Walkabout: Melbourne

Living in New Zealand, I'm practically isolated from the rest of the world. It takes more than 8 hours to fly to Asia and much more longer than that to the Americas. Going to Europe or Africa will require an even longer travel time and many transits.  New Zealand is cool and there are many places to visit but sometimes a change of scenery is always good. Apart from the hundreds of micronations across the pacific ocean, Australia is the largest and nearest land mass to NZ. Australia, arguably NZ's closest ally, is indeed a massive country. The country is a continent in itself and is the 6th largest country by land area in the world. With a population of only 22 million or so residents, Australia is very sparsely populated but still hosts quite a few large and very culturally diverse cities.

Australia is always my top choice for short trips during uni's term breaks and i've pretty much lost count on how many times i've been there. However, i'll be writing this post based on my trips last year. I went to Australia in April 2010 for 2-weeks, some sort of mini walkabout, traveling from Melbourne to Adelaide to Goldcoast and Brisbane and again in July for 10 days to Goldcoast and Brisbane.

Melbourne

Melbourne is a cool city. There's no doubt about that. It excels in all aspects, namely sports, media, architecture, culture and food. Home to the Australian Grand Slam, Australian F1 Grand Prix, Melbourne Cricket Ground and the famed Melbourne Cup, it's clear that Melburnians love their sports. The city has also played host to the 1956 Olympic Games and the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Federation Square

Architects in Melbourne really do go out of their way to design  very different buildings. Take the Federation Square for example (pictured above). Also, you can see how much effort is put into the architecture and details of buildings in Melbourne through the pictures below.

 Bees?

Yeah, bees.

It may be random but I gotta admit, it's a pretty good idea. And if that's not enough, The Crown hotel/Casino adds even more character to this city. 

Crown Casino/Hotel

Melbourne is very cosmopolitan and this is evident in the food it offers. Being raised in Malaysia, I do miss the great food over there and honestly, the Malaysian food in Christchurch is nowhere near the same. Therefore, every time I go to Melbourne, I take the opportunity to feast on the great Malaysian and Chinese food that's available. Melbourne is home to many immigrants from all around the world so all kinds of food can be found here.

Chinatown

Malaysian Chicken Rice

Malaysian Laksa

But hey, even if the quirky architecture, great sports and awesome food still doesn't satisfy you, you can always drive out of Melbourne to one of the wildlife parks and visit Australia's national icon, the kangaroo- and maybe even try eating one!

Writing off,

Rich