|
| 10:14am |
Much to my dismay, it's bloody late. Apparently, Tubby didn't go
to sleep until nearly 1am, doing whatever it is he does at all hours
of the night. |
| 11:01am |
We hit the streets of Melbourne
and began our expansive wander about the CBD (Central Business District),
beginning by walking down Stanston Street toward the river. |
| 11:11am |
As the search for lunch (yeah, Subway again, dang it), we passed
by what is, by all written accounts, the most traffic lights in a
single cluster -- 14 light heads. |
| 11:43am |
With lunch eaten, we passed by this sign, and I was curious as to
what we'd watch
the batteries do. But there was no mention of that on the sign. |
| 11:48am |
And you thought they only roasted
chestnuts on an open fire around the holidays. |
| 12:01pm |
This
place looks all stately and important, and it sort of is... but
it's just a train station. |
| 12:16pm |
We strolled through Federation Square, bordered on the south by
the Yarra River. On the other side is the cool,
tall white pointy thing that I can't find the name of, but is
located next to the sand-blasted gray concert hall (in the left bit
of the photo). |
| 12:23pm |
If you're into neat, arching pedestrian foot bridges, then you're
in luck. |
| 12:47pm |
After walking up the far side, we crossed back over King Street,
and got a look
back at the skyline along the Yarra River. |
| 1:24pm |
After more than two hours on the streets of the CBD, we finally
bumped into a Starbucks. I won't bore you with a photo, since Starbucks
everywhere pretty much look the same -- green and white letters, round
logo thingy. |
| 1:34pm |
We found ourselves surrounded by courthouses and barristers offices
before too long, but I guess keeping justice centrally located is
at least convenient. The Magistrates' Court was across the street
from the County
Court, and the Supreme
Court was across from the County Court and kitty-corner the Magistrates'
Court. Golly. |
| 1:41pm |
The Old
Mint is now apparently privately owned, as there are TEAC markings
etched onto the window above the doors, and at each gate. (And with
that, a bit of history goes bye-bye.) |
| 1:53pm |
5 days a week, the Queen
Victoria Market is bustling with over 1,000 merchants and vendors
selling fresh fruits, veggies, other foods and goodies, crafts and
art, and almost anything else you can imagine. Except on Mondays and
Wednesdays; today's Monday. |
| 2:12pm |
We made a dash to the local convenience store (7-11, oddly enough),
and to our dismay, found that there's a reason Australia the second
fattest nation in the world (right after the US of A being number
1) -- diet soda beverages are rare. Tubby and I were forced to settle
for a regular Coke and Pepsi. |
| 2:35pm |
And I found myself back in the room, in the middle of the afternoon.
(But until the collective caffeine levels elevate, I think I'm stuck
here.) |
| 3:52pm |
Right as rain. We just got back out the door, and off to the cinema
to sit through a film or two; there's an artsy-fartsy movie house
maybe six blocks away, and I'm off to see Nathalie...
(from 2003, it's French and sub-titled; we love reading movies, don't
we?). |
| 5:58pm |
The movie let our, and we waited for Rachel to finish with her screening
of Safe (from 1995). |
| 6:06pm |
The travel party is all back together, and we were informed Safe
was a crap film, as films go. |
| 6:11pm |
The decision is made to head to Safeway (located below the ground
level) for snacks, but we were forced to detour into a place called
"Big W." |
| 6:20pm |
No sooner were we inside than it struck us -- we've seen this
store before. Even the price
tags looked familiar. Yes, it's the Aussie
flavour of Wal-Mart. |
| 6:24pm |
In our wanderings, I happened across some of the super-soft black
licorice that we had when we were in Sydney
in 2002, so I just had to have some. (I also thought it odd that
the black licorice was nearly double the cost of the red, strawberry-flavoured
licorice... but lacking anyone to complain to, I just paid for it.) |
| 6:44pm |
We're out and about on the streets, bound for Pizza Hut. (Some things
don't change, despite all my wishing to the contrary.) |
| 7:26pm |
Having found that refills are a rare thing to find in Australia,
we exited, but tummies full. |
| 7:46pm |
We managed to get back to the room after navigating a sea of 10-year-olds
that appear to have descended onto the hotel. Dunno why, although
they are all wearing plastic name badges. An organized invasion? Curious. |
| 9:32pm |
Updates done, and arrangements made to get to the airport for our
flight to Hobart in the state of Tasmania, I'm off to bed. Ta-ta! |
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