Melbourne Day TWO

I'm sorry about the dearth of posts. But Blogger is really slow in uploading photos, so I've been putting it off. Bleah.

Red-bricked building. I am imagining Dan studying in here.

Melbourne also have!
Queen Victoria Market. The locals call it Vic Mart.

One of the best breakfasts I've ever had! Happy!

It was about 2 weeks to Christmas!



Outside the boutique hotel - Jasper Hotel. It was quite impressive! But the automatic door wouldn't slide open when XuZi stood there till he felt like an idiot and surreptitiously moved away. Heheh. Apparently the door only opens when someone who holds a Jasper key comes within sensor range. Nicely decorated interior.
But I was disappointed by the size of it. It looked smaller than it did on the photos. ):

As we left Jasper, we saw this outrageous knife holder. I think Dan would love this for his birthday!I love this Post office building. It looks like a Gringotts from the Harry Potter books.

Bumble bee on a tram. Hehe.

I really like this photo. A splash of colour in a sepia-tinged environment. It's pretty.
Another tram!
The machine and its tickets which confounded us for a while. We took the tram to Smith Street - a quaint, romantic little street which has all the factory outlets and small art galleries.
Adidas
Shopping heaven!

What's so special about this lane? All the graffiti! Wah I wouldn't mind staying here!




We had dinner at a quaint little shop called Mama Vittoria. I loved it! Not so much that the food was fantastic, but it was really cosy, and the waitresses were really warm people. You could take what you like and then pay for it at the end of your meal. They count on the patrons to be honest. I like!

As usual, the portions were huge. And we shared again.
While they didn't. Again. Lol. Good luck to their tummies!
Then we went to the Direct Factory Outlet to continue on our shopping trip before everything closes at 6. Eep!
Mr Xu was so excited to see his name all over the placethat he had to take a picture with it.

We took a train from Southern Cross Station that evening to look at some super nice scenery.Platform 11.
I was freezing, and nicky was just in his shirt. Act tough!

I like the train's exterior. So futuristic and clean.
This picture is really interesting.
The man at the front is freaking tall, and there is a cyclist just coming out of the train. Hes cycling in and out of the train! Wow. You would have gotten caught and get slapped with a fine in Singapore.
And we reached our destination! (I can't recall the name though. JY help! Hehe.)

Eureka Skydeck 88
On the ground floor, just before you enter the lift, there is an interactive table which displays floating facts, and opens up into windows when you touch it. If you touch the surroundings, a ripple effect forms.
Lifts accelerate at close to gravitational pull. :S

Then my camera battery went flat. ): But here are some shots I found off Google.
There are info links/lines on the floor that display interesting facts about Melbourne landmarks.



That's all folks. Hope I come back soon! (:

Melbourne Day One

I've been putting off updating this space with pictures from my Australia trip, using fatigue as an excuse. BUT. I've been watching The Little Nonya on YouTube (All hail YouTube!) when I discovered with a glee that it was uploaded by MediaCorpFan (yeah thats the name =.=). Despite not being a fan of MediaCorp, this is one of the shows that I have to, have to watch. And so, all this time outside dance practice, I've been watching episodes of TLN that I'd missed while I was missing in Australia. (((:

Ok, so let's get back to the Down Under!

(Most of the pictures here are taken with Marcus' prosumer camera. I'm so gian to get one!)

The ticket to freedom!

We went to the famed Pancake Parlour in Melbourne Right after we touched down, because it was really early in the morning and we couldn't check in. LOVELY!

And this is the best pancakes I've ever eaten! Is it MacDonald's, or is it just me... But the pancakes in Singapore are never so fluffy, buttery, and non-sickening (you know the aftertaste you get from eating something with a weird taste?). Anyway, that's a scoop of whipped butter sitting atop the pancake, all melting and waiting to be devoured! (: Yum!

The English Breakfast Bernard and Bridgette ordered. The grilled mushrooms were really soaked in oil, but damn, were they good!



Looking bloated and fatigued from the flight. =.=

Check in!

We headed to Chinatown right after check in, with barely 2hours of sleep on the flight.

Bern introduced a must-try Cantonese restaurant, and so we had tea there after trawling through the CBD.

Peking Duck! It was really good.
Tofu, MUSHROOM, and some vegetable.


So we shopped...

And then we ate AGAIN. This time at a famous Vietnam cafe. The price and portion were, of course, "Australianised", i.e, upsized and more expensive. A bowl of beef noodles which would have cost $1+ in Vietnam cost us over $9. But the portions were huge... This cafe is apparently quite famous, a lot of famous Asian actors have visited this restaurant before. Pictures are taken and pasted all over the shop's interior as marketing tactics/decorations. :P

The State Library. I loved it.

And outside the library where everyone was lying down on the grass patch. Wa never see in Singapore one!

Bikes were quite common around the city area. We realised why the 3rd day... Parking was such a pain.

You'd never guess that this was Melbourne Central, a shopping mall.
And art is everywhere in the streets! This is the bottom of a lamp post.
A department of the RMIT housed somewhere near our apartment.
So romantic!
And you wouldn't believe what we found... KBOX right below our apartment! This is the one and only KTV I saw in Australia. I wonder if some homesick Singaporean went there and set it up.

And finally, home. View from the balcony. I believe this was around 8.30pm. Still so bright!

It was a really tiring day one for us, and we were so glad to be back in the apartment. It's really easy to lose track of time in Australia where the sun sets super late. It was also quite sunny, but when the breeze blew, it was wayyyy cold. And it was lucky that jaey warned me to look at the weather reports before packing up in the finaly days, if not I would have brought my summer clothes instead of jeans and sweaters. And so we rested, with an even more tiring day 2 to come. (: