United Backpackers in Melbourne

I moved to Melbourne on 18th of January.

I have been staying at United Backpackers which is located in heart of the city. This backpackers is the newest and cleanest I have ever seen. Staff are friendly and helpful. All the rooms and floors are highly secured and even bathrooms have security doors! Kitchen is also clean though it is a bit small.

Surprisingly, I got a birthday present here! Even though I just arrived at this backpackers, I got an excellent customer service. On the second day in Melbourne was my birthday. When I woke up, I saw the notice on the door which said "Dear Kyohei, when you wake up and see this notice please come to the reception....." something like that. At first I thought I did something wrong.

What did I do? ... With some nervous feelings I went to the reception and show the notice paper to the staff. Then she checked my name and said "Happy Birthday!" bringing a yellow bottle with a message saying happy birthday in Japanese. I didn't expect such an excellent service at all. What a lovely backpacker this is!

Since there are no Japanese staff here, I guess someone write this message in Japanese using Google search. I really appreciated it. 

Only the problem is that the price is extremely expensive. However every backpackers is so much expensive anyway, I think I took a right choice. I might find much cheaper hostels here but it must be disgusting. I don't want to stay dirty and low quality hostels anymore. If I spend money on a good place I can feel good and it will lead me to be more active. Eventually I can be more satisfied.

Due to this cost problem, I can't stay here for a long time. I am looking for an apartment to live by myself. No matter how expensive it would be, I will take it if I can be satisfied. Living condition is a really important to me. 

The life on the boat - Murray River Queen -

Just for three and a half weeks, the life on the boat as the orange picker was done. Orange picking was extremely tough and it is not an over expression. In addition to that, the money I can get from this job was really poor. 

Income is decided according to how many bins you get. You may have to pick approximately 800 oranges to fill up a bin, though it depends on the size of oranges. You can get $22 per bin and you can normally fill up 2 or 3 bins each day.

If the job can be done easily, I might have kept working more. Unfortunately, however, it was really tough. 

First of all, I couldn't work for a long time due to the serious heat wave. The strong sunshine burnt my skins and it was hot enough that I had to take a break under shade many times. 

Second of all, I got wound on my arms and legs because I had to put my arms inside the branches or to climb the trees to pick oranges there.

Finally, how many bins I could fill up depended on farms. I sometimes could pick lots of big oranges in a tree, but I sometimes had to clean up trees with very small ones. When I did cleaning up work, I could fill up just a bin per day even though I worked for more than 5 hours!

From the reason I mentioned above, I decided to change the situation which let me go to Melbourne. To be honest, I didn't expect to go to Melbourne or Sydney because they are too big cities to live and it would be so expensive. However, according to the living in Adelaide and Waikerie, I realized I can't find a job there. I was really pathetic when I was in there because I was the only one who can't speak English fluently. 

Especially on the boat in Waikerie, the workers are full of the people from the UK who are, needless to say, native English speakers. I met Canadian, Irish, Dutch, Belgium and French. Some people's English was not perfect, but apparently I was the only one whose English was really poor. There were no Asian.

This was actually the situation I craved for. I wanted to be surrounded by lots of native English speakers, and at the same time, they are foreigners. This place must have been the ideal place to stay to improve my poor English. But unfortunately, I was kind of overwhelmed. I really felt silly and pathetic. I couldn't make an enough conversation with anyone. It was too hard to keep making an effort. 

Since I don't want to run away, I will never give up. I will go to Melbourne to get over this problem. I believe I can be a part of the people who I met on the boat when I finish the working holiday in Australia.

By the way, it was 45 degree on this Friday... It was extraordinarily hot. I hope the heat wave will disappear soon.