Friday, August 8. Our first day in Oz!!! Woot.

While we spent 3 nights in Melbourne, we really only had 1 full day in the city (we spent all of Thurs travelling and the next day would be spent in Phillip Island, about 2 hours south). So we set out early to walk around explore.

The first thing I noticed was that Melbourne reminds me a lot of Paris. So you know, it was pretty much love at first sight for me.

We walked north from our hotel to Queen Victoria Market.

It’s a MASSIVE market that has huge sheds of general merchandise, fruits and veggies on one side of the street and a deli across the street with fresh meat, fish, cheeses and a food court.

Lots of booths selling t-shirts, candy and other random souvenirs.

Yummy fruit.

Look at the size of that thing! Wowzers.

The deli side… yum, meat and cheese.

We thought it was too early in the trip to be buying souvenirs (we still had 3 domestic flights and 4 hotels to go) but Rob did snag this awesome beanie (aka Jayne’s hat from Firefly ;)). We’re modeling them here in bright color combinations but he got a solid dark brown one. I’m kinda regretting not getting the pink one. It’s so warm! Too bad I have no idea where the heck I would wear it.

After we got our fill of window shopping, we headed south towards the Yarra River.

We passed Federation Square, a huge center with museums, restaurants and shops…

…and saw the gorgeous Flinders Street railway station. I just love the row of clocks over the main entrance.

We approached the Yarra River to this view of the south bank.

Here’s the view looking back towards the city center.

We walked along the river to the Crown Entertainment Complex, otherwise known as a huge casino. It started to sprinkle around this time so it seemed like a good time to duck inside and check it out.

It’s a really beautiful casino inside but nothing extraordinary. Although I’ve been to Vegas at least once a year for as long as I can remember so I’m biased. Rob decided to play a little blackjack while I hung out with some coffee in the food court. He said that the style of play is slightly different than in the US and didn’t like the changes. I wonder if he thinks that way because he lost, hehe. :/

My feet were aching by this time (so much walking!) so we decided to head back to the Westin and pick up some dinner on the way. We found a local pizza place and a fry joint across the street called Lord of the Fries. YUM! We took our loot back to the hotel and settled in for the night. What did we do?! Watch TV! On Fridays, Channel 10 shows the US edition of So You Think You Can Dance (it’s about a month behind) so of course we watched that. 🙂

All in all, it was a great day and I wish we had scheduled more time in Melbourne. There’s so much we didn’t get to see — Queen Victoria Gardens, all the museums. Oh well, it gives us an excuse for a “next time.” 😉 If we can ever afford it again! Speaking of money, the one thing that really surprised me was how expensive food is in Australia. If we wanted a Coke (which was often), it was $3-5 for a 500 ml bottle (slightly less than a 20 oz). Candy bars are $2-3. Meals at cafes or food courts ran about $15-30 per person (these aren’t even “nice” restaurants). Maybe I’m just cheap but we had sticker shock for the first few days of our trip and did a lot of walking around to find less expensive places to eat… towards the end, we gave up. 😛

More pictures on the Flickr:
Melbourne

Up next: Phillip Island.