The Beginning

We took a short nap in the hotel before going out for dinner around 6.30pm. The sky turned dark and we were wandering on the street, without knowing our destination. Finally, we decoded to cross over Yarra River and reached Yarra Southbank. There are a lot of restaurants here, and most of them were very crowded on the Saturday night. We walked around, took some photos but still undecided where to have our dinner. At last, we went into World Restaurant, but unfortunately the restaurant was full house, and foced us to pick for another restaurant. Then, we chose Il Primo Posto to have our first dinner in Melbourne.

The restaurant was pretty crowded too, but the waiters and waitress were friendly to assist us. The restaurant has a wide range of menu selection including vegetarian food. We ordered our food and waited almost an hour before the food was served on the table. Yeah, the portion was just nice and quite yummy.

After having our dinner, we took few photos of the night scenery and walked towards Crowns. It’s the only casino in Melbourne, but it is also the largest casino complex in Southern Hemisphere (Read more). Before we reached the casino, we stopped by and tried the gelato. Of course, it was super chilling to have this in such a cold weather, but definitely FUN.

Rasberry and Blackberry

We paid a visit to the casino and to my surprise, the minimum bet was only AUD 5. We didn’t play any game but just walked around and stayed for almost an hour.

Of course, we walked out and stocked up our food supply in a Korean mart. Funny, isn’t? We didn’t notice there were Foodworks or Coles on the first day. Ok, time to sleep, and get ready for Chapter Two :)

Popularity: 4% [?]

After flying for almost 10 hours, finally I made my first footstep on the Australia continent. It wasn’t that cold as what I thought earlier, the weather was just nice to travel and walk around. Collected my luggage and it’s time to head towards Melbourne CBD. From the airport, you can take the Airport Shuttle to the city centre which costs AUD 25 per head for a return trip. 

The shuttle took us right in front of our destination, Hotel Formule 1, located at the Elizaberth Street. Without further delay, we left our luggage in the hotel, and started our city tour. The location is pretty strategic, and we came across to the Flinders Street Station, which is just few minutes walk. Nothing much here, we took some photo before having our breakfast. (Read more about Flinders Street Station)

Main Entrane of Flinders Street Station

Subway Promotion – AUD 4.95 (Sandwich + Drinks)

Snapshot of Swanston Street.

St. Paul Cathedral at Swanston Street

We had our first breakfast in Melbourne in Subway. With AUD 4.95, you can grab a sandwich and a drink. The morning breaky really rejuvenated us to continue walking around. We hopped to the Federation Square to get some maps from the tourist information centre. Oh yeah, there were a lot of volunteer official tourist guides around Swanston Street to assist the tourists.  We took some photo of the Swanston Street and St. Paul Cathedral, before walking down to the gardens.

Captain Cook’s Cottage

About 15 minutes walk towards east, we reached Treasury Garden. We were fascinated by the greenish fields and trees in the parks. Of course, we stopped by at the spot and enjoy the fall foilage scenery. Then, we came to Fitzroy Garden, which is just next to the Treasury Garden. There were few spots to visit in this garden, including the conservatory, Captain Cook’s cottage and fairies tree. Too bad, we just missed out some of the spots here.

After hanging around in the gardens for one and half hour, we walked towards St. Patrick Cathedral (Read more here). From here, we walked pass Parliament of Victoria, Parliament Gardens, Royal Exhibition Building, and finally reached Melbourne Musuem. We paid a visit to the museum with an entrance fee of AUD 8 per head, in fact we actually took the chance to rest our legs here.

We walk for another half an hour from Melbourne Museum back to Hotel Formule 1. Our long tiring walk finally ended around 4pm, so let’s take a break before we continue for the second part of our first day.

Popularity: 4% [?]

I am flying off to Melbourne tonight with AirAsia, and taking a week break from my work. We bought the ticket in August 2010 and have been planning this trip since last month :) It is still in the early winter season now, and I hope that it wouldn’t be too cold for us. For those who like to know more about Melbourne, kindly visit Wikipedia for more information.

Just an extract of our itinerary, we are planning to visit the following places :-

1. Melbourne City Tour
2. St. Kilda
3. Koala Conservation Centre
4. Philip Island
5. Great Ocean Road
6. Mt. Dandenong
7. Yarra Valley

Stay tuned!!!

Popularity: 3% [?]