Saturday, January 10, 2009
Well, I'll take this chance to share my experiences in my opinion, the most exuberant city in Australia, Melbourne. Having never stepped foot onto Victorian shores before, I found the anticipation for the vacation in Melbourne particularly exciting.
I travelled with my housemate, Kevin, who had just graduated from his Masters course. Treading the soil of Victoria with us were KC's family (4 of them). If you're wondering who's KC, I strongly recommend you to visit Kevin's blog (http://www.kevinkks.blogspot.com/).
1st Day
We arrived at Melbourne at approximately 4pm. After checking-in at Victoria Hall (a exceptional backpackers place at an affordable price), we headed down to Melbourne city led by our 'local tour guide', Sian Hong. He led us through the complicated network of Melbourne's trams and we ended up at Eureka Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Melbourne. We spent the night there overlooking the city and the skyline was just beautiful.
2nd day
Thus starts our day tours in Melbourne. The first of which was the Great Ocean Road tour, where we traversed hours of coastal highways to witness magnificent rock formations carved by the very elements of nature herself. The one which I vividly remember was the Twelve Apostles, which had only 8 of the original 12 left standing.
We arrived in Melbourne at around 7.30pm. Approximately 10hours of travelling had its toll on all of us. However, I was not discouraged as I had booked to watch the musical WiCkEd, which was totally AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! I had been waiting for this musical to come out thanks to Ming Zhan who raved all about it when it was showing in the UK. And finally it was in Australia! Since it wouldn't ever come to Brisbane, I couldn't let that golden opportunity to pass me by.
Wicked it basically a musical which narrates the origins of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch. Both characters were made famous in the classic Wizard of Oz novel. The musical revealed the sequence of events which led to the Wicked Witch treading on her evil path. It generated sympathy towards the Wicked Witch and reminded us all that evil and wickedness in one's character stem from one's own choices, which in turn are influenced by one's very own social circles and their perception towards one's self.
3rd day
We headed to Ballarat on our second of four day tours. The most interesting place was Sovereign Hill, the place where whole town, which fluorished in the early days of the gold rush in Victoria, was re-enacted with particular attention to the style, living etiquettes, fashion and architecture of those times. It was like walking into a Wild Wild West story. We spend most of our time here watching gold mine tours, taking pictures and of course, buying souvenirs.
On that night, I had dinner at Lygon street with Chor Han, my high school mate from KHS. Lygon street (as everyone knows) is famous for its Italian delicacies. As such, we dined at an Italian restaurant, eating pizzas, and then enjoyed sumptuous hot chocolate at Koko Black (yummm). Well before that, we treated our sweet tooth with some gelato at Il Dolce Fredo.
4th day
Well let's not stop now, we have another day trip to go. We steamed off to the Dandenong Range, but we first dropped by at a national park, where Kev and I were being attacked by cockatoos (those huge white parrots), as we were attempting to feed them. Anyway, we moved on to take a ride on the steam train, Puffing Billy. It was interesting on a historical point of view, and that was as interesting as it went.
Next, we went on an alcohol drinking frenzy at Yarra Valley wineries where wine-tasting and champagne-drowning made my head spin! Pinot Nair, Cabernet Sauvignon, Muscato............
Now, dinner was something special too. We had Peking Duck for dinner at a restaurant called Old Kingdom which was located at the Brunswick suburb in Melbourne. Kev and I dined with Kev's friend, Shiang Yuan (also called Tiffany) and her mates as well.
5th day
It was pretty much a free morning and like any tourists, we spent our morning and afternoon, roaming around in the city, mostly to obtain information on our self-driven road trip down to Mornington tomorrow. We obtained maps at a tourist information booth in Federation Square.
In the late afternoon was when the fun truly began. It was our final day tour (phew!) to the Phillip Islands to watch the funny little birds in Happy Feet - the penguins. Called the Penguin Parade, the tour highlighted the amazing phenomenon of watching penguins coming in from the sea after a full day of "work" (getting food for the family, that is), and straddling their way back to their burrows which may be located up to 1 km from the shoreline (as you can see, I made up that figure, but the idea is they need to walk very far). However, the trick is, the penguins only returned when the sun sets, which in the summer was approximately 9pm. So, there we were, waiting for the little penguins to come into shore.
But things were not as simple as they seemed. The penguins needed a little more coaxing to step onto shore. On land, the penguins were most vulnerable to predators. As such, we had to watch them hastily running back to the ocean once they sensed danger a few times before they actually felt safe to step onto solid ground.
The tour ended at around 11pm. Night fell, lights out.
6th day
You'd think we would be sick of touring around Melbourne, but you were so wrong. These bones still had marrows of youth to last them a whole week! So, we rented a car and Kev drove to Mornington, led by two reliable navigators, Sian Hong and yours truly...hehe. We ventured to a cherry farm for cherry-picking but it was closed. So then, we headed to a strawberry farm and collected huge punnetts of strawberries!!! Juicy, red, fresh strawberries. (Strawberries resemble heart-shapes...I reckoned those times were pretty romantic for some members of our group...hmnm..I'll explain more about this later)
Then, we moved on to Borneo Maze and Wetlands where we tried to find our way through artificial maze. (I discovered I had an knack for finding dead ends, how interesting!). It was a decent park with a costly entrance fee, $12.
We did a few sightseeings and we were done for the day at Mornington.
Now, at night, I had a chance to meet up with my friend, Ian. We were in the same swimming team together and it had been quite long since I met him. Dinner at a Greek restaurant, Stalactite, was ensued with hot chocolate at Max Brenner with Jaslyne, his sister, who was working part-time at Kookai. I then crashed his place for a while before I returned to Victoria Hall for the night.
7th day
Back to Brisbane and bid farewell to KC and her family who left for Sydney on the same day.
Highlights:
1) Breadtop, amazing breads, they should open one in Brisbane
2) WiCkEd musical! Melbourne is truly Aussie's cultural hub!
3) Max Brenner, Koko black, Lygon street, Il Dolce Fredo - Melbourne is delicious
4) Meeting up with Ian and Chor Han
5) Peking Duck - first time trying
6) Kev's secret escapades into the night with KC...shhhhh!
7) 3 power couples and one single guy (ME!) The three couples were as follows:-
(Imagine the horror of being squashed in between two power couples!)
Disappointments:
Zap! none!
Acknowledgements:
1) Uncle Teoh (KC's dad), who had treated us our lunches and also paid for the rental car. Cheers!
2) Sian Hong, who painstakingly grabbed us 4 day tours at an exceptional good price
3) Kevin, who drove us all the way to Mornington, and for showing me how romantic he could be (to KC of course)
Oh yeah, before I forget:
("BE A MAN! DO THE RIGHT THING!" - Russel Peters)
Parents, teachers, friends. All of you have led me to this stage
God alone deserves all glory!!
