My adventure this morning began with an early wake up call - 4 AM to be exact as my pick-up was arranged for 4:45 to accommodate my early flight to Melbourne (pronounced Mel-Ben).
Shortly after arriving at my hostel, The Greenhouse Backpacker, I walked to Federation Square to meet my newest tour guide.
It came as a bit of a surprise when I realized that not only was I the only one on the tour, the guide was also my age! It definitely made for an exciting day as we traveled the city on bicycles!!
Melbourne is by far my favorite city in Australia so far - it truly is a non-stop celebration of fashion, food, entertainment and of course shopping! My guide Kevin showed me the Rod Laver Arena, where The Australian Open is held annually. I was also able to bike past the Melbourne Cricket Ground, The University of Melbourne and The Docklands waterfront - so so beautiful. We took a break and stopped for lunch at a cool Italian cafe in Fitzroy - a bohemian type area of Melbourne.
We finished off by the Yarra River where Kevin showed me THE GREATEST vintage fashion store -- you can imagine how long it would take to find the perfect dress.
With my day beginning before sunrise I had some time to check out The Eureka Skydeck, the tallest residential building in Victoria at 984 ft -- I guess you can compare it to The Toronto CN Tower, but not nearly as high. Within 30 seconds the elevator brought me up to the 88th floor where I could visit "the edge" -- a glass cube projecting 3 metres out of the building and 984 ft high - with me in it! The entire room was black for about a minute, then suddenly it was 4 glass walls overlooking the city.
After a safe descent to ground level, I traveled to The Australian Centre for Moving Imagine (ACMI) where they currently have an exhibition on Tim Burton. If you don't recognize his name, you'll know his work - he is the creative mind behind Batman, Beetle juice, Nightmare before Christmas, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeny Todd, and most recently Alice in Wonderland -- to name a few !
The exhibit was crazy cool - showcasing the real 'Batmobile' and many other props used on the set of his super successful films. Everywhere I turned there was something new to look at and for an extra $5 they gave you an ipod with an audio guide of the exhibit.
I finished off the night with a delicious dinner at Cookie restaurant, treated by Joanna from Tourism Victoria. Despite the decadent name, the restaurant specialized in Thai and it was lovely, as was Joanna :)
After a long day I am now heading to bed - early tour to Phillip Island in the morning.
Every day I notice new things about Australia, for instance "Thank you" has been replaced by "Cheers" and the evil BP gas stations are everywhere ! Can someone give me an update on this crisis? I am so out of the loop!
Cheers for reading! ... not sure it works like that, but thank you anyway:)
and THANK YOU TOURISM AUSTRALIA & TOURISM VICTORIA - Melbourne is definitely going to be a tough one to say goodbye to.
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