The bus ride into the City from the Airport was pleasant. We were dropped off at the Spencer Street Train Station. It was very breezy in Melbourne City …and that’s when the freezing started! Bbbbrrrrrrrr… it was also sunny… so my body was all confused… After buying our weekly Tram/Train/Bus Pass we took a walk to Elizabeth Street where we hopped on the Tram to get to our Hotel. We checked into the Elizabeth Tower Hotel which wasn’t too far from the City Center. The Hotel look old, like it was made in the late 70s or something but it was very cozy and nice. The room wasn’t too bad either. The Hotel had this interesting Spiral Stairs coming down the corner of it… it was cool.
Shanti took us to Lygon Street for Lunch. Italian food is most famous there and true enuff we were passing many Italian Café’s and Restaurants… we even passed 2 cafes that had Malaysian food. We decided to eat at Correto Café. The whole place was filled with Ferrari’s Formula One memorabilia, newspaper clippings, Photos, bits and broken pieces of Ferrari’s F1 car and of cause not forgetting a real Ferrari F1 Car hanging from the ceiling. There were also pictures of Schumacher eating at Correto’s and also meeting the owner of the place… The café was not all show… the
food was superbly freaking good. (You are not gonna get pictures of food here in my blog, cos I am not that kind of blogger. If you don’t like that then blogger off). For dessert we went a little further down the street and ate Italian Ice Cream or Gelato. OMG…… I don’t know why people even bother doing drugs… man, the gelato was damn goooooood. I asked for a single and since I don’t consider Gelato food you can see in the picture.. that there was nothing single about it. I would call that a quadruple…. mmm Yum yum!! It was clear after that that I wld be putting on a lot of weight this coming week.
After that wholesome meal … we weren’t in the mood to ronda ronda…. So we crashed and rested awhile, about 3 or 4 hours to be exact. I didn’t get much sleep on the plane remember….. We only got to Shanti’s apartment about 8pm right when the sun was setting, hence the term long summer days… . It was getting really cold and windy when we started walking down Swanston Street. Most shops where already closed as most do at 6pm… yikes!! But since it was a Friday, some of the shops where still open and almost all eateries where open too. I noticed that at every corner there was a 7eleven or a Starbucks. Dono quickly found a DVD/CD shop which was open and I must say that they were cheap, cheaper then here. Originals ofcos and a large range of movies too, with countless number of box sets which you cant find in Malaysia.
It was a short walk to Melbourne Central (Shopping/Subway Station/Makan Place) which had an interesting old building in the ‘centre’ of it and it was housed under a huge big ‘cone’. It is a Shot Tower which was made in 1890. They made those olden days’ bullets or lead balls for muskets. Molten Lead is dropped from the top of the tower (170 feet) which would result in droplets cooling in air into somewhat of a spherical shape and it would land in a pool of water to cool down at the bottom of the tower. Discovery Channel! What have you discovered today!
I was just perplexed by the beautiful architecture all around the city and the buildings façade was further emphasized by excellent lighting which highlighted the fine work in its details. Or is it fine details in its work. Hmmm…. Anyway it was a lovely walk thru the city and was further sweetened by a friend of mine, Melanie, (yo Mel, wuzzup!) who made time to meet up with us later that nite. She’s working and studying in Melbourne.
We tool some time taking pictures along Flinders Street (actually I was holding them up with my picture taking, before going for dinner…. hehe). There I was snapping away at Flinders Street Station, Federation Square and St Paul’s Cathedral which was really really beautiful, magnificent.
We then walked to Lornsdale Street to have Greek and Turkish food… which was of cos simply divine. Mmmmm …. I’m gonna be a fatty! Yeah yeah!!......... The city was crowded because it was a Friday but you don’t feel it because of the broad walkways all along the streets…I must say that it’s a very easy City to get around by foot. You try doing that here and see… huh! Mau mati kah? and if you dont want to walk then you can take the trams. There are a few old trams which run around the city.
I must add that the toilets where so clean. It was unbelievable! it was cleaner then the KLIA toilets!! Last we head back to sleep because tomorrow is a long and Beautiful Day.
mo
to be continued......
After a whole day at the Telstra Dome Stadium we toke over time waking up the next day. Rose and I went over to Victoria Market around 12ish and I think the Queen Victoria Market is the most cleanest and nicest’ wet market I have ever seen. We spent the whole afternoon looking over the concert photos…. Man! What a concert!!.......After getting a bite to eat, Rose, Me and my mates then hoped on a tram head south out of the City to St Kilda Beach. The flee market isn’t too bad, a lot of unique Art, Jewelries, etc etc, but as I have mentioned before, it all starts to close by 5ish and guess what time we got there?
St Kilda was a little boring but maybe we were just a little bit tired. The Beach there wasn’t too bad but it reminded us of PD… nothing that great… but of cos if you wanted to go bird watching (both the flying and non-flying kind) then this is the place to be, especially the crowd on Weekends. There’s an old theme park there called Luna Park, which had a scary entrance, at least for me. But we where not really interested in going in. So we decided to make our way back to the Tram Stop and got the second tram (because the first one was full) back into the City.
It really was cool! We had dinner in Central Melbourne and then our new friend Flo took us to snooker centre in Chinatown which looked just like the snooker centres in M'sia. Felt like i was home..
