girl again, I feel. As I was enjoying my snow ice, at least 3 fellows were asking me exactly the same questions: where I was buying this drink from? Was it far from where I am standing? Which side of the road the stall locate?” Fascinating indeed!!! I feel like I made the right choice being a girl again hahahahha.
The Brunswick orchestra was particularly very impressing. Mixed artists in the group and lot of people cheers each time they finished their performance. I particularly like the African music group and spent almost an hours standing under the heat of Melbourne to enjoy the Rhyme of the music… ‘You gotta rise up… say NO… cos so long no action…’ is my favourite verse from one of the song. You can move your body along the beautiful Rhymes of the songs and many people do, not only myself but my neighbouring fellow who is about 7 months pregnant.
This is the beauty of being in Melbourne. Lots of cultural things happen if you care to take part, you enjoy yourself along with others. But hardly allow myself to stand by the window of my room and gazing down onto the road in the evening time... That would make me... follow the Rhyme 'Country road, take me home to the place I belong...'
Socheata
Sydney road connects the Royal Parad road where one side of the University of Melbourne Parkville Campus lies. This is one of the busy roads in the city of Melbourne. The area is called Brunswick where I stay and up north, it is call Coburg. As busy and lively as it is, Sydney Road houses a large number of the Muslim community. One can find clothes shop from Muslim people, butcher shop selling Halas meat and food, grocery store for Middle Eastern food, Turkey food and coffee and so on. One can also find herself expose to the noise of the traffic on the road particularly during the evening of Friday and Sunday when all the youngsters boost their power and anti-social behaviors with each other by driving at the fastest speed, ignoring all the risks they are exposing for themselves and other people associate.
There is only one tram route on this road, tram 19, which departs from the city and carries passengers all the way to North Coberg. There are many buses connecting diffierent route crossing Sydney Road but I never take one. I board the tram 19everyday, but get to travel in it half way mostly, from my house to the university or the farthest is to the last stop in the city. I have never travelled up to North Coberg. It is not a bad idea and one day I will go all the way to see how north Coberg is!!! During rush hours there are two consecutive trams on this root as there are just too many people rushing after they are getting up too late and don’t want to miss work or their 9am classes. Don’t even imagine of getting the seats if it is during the after-work rush house (between 4 to 6.30 pm). Sometime I can’t even manage to squeeze my slim body in let alone find the seat. So it is better to stay late at the university. That way it is not so hectic and you benefit from long hour of study, if you truly stay up to study.
One weird observation I have about the tram riding in Melbourne as in other city I have been too. People travel on the tram together everyday. They eventually must be familiar with faces of people that got on or off at certain stops but the weirdest things is that no one hardly utters words to each other. As multi-cultural as it is, Melbournians stick to the strictest concept of individualism when they get themselves on tram. Unlike the tradition and custom in Cambodia, where if you live in the same community everyone know everyone else business or if you take the bus to province together, you will not talk maybe in the first 15 minutes and then the conversation starts along the way even though one hardly knows each other. But here, people either chat with someone miles away via their populous IPhone without bothering how personal their conversation is to the fellow passengers or engage immensely with their music and headset or books. Each morning, I find myself fascinated as I observe all this and also learned to focus on myself checking email on tram too because I have nothing else to do. Hard to read because it is too crowded sometimes!!! During my first few days when I took the tram, I used to lean outside and look at the number of the tram stop as I have so bad sense of direction.
This month, Brunswick hosts its 23rd Music Festival as during every other year. Today in particular is the Street Festival which last from noon till early evening. It was my second time to join the Street Festival. The previous experience dated back to 2008 when I was in Melbourne and a friend took me to join Italian and Spanish festival somewhere in the city (could not remember the place because terribly bad with geographical location). The food and drink were always great and the street dance was just so fun. In my country, the communal dancing takes place during the period of the Lunar Calendar New Year, Khmer New Year, which falls in mid April. From where I lived in Phnom Penh, they dance about two weeks before the actual New Year time as during New Year, everyone goes to their respective hometown. I am going to miss two consecutive New Year in my country being in Melbourne but I always missed anyway due to travels.
The Brunswick Street Festival is not different from my previous experiences: lots of stalls along the roads where food, drinks, snack clothes and other stuff are sold at a reasonably cheap price, many place spots for musical group and band performance, pub open during the day so that Australian can drink beers I was mingling around the street alone checking the stall of food and drinks. Some of my friends asked me to join them at the pub but it was too busy and no preference for beer during the day anyway. I ended up, as most people, purchasing a cup of snow ice with lemon syrup… Just be a little girl again, I feel. As I was enjoying my snow ice, at least 3 fellows were asking me exactly the same questions: where I was buying this drink from? Was it far from where I am standing? Which side of the road the stall locate?” Fascinating indeed!!! I feel like I made the right choice being a girl again hahahahha.
The Brunswick orchestra was particularly very impressing. Mixed artists in the group and lot of people cheers each time they finished their performance. I particularly like the African music group and spent almost an hours standing under the heat of Melbourne to enjoy the Rhyme of the music… ‘You gotta rise up… say NO… cos so long no action…’ is my favourite verse from one of the song. You can move your body along the beautiful Rhymes of the songs and many people do, not only myself but my neighbouring fellow who is about 7 months pregnant.
This is the beauty of being in Melbourne. Lots of cultural things happen if you care to take part, you enjoy yourself along with others. But hardly allow myself to stand by the window of my room and gazing down onto the road in the evening time... That would make me... follow the Rhyme 'Country road, take me home to the place I belong...'
Socheata
Comments
Post a Comment