Melbourne left me a lot of treasures. I spent my most colorful, meaningful and unforgettable summer holiday in that beautiful place. When I rewind this journey, a movie often appeared in my mind — Eat, Pray, Love, a movie shows how a travel could change a woman’s life. In that movie, the journey taught the character how to enjoy her life, how to refresh herself from depress and how to hug some new and exciting changes. And I felt similar things during my journey, so please allow me to use a similar way to expand my story in Melbourne. The movie was separated by three parts; eat, pray and love and my story includes also three part; live, learn and love.

Live
The life in Melbourne was fantastic! In The Queen Victoria Market, the oysters there were the most fresh and tender ones that I’ve ever had. Unbelievably, I tasted kangaroo, emu and crocodile in that market. In every Wednesday night, there are full of food from different countries, and on weekend, it is a little market with Jazz and beers. What a nice place! Some of my friends and I arrived the Great Ocean Road in a terribly windy day but the cloud and wind covered a mystery and splendid color for the Twelve Apostles; it is a masterpiece made by God. The Hosier Lane was like a graffiti art gallery as well as a photo paradise! I was supposed to be a person who wasn’t fond of selfie but that magical lane stimulated another side of me, I had a lot selfie with my friends eventually. I have skipped a lot of things, the fancy afternoon tea in Collins Street, the Melbourne Zoo, each beach we have gone, and the handsome seagulls in the city……

Learn
I still remembered a saying from my friend. She said it was totally different to touch a city as a student not as a traveler. It was true! This journey is more than a travel; every day we learnt something about this country and this city in the college and after class we could feel and implement what we learn. For example, Australians often conduct small talks to others but for Chinese we seldom do that. We learnt how to do it in class and it was really useful for me when I lived there. This process made us learn more deeply and profoundly. As a marketing student, the courses were very useful and practical, such as presentation skills, teamwork skills, etc. The one most valuable thing I learnt, in my opinion, was reflection. We accomplished many reflections which helped me digest what I had studied during certain activities and rethink where I could improve next time. Most of time, study for me is a quick job; you’ve done the work then it is finished. The reflection process taught me I should slow down a bit so that I will learn more effectively.

Love
Beautiful scenes and delicious food are not enough for a person to love a place. People are always the main reason to make someone love a city. I love Melbourne because of the people I met there. Friends from Macao, Mainland China and Japan I got in this journey were precious. It was my pleasure to organize a farewell party for most of classmates; we had a nice dinner and so much fun on that night, and I promise that would be my forever memory in my life. It was so hard to say goodbye to Japanese students, as we shared our experiences in Melbourne, we worked in groups, we fought for presentation, we made jokes, we gossiped and we prepared a birthday surprise for Ayaka. Their goodbye video displayed on our graduation ceremony was funny and touched and after we came back to Macao, we also shoot a video for them. I am so gratified to our harmonious interactions. As for me, I cannot forget Effie, my homestay mom. She was so generous and caring. Every night we chatted and laughed; she was so nice to make me feel comfortable to speak in English. Her food was art. Some of my friends envied me because I often had my lunch like princess. She lived alone but not lonely because her friends were as nice as she was. When Effie played cards with her friends at night, I looked at them and thought it would be really nice if I could gain such stable and reliable friendship when I get old. She and her friends evoked my desire of developing a long-term relationship with my friends.

Thanks to MPI, Monash, all the Macao and Japanese classmates and Effie gave me such a wonderful experience! I harvested so much goodwill from you all! I will never forget and keep in my memory.