First Trip to Australia: Friday in Melbourne

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Finally, I am going on a trip which I had planned since 2007. My colleague Angga and I had planned to go traveling together, considering both of us never went to Australia, so why not? We decided April 2008 is the best time for us to go. Successfully got Australian tourist visa, we booked the ticket and start the journey on Thursday night April 17th 2008. We used Garuda Indonesia airlines and it took us 6 hours flight from Bali to Melbourne. We arrived on the next day, 7 am local time.
The weather was nice, although I am not used to low temperature. It wasn’t windy or rainy. Just a perfect bright sunny day to start sightseeing Melbourne. I did not know much about the city. As I can’t find any traveling guide book which explains about Melbourne. I tried to look for Lonely Planet and Periplus traveling guide books, but I can only found Sydney edition. So I decided not to expect something about the city and just enjoy everything I would find.
We had a breakfast on a unique small restaurant which located on a train stop. The restaurant is quite pretty since it uses wooden furnish, vintage furniture and many plant decorations. It felt so homey and comfortable. Located on Albert’s Park, we could see the city’s skyscrapers as well as Melbourne’s grand prix circuit. Luckily we got a very strategic open air seat, which enabled us to see beautiful view around the restaurant. Tourist’s luck! 😉 I decided to order Mushroom Scramble Egg and Coffee to light up our sleepy mood. Tasty indeed! I finished my meal until the last bite.
Melbourne is quite big. It has so many old antique buildings as well as the modern ones. Melbourne also has a very good public transportation system. We may use the same transportation ticket for bus, tram, and train. Plus, the city’s transportation layout is very easy to learn. I couldn’t help myself not to enjoy Melbourne at the very first day. So we went to Chappel’s Street, one of the recommended places to go. Chappel’s street located in suburb, and if we use train, we could stop at South Yarra station. It is a very convenient place for people to shop for clothes as well as to have lunch or dinner. Chappel’s Street is quite posh so that most people went there using fancy outfits. After walk around and bought some things, we had lunch on a Chinese restaurant.
Later on that evening we started going local. We went to local chain hypermarket called Safeway to buy some groceries, went to a mall called Chadstone and watched movie at Cineplex called Hoyts. Compare with 21 cineplex in Indonesia, Hoyt’s studio is quite bigger, has more comfortable seat, cleaner, but the sound system is better in Indonesia.
After got home, I looked at pictures in my camera and surprised to find out that we went to so many places in one day. I guess its a good sign that I will enjoy my trip in Australia 😉

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Photos

Beautiful Sunrise
View from airplane's window

Welcome!
Tullamarine airport's funny statues

Tram Restaurant
On a train stop at Albert's Park

Finished Breakfast
Leaving the restaurant. Ready for the trip ;)

Chapel Street
Convenient place for shopping ;))

Comments

[rizka]

brekkie
as you might have known, oz tend to say 'brekkie' for phrasing their 'breakfast' hehehe ... tram, mart, whatever that name is , a genuinely great place to stuff up your stomach indeed!

[Angga]

Lovely Melbourne with My Lovely Friends
Hi, my travelling partner... Finally, I got to see your travel blog masterpiece... so, this is the one you worked on till 3am... I like it... It's so detail :) Damn, I can't even remember which train station we should stop in chappel st :)... Oya, darling, don't forget to mention our beloved tour guide Dimas and Hadi. Maybe you can put some humours a bit about our fashionista and metro friends who made us stunt by their shopping knowledge and their camera pose :p...