A day in Melbourne...

This morning when I woke up, the sun was shining and I decided that a trip into the city.

Most of my working life has been spent in the big city but there is only so much one can do during their lunch hour. One of my favourite things when I was working in the city was to wonder around the department stores dreaming that I had enough money to buy what ever I wanted. Alas I still don't have enough money to buy everything I want, but I have found that my want list has decreased in size - particularly when I know that I am restricted to a 20kg suitcase and moving to Taiwan on Wednesday.

Anyway today I decided that today I would go into the city and just wonder to where ever took my fancy at the time.

The first place I headed to was the Queen Victoria Market. The Queen Vic ( as the locals call it) boasts to be the largest undercover market in the southern hemisphere. There are as many aisles as they are letters in the alphabet that have all sorts of things such as organic food, all sorts of fruit and veggies, Australian marked products (that happen to be made in China), clothing, home wares and lots of shops with cheeses, bread and other small goods. Basically this place could cure retail therapy; it is that big. This is also the place that the Doctor and I use to drive to each and every weekend when we lived in Cranbourne (50 kms south east of Melbourne) for our weekend fresh produce. The lengths we went to just to buy organic food!!! However the days were not totally about buying food. We quite often did other things in Melbourne and made a day of it.

Now something that a lot of people don't know about the Queen Vic is that it was also a grave yard many years ago according to a ghost tour I went on. The amount of people buried there were that many that sometimes several people were buried in the same spot at different depths. This reminds me of a Taiwanese custom where they burn money for the ancestors to spend - and those ancestors buried at the Queen Vic don't have far to go for their retail therapy.

After getting some lunch at the Queen Vic, I decided to head down to the recently developed docklands. Melbourne in the past has not really developed its waterfront areas and I can remember the Southbank area being a muddy construction site. Southbank I think is about 15 years old now so most of the developments are quite new. Whereas if you look at Sydney, they have developed their waterfront to be one of the most specular in the world. This is an area where Melbourne needs to catch up.

Anyway after walking down to the docklands area, I passed the semi-newly built docklands football stadium and the crowds were piling in for the game today. The docklands has had about five different names with the newest being something I can't even remember. A quick google search found that it is called "Etihad Stadium". Not sure of the name... The docklands stadium was also one of the first completely undercover stadiums that should make it warmer on those cold nights watching the footy.

After walking passing the stadium I was hoping for a busy waterfront cafe and shopping environment and I had visions of Sydney in mind. However, as soon as I passed the footy stadium it was like I walked into a ghost town. I think I must have walked into the wrong part of the docklands or alternatively the footy crowd had drawn all of the city's life. Anyway I was not to be deterred as I found a supermarket and bought some more food and rested while I eat in a small park. After that I head down to the Southbank region and I new it would contain a bustling waterfront experience.

Upon arrival at Southbank, it didn't disappoint. The shops were busy, the people were out in force and it was beautiful place to just wonder along the Yarra River. The casino is in this district and they have employed a few Feng Shui measures. The obvious one that I now is the gas fires out the front. The Southbank has the Yarra River running right in front and this is believed to move the auspicious chi too fast past the casino. The gas fires are designed to slow down the chi to allow it to gather in the casino.

It's good to see that Melbourne has developed into an International City from the early days when I first started to work there. Melbourne has also kept much of its old world charm such as the Queen Vic and its historic buildings. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me so I don't have any photos but if you Google Melbourne and search for the images, it will give you an idea.

Anyway after my big day out, I think I'll sleep well tonight. On that note, I'll leave it for now.

Till next time, haveagoodone...