sooyindotcom

13 September 2005

We landed at Melbourneâ??s airport a good half hour earlier thanks to the tailwind. As soon as I stepped out of the plane, I could feel the chilly air seeping through the glass window of the arrival loungeâ?¦how refreshing! We headed to the immigration (long wait), then baggage collection (very fast), and customs (another long wait). As soon as we immerged to the arrival hall , I headed off the the nearest café to grab a bacon and egg sandwich, after which, we hailed a cab to take us to Crown Towers.

As it was early morning on a weekday, we were caught in the morning rush hour traffic jam for about 15 minutes and ended up taking about 40+ minutes (and $40+!) to reach the hotel. Luckily, our room was already availableâ?¦I was looking forward to taking a short nap before starting to explore the city centre.

A little bit about our room…as we entered the main door into the corridor, we were greeted with a big bathroom on our left, followed by a door leading into…*dances with glee*…a walk-in wardrobe!! The corridor opened up to a squarish room that contained a big king-sized bed with crisp white sheets, a sofa at one corner of the room and a writing desk at the other corner. The floor to ceiling windows overlooked the Yarra river and the Melbourne Exhibition centre, and the bright morning sun was streaming through making our room look all bright and cheery. The furniture in the room consisted of mostly dark brown and light beige wood.

After unpacking, hubby and I crashed onto the bed and got a much needed 2 hour nap. We woke up utterly refreshed…took a quick shower, dressed in warm warm clothes, and off we went to explore the city centre!

As it was already noon, we decided to go for lunch first. We weren’t sure about the tram system yet, so we ended up walking from our hotel all the way to Little Bourke Street. While I originally wanted to try Flower Drum (apparently famous for it’s Peking Duck, one of my favourite dishes), we ended up going to Sharks Fin House for dim sum instead. We were seated on the second floor, which was totally packed with mostly Asian customers. The dim sum was served via pushcarts, and we wasted no time picking out our standard dim-sum fare: Siew Mai, Char Siew Pau, Char Siew Cheong Fun, Har Kow and a bowl of porridge and fried chinese cruellers wrapped in cheong fun. While the food looked pretty good (and the portions were huge), I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the quality of the dim sum. I personally found the cheong fun too thick, while the Char Siew Pau had a weird taste. We ended up not finishing most of the dishes.

After lunch, we took a stroll up Little Bourke Street to the Parliament House. We spotted Hard Rock Café along Bourke Street, and hubby went in to buy a pin (he collects them from HR Café’s in places that we’ve visited). We walked along the Parliament Gardens near the Parliament House, and saw a large group of people gathered at the nearby State Government Offices staging a demonstration. Not wanting to be too pat-kua, we decided to turn into Little Collins Street for some shopping. Within 10 minutes, hubby made his first purchase for the day…a white/green striped shirt from a shop called Satch! We walked further along Little Collins Street, enjoying the weather, turning into small hidden streets and shopping centres that dotted the street. Along the way, I managed to buy a pink wool knee length coat from Collins Two3Four…there was a sale being held on the top floor, and everything was going cheap. They had designer stuff from Marc Jacobs, D&G, etc…I tried on a pink Marc Jacobs long-sleeved t-shirt, but it turned out to be too loose (and it was x-tra small!)…*frown*. While my coat was unbranded, I think it was a pretty good bargain at $99. We also managed to find Haigh’s chocolate shop and Koko Black & Suga (recommended by Pixel and mvo). Suga was already closed by the time we reached there, so we decided to return a few days later to make all our purchases in one go.

For tea time, I had planned to try the pastries at Laurent Pattiserie, a shop along Little Collins Street. We reached the shop one hour before closing time, and most of the pastries were already finished! We ended up ordering a chocolate danish (hubby), and a vanilla sponge with strawberry mousse (me). The interior of the café was very Parisian-like, with wooden chairs and marble tables, a curved staircase to the upper floor. I didn’t like the chocolate danish much, but the strawberry mousse was yummy. The outside was coated with a sugar-like wrapping, while the inside of the cake was light and fluffy with truly melt-in-your-mouth mousse.

By evening, my feet was aching like crazy, and I really felt like I couldn’t take another step. It’s weird, as I usually wear these boots for walking and it never felt that uncomfortable before. This time, it felt as if the sole had been worn down till paper-thin, and I could feel the hard pavement each time I took a step. Awful. Anyways, were already at Flinders Street Station, having walked down Little Collins Street and Elizabeth Street and as we still couldn’t figure out how the tram system worked (and I couldn’t walk much further), we had to forgo our dinner plans at Becco, an Italian restaurant back at Bourke Street. *stupid shoes*

We trudged down Flinders Street all the way to Queensbridge Street back to our hotel. As soon as I reached the room, I pulled off my boots and nursed my aching feet. Since I spoiled our dinner plans *sob*, we decided to just eat in the hotel. Most of the restaurants were full, so we ended up at the food court where I had a hot dog, while hubby had a hot baked potato with a whole lot of topping. Dinner was, of course, totally unsatisfying…what more with today being our first day at Melbourne! *stupid stupid shoes*

By night time, we were totally exhausted, and after uploading the day’s photos to my iBook, we went straight to bed for a good night’s sleep. I think I must’ve fallen asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow…

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

Want to give these places a try?

Sharks Fin House
131 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9663 1555

Laurent Pattiserie
306 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9654 1011