Sydney - The last day

5:24pm - Back to the apartment, feeling a little delirious and feeling the urgency of the departure tomorrow back to Melbourne.

I don’t know why it is that I feel awkwardly hesitant to return to Melbourne. Sydney hasn’t even wholly grown on me. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a beautiful place. During the past two days, I’ve started to wonder why it is that I don’t want to return to Melbourne. It’s not the nightlife, or the people, or the sights or any of them those combined aspects of Sydney that’s evoked this reluctancy to take flight home. It’s the sense of freedom .. freedom from the daily commitments and routines that awaits me in Melbourne. This autonomy that surrounds me whilst I’m in Sydney is the most distinguishing pleasure that I’ll sadly miss once I leave this city. The independence to go where I want to without mentally timelining and scheduling tasks of significance as I would in Melbourne. I’m going absolutely miss that.

You know what’s the best thing about travelling as well? Sleeping in. The amount of sleep that my mate and I have accumulated here is staggering. In short, we’ve slept more than an average person would require.

Apart from that, I continued my shopping adventure today and for the second time, revisited Via Alley (http://www.viaalley.com). Back in Melbourne, I was only able to access their online catalogue and to personally visit their store was a personal milestone for me. I love their store. It’s neat and very contemporary. They sell a reasonable array of items, from clothing to art books. Once my first visit of the store, I managed to spot Metal Gear Solid lego-like, small, collectable figurines. I was fucking spewing, in a good way of course! Metal Gear Solid is one of my favourite game series and I knew I just had to purchase these mini-sized toy characters. And that’s what I did.

At first, I only bought two boxes. From these boxes, you can discover either Solid Snake, Ninja, Naked Snake, Old Snake or Raiden from the Metal Gear Solid series. I quickly opened the boxes when I walked outside the store. I now own Solid Snake and Naked Snake. I really wanted Raiden and Old Snake from the new Metal Gear Solid 4 game but I guess I wasn’t lucky enough to catch them for myself. Because of this, I went back today for the store and bought another blind box and was distraught when I found another Naked Snake in the box. Sadness filled my heart and I started crying. LOL. Nah, that never happened but it would be a great pitch for a movie - “guy cries over not getting the toy figurines he wanted”. Sounds sexy.

Whilst in the store, I also decided to buy a Music Mug - basically, a portable speaker that you connect you either your computer or mp3 player and it makes it more audible. It’s pretty cute. The design is simple and uncomplicated. Just like a mug. Duh.

Here’s a peek:

Frikken awesome! Oh by the way, If you’re wondering what version my mp3 player is. I think it’s a Sony Walkman NWD-B105F. Bought it for $80AUD. It also stores two gigabytes. I haven’t had any troubles with it yet. Better stay that way.

Another thing that surprised me when I was in the store was finally meeting a person from Sydney who appeared to be genuinely nice. The store assistant at the counter and I talked for more than 10-20 minutes about video games. I felt comfortable and very happy to speak to someone that wasn’t hostile like most of the people you encounter in Sydney. It was nice. Also, because we were friendly and very casual towards each other - I received a $5 discount of my purchase because I was “a cool guy”. Haha. Just shows you that being friendly has its perks.

It seems probable now that I’m going to put myself through the horrors of enduring an all-nighter. I’m going to try to cherish the time I have left here and hopefully bring back a sense of revival when I return to Melbourne.