Melbourne Trip (part 1)

Hello hello helloooo! Welcome back to my blog. This time I will show you my Melbourne journey. As you read on my previous blog, Sydney Trip, I said that we had flight from Sydney and we arrived at Melbourne about 5 pm. Arriving at the airport, we were picked up by Mark, friend of Ryan, whose have the place we stayed for 5 nights. We booked this homestay from Rnb. It was located at Barley road, we can reach the tram only walking by 5 mins at Brunswick road. We put our luggage at home stay then hurried to Melbourne Chinatown. It was still open until 9 or 10 pm. There was a lot of China restaurants that offered a delicious food.

 

The next morning we went to St. Paul Catedral and Flinder station. From our home stay, it's quite far, we need to use tram until swanston rood using tram number 96 then continue using free tram to go to Flinder station. In free tram zone, no need to touch on/ off.

 

Spotted the tram no 35 which is always rotating from Flinder street until Dockland ( you can see on the provided map or click here) or you can download tram tracker as your guidance in Melbourne. It provides you real-time prediction on your trams stop.

St.Paul

Flinder Station

There is a Melbourne Visitor Center, where you can book a tour to Blue Mountain, Yarra Valley, Puffing Billy or others. We also can ask freely to the volunteers. We met a Indonesian volunteer, which made us more comfortable in term of language. He introduced us a lot of places that foreigner may not know, such as this Cumulus Inc. A pretty restaurant which offers a good meals. It was crowded by Australians. This was we wanted when we travel by our self, going to the hot place of the country, not going to the place where the tour want. I forget all the menu we chose, but it cost more or less $18 each. At Cumulus inc, the foods are meant to share. I really like the Cod fish, it tasted superb and the skin was so smooth.

 

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We continued to stroll around Flinder street. There is NGV and ACMI, a place for arts. More over, we went to Hosier Ln, it was very close, just cross the road, and you'll find it. I saw it on Running Man, Korean variety show. Thus I really wanted to go there, just to take a photo >.<. It is a alley where is full of colourful drawing. It gives a hip hop feel when you 're on that lane. However, it was raining when I got there, pretty sad.

Hosier Ln

As you know, it was so quite at Australian. We decided to go back to China town. At there, we found a China restaurant who sold a noodle with lobster, and it was only $17. Because we had so many food information from Melbourne Visitor Center's volunteer, we had a long night queuing from one restaurant to another. We also tried Japanese food such as ramen, I forget the restaurant name, but a lot of people went there. We queued for 20 mins to get table there. We also bought some bread for tomorrow breakfast and cake for my daddy's birthday. It is the first time my daddy's birthday celebrated at foreign country. It was quite cheap in Chinatown compare to others area. The cake cost $25.

 

 

Pure candid :) I don't have any specific reason why I love candid picture so much XD XD

Daddy's birthday

As we had booked our one day tour to Mount Buller from Melbourne Visitor Center, we woke up at 5.30 am in order to get the bus at 6 am (30 mins is enough for me and family, depends on the person, right?). It is very important to become in time in Australia. It is not like in Indonesia, where you can late 5 mins. Even 30seconds you are late, you'll miss the bus. We gathered at NGV studio, Flinder street. It took around 3 hours to Mount Buller downhill city and about 40 mins to the Mount Buller. At the downhill city, there was a lot rent shop for ski equipment. Our tour package already included all. We can choose to do skating, snowboarding or sightseeing only. I chose the snowboarding, because I never experience that. I did ever do skating at Korea (see more on here). I got the cloth, pant and the snowboarding. I rent helmet ($10) and bought sunglasses ($15). The tour packages cost $200 included the lift on the Mount Buller.

Do you see the escalator? No need for us to go up by our self anymore, just stand on the escalator.

I'm so sorry if can't provide more photos, because I am too busy with my snowboarding. They gave us 1 hour lesson. So, it is okay if you can't play snowboarding. We can learn it at here. Basically, it is not hard, just be brave and maintain your balance. I suggest to have helmet because we may not know what may happen on the field. Like me, I fell down on the cold ice several times, and luckily I had helmet. It is okay to fall down, we can learn from our mistakes. No need to bring extra clothes because it was not cold at all. Because we keep moving at there. Overall, it was a good experience.
At 4 pm, we must arrived at the bus stop. Then, apparently we only had 4 hours to enjoy or play at the Mount Buller. There was a canteen which sold burger, fries, doughnut, coffee and tea. However, I suggest to have your own meals because if you buy food there, you need to queue and you have not enough time to enjoy the mount.
We arrived at our meeting point, NGV studio, around 8 pm. We decided to eat at 24 hours restaurant, that sold grilled chicken and lamb. We chose that restaurant because it was so crowded. It was not a wrong decision, because it was so delicious. I really like it, and I want to go back to eat that again. When we were queuing to get table, there was a gang of bad boys? I don't know how to call them what. They did not do any malicious behaviour, but they just teasing us. It was not a threaten, however I actually little bit scared of them.

The mix of grilled chicken and lamb plus fries cost $18, the salad cost $7

On the next day, we visited Queen Victoria Market where there was a lot of people sold fruits, souvenirs, like Paddy Market in Sydney. However, Sydney's Paddy Market still the best place which offers the best price. However, in Queen Victoria Market, you can found a place to buy foods and cheese. There was many stalls who sell cheese, bacon, french bread, cake, fried chicken and so on. We had our breakfast there. We bought anything that we thought savoury. I already forget what we bought and the price, because we just to hungry at that time. We just snatch everything, literally.

 

Oh, we use our 96 tram to Swanston then use 19 tram to reach at Queen Victoria Market. Then we continued to Chadstone Mall. It is the biggest mall in Melbourne. You can use the free shuffle bus from federation square (NGV studio). While waiting for the bus, we ate our lovely red velvet timtam. It is a necessary thing to do XD. I really love their's timtam, it is different from Indonesia's timtam. In here, timtam collaborate with Adriana Zumbo, which is the famous patissier in Australia. I also like timtam chewy caramel. It was so marvelous. Timtam cost varies, depends on the store's place. If you buy in the centre of city that the price could slightly pricey.  $4 is the cheapest timtam I ever bought at Sydney's Chinatown.

Chadstone mall

It took around 30 or 40 mins to reach the mall. Arrived at there, I was amazed by it's structure. Indeed Australia has its beautiful structure in everywhere. It has 2 floors and full of branded goods.
We went back to city, because we wanted to see firework show at Dockland. Unfortunately, it was raining when we got there. The show was going on about 10 mins.

At Melbourne there were so many place to rent a bicycle. The instruction is on picture below. There were also volunteers itinerate around city using the red uniform. They were so friendly, you can ask anything to them.

You also can have a visit to royal arcade. They sell clothes, bags any others. It has beautiful architecture like Queen Victoria Building in Sydney.

That's for my Melbourne trip part 1. I'll post part 2 soon. Stay tuned!

Your sincerely,

Phoby