Melbourne Trip #2

ANZ Banking Museum (The Former Melbourne Stock Exchange on Collins Street)


Sydney vs Melbourne: when it comes to Christmas trees, Sydney definitely wins. The one at Martin Place (pictured in an entry below) is NOT plastic and NOT made out of purely electric stars. FYI: Most people prefer one city to the other. Melbourne is the cultural capital of Australia, and is said to move at a much slower pace than Sydney. Melbourne has the arts, music, pubs and cafes. Sydney has the harbour, the bridge, the opera house and the night-life. Back in the day, they couldn't decide what the capital should be: Melbourne or Sydney. To resolve the issue, they chose a different city altogether: Canberra. I've been there; it's boring as. (For all you Americans out there, no, there is not an end to the analogy. It's just "boring as" or "sweet as." As what? you ask. NO ONE KNOWS.)


Discovering Melbourne's famous alleys and laneways, where some of the best pubs with live music are hidden


Beautiful view of Melbourne over the Yarra River


View from the restaurant on Tuesday night: a helicopter landing on the Yarra River. Said to be the "upside down river," it basically just carries a lot of mud and silt near the surface and is thus pretty gross to swim in. 242 kilometers long, its upper reservoir provides for much of Melbourne's water supply.


A table full of Yamaha piano teachers! From Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth


The dining room area of our executive apartment :)


Living Room


Glorious Kitchen


Monday morning was an early start. Up at 5 am, flight departed at 7:15. The other Sydney girls and I got to sit together again, and I tried to take a quick snooze on the plane. I was still pretty tired from my long weekend, but managed to shut my eyes for most of the flight. Excitement and songs in my head prevented real sleep from coming my way. “Tiny ants are marching, 1-2-3!” rang in my ears. The flight was delayed about a half an hour, but finally we arrived in Melbourne safe and sound. We were a little bit late to day one of the seminar, but in one piece nonetheless.

All day long, thirteen new Australian music teachers sang about tiny crabs, marched to the tune of elephants, waltzed with bears and imagined aliens landing from above to eery music. We took turns teaching the class, observed our peers and learned from each other. By the end of the day, we WERE three-year olds, calling out randomly or playing wrong notes to emulate a real Music Wonderland classroom.

We finished at 8 pm, and took a cab back to our apartment. It was glorious! They weren’t kidding when they said “executive apartment.” It was pretty spacious, with a huge kitchen, dining room table, living room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The four of us were pretty impressed with Yamaha’s effort to accommodate us (see above). It almost made it ok that they didn’t pay for our meals, but not quite.

We had a quick walk around the area, but ended up back home fairly quickly. We were all exhausted—especially me—and I was dead set asleep by 10:30 pm. I slept brilliantly, however, and ended up waking up at 4:20 am raring to go before realising what time it was and going back to sleep. I finally got up around 7, showered, got ready, and the four of us had breakfast right across the road. We cabbed it to Yamaha headquarters, and another fun-filled day of learning/teaching began.

Music Wonderland class consists of 3 ½ to 4 year olds, and Junior Music Class (JMC) is 4-5 year olds. The first two days of the seminar was purely MWO training, and it was all the training we were to get until our first class. By the end of the two days, however, we all had sung or heard the songs at least a dozen times, if not more.

Around 5 pm we all headed down to dinner together, which Yamaha graciously paid for. The restaurant was called Automatic, and it was a pretty good meal. I saved half of mine for lunch the next day, to save money. :) After dinner us Sydney girls really had a good look around Melbourne, walking around trying to find shops that were open. No such luck, but it was an adventure nonetheless. We arrived back at our apartment at around 9 pm, and chilled out for a little bit before climbing into our wonderful, freshly made beds. I wasn’t as tired as I had been the night before, and did a bit of reading. I finished off my latest book, The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Gelty. It wasn’t that great of a book, and I don’t recommend it. Now I’m reading The Interpretor of Malodies by Jhumpa Lahiri, and so far it’s pretty good. It’s a collection of short stories.

My temp agency called me on Tuesday arvo, and found me work for the Christmas season, which is fantastic. I work full time right up until Christmas eve!! I'm excited to be making money :)

Wednesday morning: We checked out of the apartment around 9, had some breakfast, and made our way to Yamaha for one last time in 2009. Wednesday was all about JMC, and a different instructor was leading the way. I enjoyed it much, much more than I thought I would. I mean, I knew I would love it, but I was so stoked about teaching the 3 year olds in Music Wonderland that I figured it would be my favourite class to teach. I was wrong. Yamaha continues to blow me away, and I think that I'll actually enjoy teaching the pre-schoolers more. We sing solfege drills, teach them lyric songs, and give them a fundamental sense of basic musical elements. It's not just putting on a show for the kids and encouraging them to participate; they're expected to participate in the class at this point and are more willing to be dependent from their parents. I could ramble on about Yamaha philosophies and strategies for a while, but I'll spare you (whoever "you" are). The point is..I LOVE IT! I've found my calling. Someday, I WILL open up my own studio. "Miss Mariah's Music." Call now to book your future kids' spots :)

The day was long, but we ended at 5 pm and headed to the airport. Virgin Blue, our airline, had a massive computer crash the night before. As in their entire system went down. Hard to believe for 2009, but it happened, and ALL Virgin Blue travellers had to check in manually. As a result, of course, all the flights were delayed, and the delays were still happening 12 hours later on Wednesday night. We landed around 10:15 pm, and as soon as my head hit the pillow around 11, I was out like a light. Yamaha trip/job/career prospects=great success.