Woke up quite early, but had a lay in for a while, then after being disturbed by more Japanese Rustling, I got myself together and went for a wander into town.
The sun seemed to have brought more people out than yesterday, plus it was a Saturday and so the shops and cafes were open again (a surprising amount had been closed for Good Friday). After a good meander about the place, I settled down in the sun with an iced mint latte (from Starbucks – a treat to myself!) and my book. I don’t really know how long I was there, but the ice had more or less completely melted by the time I decided to finish up and leave.
When I got back to the hostel, I decided I had better get myself packed and ready for the morning, so set about unpacking completely, making piles of things all over my bed and the floor. Having done that, I then realised that was not really the sensible thing to do and instead thought I should go have a shower before the morning so I could pack all that stuff. After my shower, I then was able to start packing things back into the bag. The door opened and there was a new person for my room who had checked in while I was out earlier – she was Japanese and looked genuinely surprised at the state I was sitting in (surrounded by piles of folded clothes and other things)! We chatted briefly then she said she should leave me to it!
Whilst I was packing, I noticed that one of the locker doors was open and it was then that I discovered the route of all Japanese Rustling (see image). The Thai girls (and the new Japanese lady) had not brought suitcases, rucksacks or holdalls with their stuff in. Instead they had brought those large, square shaped, zip up bags that you can buy in the market and are usually made of a funny plastic material which is almost like tarpaulin – often white with a kind of red tartan print on it (that’s the best description I can give, so I hope you know what I mean!). Anyway, that is what they brought their stuff in, and it seems that every single item in that bag had been packed in a separate plastic bag. Then when they had arrived, they had emptied every separate bag and put it all in the locker together, all shoved in higgledy-piggledy! The big bag and all the little individual bags were at the end of the bed, waiting to be repacked. No wonder why there was so much rustling when they arrive (and depart) – they have an awful lot of things to take out of the bags! It made me laugh a lot because in Australia, kind of like in the UK, there is a massive push for people to buy and use ‘eco’ bags – the cloth ones. So my theory is that the people in Japan, Thailand and probably some other countries too, are single-handedly keeping the plastic bag manufacturers in business!
An age later, after sniggering to myself about the plastic bags some more and singing along to various Disney songs that my ipod seemed to want to play to me, I was all packed and ready, even with my set of clothes laid out on top of my bag. It had taken a ridiculously long time! Having received intelligence that there was no such thing as free Maccas wifi in NZ, I decided I needed one last hit, so packed up my laptop and headed out to Elizabeth Street Maccas for the final time, making the most of this opportunity.
Back at the hostel, I booked a cab for 5.30am and headed to bed, but not before realising that it was daylight saving, so the clocks would be moving back one hour. The thing was, I was not sure if my phone (and hence alarm clock) would adjust itself automatically and so was unsure what time to set my alarm for. I had to be on the safe side, so set it as if it would not change and crawled into bed feeling very sad indeed to be leaving Melbourne.
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