Melbourne!!!

March 13-16 was Round 1 of the 2008 Formula 1 season in Melbourne, Australia. A mere 3.5 hours flight away, how could I resist! 5 days in the middle of an Australian heat wave meant 40 degree celsius temperatures and nothing but baking sun.

Melbourne is a really nice city. Very multicultural like Toronto or Vancouver, which means lots of great food! Very metropolitan with tons of shopping, restaurants, museums and galleries, and even a Vegas style casino! One of the nicer things is the Yarra River which runs through the city, just below what is considered the CBD or Central Business District...basically the 'core'.

On both sides of the river are wide pedestrian boardwalks, with the south side being home to a strip of restaurants whose patios spill out onto the busy boardwalk. Easily a great place to hang out on summer evenings. The photo above is looking West along the Yarra. The CBD is camera right, the strip of restaurants camera left, and I was standing on the Princess Bridge.

The CBD is laid out like a proper city with streets laid out in a rectangular grid pattern. The CBD is small enough that you could walk it end to end in maybe 20 minutes? There's also a very efficient tram system running in both directions on almost every other street, so getting to where you want to go as a first time tourist is pretty straight forward. The trams are not like Hong Kong's open air trams, but more like Toronto's streetcars. Fast, efficient and most are air conditioned thankfully! Each stop also has a digital display that tells you what trams are en route, and their ETA. How efficient is that! It's also based on an honour system. Meaning you don't pay to get on through the front door. There are several entry/exit points as most trams are multi-car in length. Most riders either have pre-purchased tickets from stations or convenience stores, or they buy them on the tram at one of the automated machines. But nobody checks your tickets! There are signs however that say the Transit Police and Melbourne Police can do random checks.

I purchased a couple 1 day passes, which are also good for buses and the subway. When you board the tram, you're supposed to use one of the 'verification machines', located on about every other row of seats. Basically like a parking machine, it sucks in your ticket, and initializes it with a date and time stamp. If you bought a 2 hour ticket, it's good from the time you initialize it, similarly a 1 day pass. So IF you were to get checked, as long as your ticket was valid, I guess you'd be fine. I didn't see anyone getting checked in the 4 days I rode the trams.

Melbourne is quite famous for it's "laneways". Tight alleyways jammed with boutique shops and restaurants. Some are really narrow like the one above, while others are more like back alleyways or pedestrian walkways.

I had wandered down one of the dead end alleyways cause it had this crazy lightbulb sculpture spanning the top of two buildings. Down the alleyway was a bunch of curious artwork glued to the walls. I spotted this interesting bit of writing and wanted a picture of it. Luckily for me this girl had just stepped into the alley on her smoke break. I simply told her the shot I wanted and asked if she'd mind posing for me. Perhaps I should've asked her to be one of my 100 Strangers...but after the pics she was pretty much done her smoke anyways...oh well.

Lots of interesting architecture around the city. This was the GPO Building. I THINK it stands for Government Postal Office? It's now a shopping mall.

This is another shopping mall called Melbourne Central. I didn't do any shopping in Melbourne, well that's not true, I did buy a pair of Tsubo runners on a whim. But as I was saying, I had seen pictures of Melbourne Central in some of the hotel magazines. This central atrium feature is an old brick building surrounded by a glass cone. So on my way downtown I stopped in really quickly to snap a few pics of it.

This was also taken from the Princess Bridge looking North East towards Federation Square. A large outdoor square that features a large screen tv. People just sit on the brick pavers and watch tv.

This was at the far end of the boardwalk, Southgate is the name of the area. Another Square, can't remember the name. Not as big as Federation Square, but still large enough to have a merry-go-round!