Hail, hail, go away..
So let me tell you about the time I experienced my first ever hailstorm.
It started off innocuously enough. I had agreed to go on a Beach Day Out on Saturday sponsored by the Malaysian Society of the Caulfield Campus, thinking it would be a good way to meet friends. I packed some clothes in a backpack and headed off to the station.
That's when the nightmare started.
I got to the station, thinking I would just about have enough time to make it, only to realize to my horror that the tracks were under maintenance and there in fact was no train.
After the initial shock faded, I went to look for the connecting bus and realized that I in fact had no idea where it was or how long it would take me to get there, and regretfully decided that there would not be a Beach Day for me. Not like I had much choice in the matter, anyway.
I walked back to the bus stop, deciding to catch a bus home, and made a mad dash for it upon realizing that there was a bus behind me heading to that stop. I made it just in time and scrambled onto the bus, making one fatal mistake - not asking where the bus was going.
I soon realized it was the 737 bus heading to Box Hill. It stopped at the Monash Bus Loop, but stupid me thought that it might head a little bit northward still, not having any idea where Box Hill was and wanting to save myself a few minutes of walking, so I didn't get off there.
To my horror, after it left the Monash Bus Loop, it then turned around back in the direction it came from and headed steadily southwards.
I sighed internally at my stupidity and utter lack of luck with public transport, then decided to ride it to the end since I knew that there would generally be a bus hub at the end. And if not, I could always wait for it to continue the loop - it would get back to the Monash Bus Loop at some point.
After quite some time, we did get there and everyone got off - so did I, not wanting to appear weird and wanting to see if there was possibly a bus that would stop closer to Normanby than the 737 would.
Upon realizing that Box Hill was actually a shopping centre, I went in to check it out. It was quite a nice place actually, lots of food and even an Asian grocery market (though it would probably be too far for my own needs) plus..cheap clothes!!
Despite promising I wouldn't buy clothes due to the relatively high exchange rate, I found one particular store that had bargain prices (AUD6 for shorts..even after the exchange that's only RM18!) and spent quite a happy time in there, trying on jackets even as I mumbled to myself 'You don't need winter clothing!'
In the end, I bought a knit top and belt and a black winter jacket that I considered a very good steal, considering it was of thick material and only cost me AUD20 (all of it was AUD50 in total). Feeling guilty about spending money on clothes, I then went to wander around more before deciding to take the bus home to meet up with Jie Hui and her friends (including Brendan's friend Joo Ann) to go to the Malaysian barbecue in Melbourne city.
Upon seeing that it would take 20 minutes for the bus to arrive, I decided to take the train instead, which of course was yet another stupid mistake as I hadn't looked at the train map and had severely underestimated the number of stops required, not to mention the fact that I would have to change trains to actually reach Clayton.
When I reached Melbourne, I decided that I would meet them there instead of heading all the way back to Clayton. I then proceeded to get myself lost, wandering around in what I thought was a straight line until I ended up right back where I had started at Flinders Street Station.
I finally gave up and took a tram to where I thought Melbourne Central station would be, and yet somehow still managing to walk past it. I am utterly hopeless with directions, I think. However, my philosophy is that you can't be found till you've been lost, and true enough I discovered that I had inadvertently walked straight towards the area where the barbecue would be held - Flagstaff Gardens. So, I decided I might as well head down there instead!
This was a picture I took just a bit into the park. Isn't it pretty?
After wandering around for some time, I finally managed to find where they had set themselves up and sat around a bit awkwardly, given the fact that I was an hour early. As people started arriving, though, I began to make a few friends and people started eating. We had chicken drumsticks and wings and some orange juice.
It was nice being able to talk to Malaysians again. You don't quite realize how much you miss being able to talk to 'your own kind' until you can lapse into your own slang and accent and people understand you perfectly. Being able to talk about common shared history is also a genuine privilege when you're an outsider in a foreign country, which might explain why foreign students tend to band together so much.
It's just so much easier to cling on to the familiar.
There is a reason, however, that they say weather in Melbourne is like the lottery - you never know what you're going to get. While before the weather had been clear and sunny, within the space of just an hour or two the sky had turned dark, the wind had picked up and there were distant ominous rumblings.
People were getting slightly worried, but they were still lining up to register for the food (typical Malaysians). I had just met Jie Hui and Yuen Hon, who had come together with her, and was chatting to them, introducing my new friend Vincent to them. He left to look for his friend Victor.
All of a sudden, he ran back to me as the first drops of rain started to fall.
"We need to get out of here. It's hailing!"
"What? Are you serious?"
Then I felt the ice cubes fall out of the sky.
"Oh my god."
We scrambled to the nearest sort of shelter, which was about an inch of roof that jutted out from a nearby building (could possibly have been the toilets) and -just- after we got there..
All hell broke loose.
Ice pelted down on us relentlessly, driven on by the howling wind that had been a gentle breeze only moments before.
"Keep your bag up, protect your head!"
I wasn't even that frightened as the hailstorm raged around us. In fact, I was laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all, getting caught out by a hailstorm just at the tail end of summer. It was fun, almost.
And then the rain started.
Oh god, the rain.
Rain in Malaysia is warm. It's wet, (obviously), but it's warm rain.
Rain in Melbourne is bloody cold.
Especially when partnered by a howling gale. A COLD howling gale.
It drenched us all to the skin and turned the green field into a muddy swampland, which was all the more unpleasant for me as I was wearing shorts and slippers for the hot weather.
That was about when it stopped being fun and started being miserable. The force of the gale was such that it didn't just blow rain at us, it blew hail and leaves and mud at us too. My white shorts were anything but white in a matter of seconds, while my toes were numb from the rainwater that began to flow around my feet and over them as the drops turned into a river. I'd been holding my backpack up to protect me from the hail, which saved me from most of it, but my arms were getting tired and it was really, really cold.
"What a way to bond, eh?" A Malaysian next to me remarked, and we all couldn't help but laugh, however drily (pun!).
After some time, the hail stopped but the rain continued. People were beginning to make a run for it towards better shelter. Under an actual roof, I'd been lucky - other people were huddling together under the barbecue umbrella, others under trees, and they had definitely fared worse than I had.
"Want to make a run for it?" Vincent yelled to me. "It's only raining now!"
I looked doubtfully out at the pouring rain. "Now?"
His friend ran past at that point and gestured to us. "It's only rain, come on!"
He ran out after him and I followed suit, which was a dumb thing to do - while I hadn't really been wet before that, it only took a few seconds in the pouring rain to drown me. (In retrospect, though, the rain went on for so long I would never have gotten out). We gingerly waded through ankle-deep water as we tried to hurry across the road, trying to find better shelter.
"Keep moving, you won't freeze if you do."
By the time we arrived under the shelter of the Queen Victoria markets I would have begged to differ. Hurriedly, I stripped off my soaked thin black jacket and rummaged through my bag, pulling out the new, thick black jacket I'd bought at Box Hill and pulled it on, not caring that I was soaked through and just so intensely grateful for the warmth. If there was ever a justification needed for that jacket I had just found it right then - not freezing to death!
The rain kept on thundering as we stood there and shivered, praying it would stop soon. While waiting, what else should we do but snap a few pictures!
Ice everywhere!
This was about their average size! Imagine hundreds of those pelting down on us. And my Journalism lecturer said I 'fail'ed (yes, exactly that word) for not getting pictures while I was being hailed on. ._. I guess being a journalist it doesn't matter if you get bashed by hail or swept away by a tornado as long as you get those pictures/stories!
This is what the street looked like after the rain started to falter. Till today, they're still strewn almost everywhere. I would not like to be a road cleaner that day.
Double rings in the ice - the inner is the actual ice, and the outer is the ice formed while the ice was on its way down - or that's what they told me anyway! (No Brendan..stop thinking naughty thoughts :P)
Vincent and me, absolutely waterlogged.
I won't bother putting up too many pictures as they're all already on Facebook, just the interesting ones.
I managed to find Jie Hui and Yuen Hon with Joo Ann and her friends, who weren't hurt, just wet and cold. When the rain started to lessen we decided to try and head to Theng Fei's place, which was supposedly near, and parted ways with Vincent after showing him how to get to Melbourne Central so he could get home. Thank you for staying with me through the hailstorm, it would have been so much scarier otherwise!
We walked around in the rain and cold for some time before Yuen Hon found out that Theng Fei had a shortage of clothes himself and couldn't offer him and Jie Hui any, so he decided to call on another friend - Chuen Loong. Words cannot describe how grateful we were to finally be able to change out of the soaked clothes and finally be out of the rain and wind.
The rest of the afternoon and evening passed relatively uneventful after that, getting reacquainted with the boys (for me, getting acquainted since I had only known Chuen Loong by name and face before this), playing a few games of cards and Pictionary, and having dinner.
Here's a shot of us!
I swear John has the deck memorized or something. There is simply no way he guessed half the things he did! :P We will have our revenge!
By evening I was beginning to feel slightly unwell and felt the onset of a fever coming along with a headache, as I normally do after a long day. It had been tiring hauling the backpack around all day, not to mention getting drenched and walking around in the freezing wind for so long. We decided to try going for Moomba, which is apparently a sort of carnival celebrating Melbourne.
However, when we got there, everything was closed due to the horrible weather. I didn't mind too much, though, as I was anxious to get home and properly rest. We did meet another CHS-ian, Mei Shi, whom like Chuen Loong I'd only known by name and face before. Turns out she lived just opposite the Clayton campus!
After saying goodbye to them me and Jie Hui headed for the station, and discovered that most the train services were disrupted. We managed to take the Glen Waverly line home, but as luck would have it missed the last bus home as it was 9.30 by the time we reached the station.
Thankfully, I called Amelia and she swung by to pick us up, making a detour for cookies and cream ice cream before we got home. Soooo much gratitude - having to walk home would probably have made me drop dead. I swear I'd never been more happy to see Normanby House.
Thankfully, I called Amelia and she swung by to pick us up, making a detour for cookies and cream ice cream before we got home. Soooo much gratitude - having to walk home would probably have made me drop dead. I swear I'd never been more happy to see Normanby House.
Amelia invited me to watch a movie called Hungover with her and a few other Normanby friends, which I did despite the exhaustion of today. It was a pretty funny movie, which along with the ice cream made me feel a lot better. After a hot shower and a good night's rest, I felt as right as rain, the incident all but a distant (but distinct) memory.
It wasn't until I went online to the Age newspaper that I realized how terrible the hailstorm's damage had been - Southern Cross station's roof was wrecked, disrupting train services, people had been injured and some had to be relocated, car windows were smashed and all kinds of things. Imagine, I can say I lived through one of Melbourne's worst freak storms ever!
I'm beginning to think that everyone talking about drought in Australia is lying because it's practically been flooding these last two days. So yes, folks, if you ever visit Melbourne, PLEASE bring a jacket/umbrella, never wear shorts or slippers, and..maybe even a hard hat, who knows!
posted by FluffyRed @ 12:32 AM
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