Another Little Chapter in Melbourne (Spring Break pt. 2)

When planning this part of my mid semester break, I only allowed 4 days to tour Melbourne, Victoria. Four days! Even my tour guides thought I was crazy for only spending a short time here, but hey, this is just another little chapter for my Australian Adventure™.

On Wednesday, September 27th, I had my flight from Hobart, Tasmania to Melbourne. I had such a fun time hiking, exploring and being in nature that it was time for me to visit an amazing concrete jungle. Lots of people compared Melbourne to San Francisco (and I absolutely love SF), saying the cities have similar vibes and very hip/modern, so I was eager to get to Melbourne, but still a little bittersweet to leave Hobart. Once my flight landed and I got in the center of the city, I realized that Melbourne was made just for me! I could walk around Melbourne for hours and not get bored of walking up and down the streets.

Wednesday: Welcome to Melbourne

Around 5:30pm, I was hungry for dinner. As I was looking up restaurants, I realized that Melbourne has a prominent Chinese community with a bunch of authentic Chinese food, not fried rice, but the famous soup dumpling. Formally known as xiao long bao, this soup dumpling is famous and originates from Shanghai. Two years ago my friend Connie invited me to come visit her in China and while she was showing me her home city, one of the dishes we had together was the soup dumpling. We ate it a lot during my visit, because not many restaurants outside of Shanghai sell the soup dumplings because it's a difficult dish to make. And going through yelp in my Melbourne hostel, I knew I had to have this beloved dish. Mind you, I had Michelin Star xiao long bao when I was in Shanghai, so I had high expectations when it came to this dish. I've went to a restaurant called Shanghai Street Dumpling, which was right down the street from my hostel. You better believe I ran to get a table before the dinner crowd rushed in. And yes, the xiao long bao at this restaurant lived up to my expectations and I was so happy throughout the entire meal. Later that evening I met up with some friends of friends (that I met in Brisbane who are studying in Melbourne) and we went to a bar that was on the 55th floor! The city view was phenomenal! I also had a great time hanging out with Andi, both of the Davids, Rebekka, Alex and a couple of their other friends. They really welcomed me into the city and I am so glad that I met up with them!

Thursday: Laneways and Phillip Island

Today's agenda I planned to walk around the CBD to see the famous graffiti laneways and different architecture style this city has. I've heard that Melbourne has one of the most diverse architecture styles compared to any other city in the world. No kidding, this city had modern buildings next to old English style buildings next to skyscrapers, I was amazed while walking up and down the streets. I stopped in a little breakfast cafe called Hash, and I heard that they served hot chocolate [85%pure chocolate] in an erlenmeyer flask to then pour over fairy floss (aka cotton candy) in a coffee mug. I got a few stares at 9am, but it was worth it! I walked everywhere, to china town, the scattered laneways, Chinatown, the old government building, St. Patricks Cathedral, Cooks Cottage, Flinders street, I walked such a far distance and saw so much within only a few hours. The graffiti was really interesting to see. Lots of the art ranged from patterns, to murals, US political statements, and random pictures as shown:


  

  

 

You could see the time and thought put into each creation. These graffiti artists were so dedicated that they even made the garbage dumpsters look great. The laneways that are famous for the graffiti are Hosier Lane, Malthouse Lane, Duckboard Place, Brien Lane, Croft Alley and Centre Place, just to name a few.

After some time taking pictures of the graffiti, I needed a small lunch to hold me over for the rest of the day. I found my favorite street I've ever walked through: Degraves street. This street has so many restaurants, stores, vendors, decorated with graffiti and hipster decor all compacted into such a small street, and yet it works. I felt like I was in Wicker Park in Chicago, with the similar vintage styles and types of restaurants.

 I went to a tiny cafe called Centro Espresso Cafe and ordered a meatball roti sandwich, perfect for lunch! It's also a perfect street to people watch: the street is congested with people trying to find where they want to eat, out of the many options this street has to offer. I wish the street was a little longer, though this street looks like an alley way that turned into a restaurant hub.

Before I left for Australia, my dad told me that I had to see penguins in the wild, one of his wishes that I needed to fulfill before returning to the states. I was a little skeptical of this task --like where am I suppose to find penguins in a country that is mostly rainforest and desert?? That was in the back of my mind until I watched a video on youtube, showing me everything I should see in Melbourne. This video then brought up Phillip Island, a place where you can see penguins leave the ocean and walk on the beach (not in the zoo nor a sanctuary). I booked a tour at that moment, and I am so glad that I did.

Around 2pm, I went on a tour to Phillip Island to see the Penguin Parade. Phillip Island takes about two hours south from Melbourne, so there was a lot of ground to cover before seeing the penguins. The first stop on the tour was to the Nobbies, a picturesque lookout spot of the Bass Straight. I enjoyed walking around the area, breathing in the fresh air and appreciating nature.

When the tour reached the Penguin Parade Center, I had some time before dusk fell. I learned a lot about the Little Penguin, also known as the fairy penguin, are the smallest penguins: standing 1 ft. tall and weighing about 2 pounds. AWW! Like that is an adorable, small penguin! These penguins dig boroughs that they return to every night after a long day of swimming in the water, looking for food. The reason they return in the dark is to avoid predators that'll catch them on the beach. Also when the bridge that connects Phillip Island to the main land, many mainland predators would cross it and those animals almost wiped out the penguin population. But a lot of penguins are still around and will always come back to Phillip Island as long as us humans do our part in preserving the land.

The penguin parade set up: there's bleachers on the beach where you can sit and watch the penguins run onto the beach and flop into the grass. There are also boardwalks that people can walk on to get a closer view of the penguins waddling to their boroughs. The penguins do this every night and people come every night, so there is always a chance to see the penguins. And like clockwork, around 7:05, about 10 minutes after sunset the penguins ran onto the beach in small groups. Their little noises that they made when talking to the other penguins, signaling that the coast was clear, tore at my heartstrings. What a sight to see! This took place over the next hour and the penguins would run onto the beach in waves, the first group would go, then a few minutes later the next penguin group ran onto the beach. When I walked along the boardwalk, the penguins were just chilling on the other side of the handrail, I was so close to them!
Unfortunately, photography (flash or no flash) and videography was prohibited. However, before being asked to leave, I snuck in a quick picture (don't worry no flash was used, just lots of editing and filters to the picture). Don't tell me you wouldn't do the same.

    

I was awe struck and freezing the whole night, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I couldn't wait to show my mom, dad and uncle Dave the penguin picture, since they love animal/nature photography and being updated on my Australian Adventure™. What busy and rewarding day!

Friday: The Great Ocean Road and The 12 Apostles

Another attraction that Melbourne is known for is the Great Ocean Road. This road drives along the coast of the Southern Ocean, that has many beaches and scenic landscape throughout the road. This road reminds me of Highway 1 in California, scenic and a nice drive through beautiful landscape. The 12 Apostles are just tall rocks right off the shore that happen to look so pretty along with the surrounding landscape. Geez, I guess I do love rocks since I planned an entire week of sight seeing and the only tours I booked took me to see rocks and cliffs, haha! I'm also still a bit confused on why its called the 12 Apostles, since there's technically 14 and you can only see 6 at any given view... but "12 Apostles" has a nice ring to it and I think the name adds a little more excitement when going to see these natural structures.

I woke up very early for this tour, since it takes about 2 hours to get to the start of the road, and then another 1.5 hours to get to the actual 12 Apostles. On this tour I met another solo traveler from Austria named Sarah. I hung out with her for the day, taking pictures of each other with our Nikon Cameras. For most of the tour I was on the bus, but we had a few chances to pull over and take pictures on the nearby beaches.

   

And of course, rain was in the forecast throughout the whole day. The times it did rain was when we were on the bus, which was ok. At that point I just accepted the fate for the day. Hours later, we finally made it to the 12 apostles, just in time for sunset. We first visited Apollo Bay which had great views of the 12 Apostles and other rock formations. I am glad to say that I was able to touch the Southern Ocean (yes, I recently learned that there are 5 oceans but historically 4: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic along with the Southern Ocean).

  

  


The rain down poured on us when Sarah and I were taking photos of the scenery. I was so afraid that the rain was too strong and could ruin my camera, but thankfully it didn't! And even though it was raining, I got a great picture of a rainbow (I always try to look on the bright side)! We then went to the main viewing site for the 12 Apostles, and by goodness the views are just breathtaking!


 

  

And even though there was no sunset since it was so cloudy and rainy, I still got magnificent pictures of the 12 Apostles! Once it got dark and the rain started to pick up, the tour bus drove us back to Melbourne. We did stop for a quick dinner in the nearby town. Sarah and I went to Maccas (McDonalds); I've heard a rumor that the Australian McDonalds is suppose to taste a lot better than the American McDonalds so I had to try it and this quick stop gave me the excuse to try it. Results: it tastes the same lol. I was a little underwhelmed but, ah, at least I tried it.
The long drive from Melbourne is definitely worth going to see nature in its glory. If I had a car and lived in Victoria, I'd be driving this road every chance I could!

Saturday: Melbourne and Around

Yarra River

Shrine of Remembrance 

Today I didn't have much planned, but my task for today was to search for a good spot to take a skyline picture. I spent the whole morning going on a wild goose hunt around the city looking for good cityscape pictures. My first stop was at the Yarra River Walk, which had some good views, but I wanted more buildings to be in the picture.
The second place I went to was at the Shrine of Remembrance, located at the Botanic Gardens. I really liked this location, it centers the city and makes the city look proud and tall.

I also read online that the St. Kilda pier had a nice view of the city. St. Kilda has a nice beach and is famous for the St. Kilda Markets, which I didn't go to because I don't think it was going on when I was there, which was fine. I had a fun time walking around the pier and walking on the beach. I got some nice pictures of the boats/marina by the pier, that I almost forgot to look for the skyline view! And even though the skyline in this picture isn't big, the colors on the rafts are too pretty to not take a picture, and I think this is my favorite skyline picture.

St. Kilda Pier

The clouds rolled in and it looked like it was about to rain, so I headed back into the CBD where I walked back to Degraves Street for lunch. I spotted a restaurant that serves pizza, and I just had to go there. I had a huge craving for pizza, and being a pizza lover from Chicago, I was disappointed with the limited pizza options. Yes, Dominos can't cut it, but I trusted my gut and went to Il Tempo and ordered a margherita pizza. Boy, it was delicious! I ate the entire pizza by myself and my waitress was so impressed that she gave me a high five! I was talking to her for a bit, complementing the pizza and the great service. I gave this restaurant the imaginary award: Sarah's Pizza Stamp of Approval™. After lunch I walked around Federation Square, which is just a public building, and I noticed that the TV's in the building were playing the rugby championship game, which was happening a few blocks away in the rugby stadium. And since it was raining too, I decided to watch the game until the rain let up. Everyone who didn't have tickets to the game were sitting next to me, and believe me the entire building was filled with die-hard rugby fans. I cheered for the Richmond/Melbourne team, who then ended up winning! This game is the Australian equivalent to the Super Bowl. I'm glad I got to partake in this Aussie culture event. I still don't know the rules of ruby, but it looks like a fun and intense sport!


Later that night, I met up with my friend Binan (who I met on the Tasman Peninsula/Port Arthur tour in Hobart). We met up at an ice cream shop for dessert! I was really glad we had time to meet up and hang out together. She showed me around the city and where she goes to uni. We also saw an American Doughnut Kitchen (I've never heard of this but it had American in the name) so we took a selfie with it! This was my last night in Melbourne, and I'm glad I spent it hanging out with her!

Again, I was a little sad leaving Melbourne. This entire vacation went by in a blink of an eye. I did have one more stop to make: I planned the next two days to spend some time in Byron Bay. Maybe I mentioned this, but I packed a lot of activities into a short week. And even though I wish I had more time in each place, I feel so lucky to be able to go to these places and getting the chance to see as much as I can! They say that "Travel is Living" and I feel like my traveling dreams are coming true!

Thank you for reading another [very] long blog post! Stay tuned for part 3!