Melbourne from my perspective

My earlier posting on Melbourne is more of things I did and not so much on what I saw and what I thought of Melbourne. Thus, here another posting about Melbourne from my point of view. I was impressed from a short video clip about Melbourne aired on the inflight video/entertainment thingy shown just before we landed about the facilities they have at the Melbourne airport. The existence of the prayer room impressed me the most; at a foreign non-muslim country..good..and I had the experience of performing my solat there on the day that I was to fly back home. It was neither big nor have different sections for male and female but good enough and convenient enough for us to perform our solat...Reminded me of my days in the States where it was difficult for us to find place for solat..pernah solat dlm fitting room rasanya. The train service - for those two days that I used the service it was ok..on time and very convenient. The service connects many different suburbs to the city. Had the experience of riding it during almost peak hours and felt the crowd but could not compare it with the peak hours in Malaysia..won't be fair I think but the system had many coaches at one go so they could ferry more people and avoid sardine-packed scenario I guess. Like many big cities Melbourne city is also busy with many cars and people. Cleanliness..well could see litter and bottles on the pavement in the city and Dandenong but I like the kind of dustbins they put in public places as shown in the pic above. I saw the dustbins at Monash Uni. I think I dare say that Melbourne is a true city of multiracial and multicultural city. Just by being at Melbourne Central I could see many people of different races and cultures. There were of course Aussies but there were also many Chinese, Indians, Malays, Vietnamese, Bengals and others that I could not identify. You could see ladies with "tudung" quite often and I was even approached by someone (could not tell her nationality) for sadaqah so she said..minta sedekah..argh in Melbourne pun ada peminta sedekah. It was easy to get halal food in Melbourne city as well as in other suburbs such as Dandenong. You can get nasi beriyani, nasi ayam, fried noodles, roti canai, murtabak, tosai even vadai. They even have halal KFC though only one and halal Nando's..kira oklah where food is concerned....but of course food is expensive if you convert to RM. On academic front, I heard different stories from different people..some positive some negative..my conclusion, mana-mana pun sama.. just take up the challenges and pray that your journey is blessed and guided by the One. Enough for now...;))