We came back to Melbourne this morning after transiting in Kuala Lumpur again. I felt tired and like I just wanted to sleep, even though I knew it would be bad for me body-clock wise. As we’re packing our last bags after doing two loads of laundry, Chris asked if I wanted to go to the beach. But then, I thought, I’d have to go through the trouble of putting on sunblock, and I really did not want to do that.

“Well, it’s your last time to go to the beach and have this kind of weather for a long time…. we’re going back to the misery of New York winter very soon… So, it’s up to you,” he said.

Ugh.

“Fine. I’ll go get the sunscreen,” I mumbled.

And so we soaked in the last bits of a Southern Hemisphere summer in what we know as winter. I tried looking for abalone shells at Brighton Beach, but was dismayed to find not even one. I recalled the time in 2012 when I first came to Australia and roamed that beach by myself. To my total surprise and delight, that entire beach was covered in rainbow-colored gleaming abalone shells. I took only five of them then to not be so greedy. Yet in all the years since, I haven’t seen even one. Not to mention, this year, I noticed a sign I didn’t recognize that stated that visitors are not to remove any shells from the beach…. which likely means someone has been taking all of them.