Melbourne in May

Derrald was invited to a conference held by the Melbourne Business School and University of Melbourne this May and I decided to take full advantage of my "Professor's Wife" status and tagged along! I'm so glad I did. 

Melbourne is a great city. It's tourist friendly with lots to see and do and very easy to get around. Unfortunately, I did not do a great job photographing all the interesting architecture of the city. There are lots of modern, creative buildings wedged in between older, gothic style buildings. It makes for some fascinating wandering around. 

As you can see in the picture below, trams are a popular way to get around. They have a free tram for tourists to tour the city.

Our first breakfast was eaten at Federation Square. 

A popular gathering place, we quickly made some friends... of the avian nature.

We were quickly surrounded by a swarm of interested seagulls who were not even a little bit shy... in fact, when Derrald distracted me (by spilling my hot chocolate) one particularly cheeky bird flew right up and took my piece of lamington right out of my hand! Greedy bird.

 With (most of) our breakfast in our bellies we decided to venture down to the seaside and jumped on a tram out to St. Kilda. 

First we wandered down the long pier.

Which gave us a great view back over the city.

Further wandering around the waterfront promenade lead us to Luna Park. I was excited to explore the fairgrounds but sadly had to settle for a photo in front of the oh-so-inviting-freaky-mouth entrance because the park was closed. Sigh.

Then it was time for lunch. This time seagull free. We ate pies! Delicious Australian meat pies. Almost as good as New Zealand ones. Almost. We picnicked at the park in front of the beautiful water. Delightful.

 There is lots of water around Melbourne. One of our favorite areas was the Southbank. Here you'll find lots of trendy restaurants, a few street artists, a bunch of bridges and water promenades. It reminded me a little of the Southbank area in London and we even found a little version of the "millenium bridge".

We had a delicious Italian dinner in this area with an old friend of my childhood, Annelies and her boyfriend Andrew. We had a lovely night.

I bet you've never had a breakfast like this before. It was a MONSTER of a sandwich. Bacon, egg, cheese, tomato, lettuce and chicken schnitzel on ciabatta bread!! We shared this beast and have no idea how one person could eat it alone.

Melbourne also has a free tourist bus that takes you around different highlights of the city. There was some excitement when two stops from our hotel our bus drove past a very familiar name... and we just had to get off for a look around. Costco!!

Where you can buy bears as big as yourself.

Other stops on the tour included Victoria Market, Melbourne Aquarium and the Shrine of Remembrance (pictured below). The Shrine of Remembrance was built in honor of those who fought in both the World Wars. It was a very nice memorial.

Once inside you could climb up to a balcony that overlooked the city. The views were awesome.

Across the road from the Shrine of Remembrance are the Botanical Gardens. I highly recommend a look through these gardens. They are absolutely beautiful. Even though the garden is not in its "peak season" the trees were so impressive and so large it was really quite breath taking. The photos do not do it justice.

Melbourne is lovely and cool this time of year and we were lucky to have great weather (ie sunshine) for our whole stay. We also got to spend some time with our Singapore neighbours, the Gaertners, as Fabio was also invited to the conference. What fun to meet up with friends in foreign lands. We're hoping it won't be a rare occurrence!!

The fun does not end here friends. Five days in Melbourne were fabulous but the real holiday began after the conference finished and we headed to Tasmania for three days. Not. Long. Enough.