Took an Uber cab and the driver was really a professional, chatty and friendly from New Zealand.
We all thought that we were taking a domestic flight from Sydney to Melbourne and the liquor has no limits. Little did we know that we are on a transiting flight at the international airport.
We had to stuff our 3 remaining bottles of wine into a single luggage (1 bottle gone with the cheese)
We arrived at Melbourne after 1 hour later and bought the skybus at AUD$18 per pax. Also bought the Myki tourist card for tram traveling at the same station.
The Skybus brought us to a common place where we boarded the free city shuttle to our hotel at IBIS style. Again, I had to commend Moo for purchasing yet another deal with the hotel at half the normal price. Moo must have been diligently preying on the fluctuating deals everyday to get this.
We were really happy with the location and the cleanliness of the hotel.
Here we experienced the wide variation in the daily temperatures in Melbourne. Be prepared to carry a haversack with Umbrella, Shades and water.
We walked down to the Federation Square where we had lunch at the Taxi Kitchen. But we couldn't find the recommended smoked salmon mantou and the candied pork belly.
We chose to share a giant plate of fried rice. We paid almost AUD$20 for it but it was tasty with lots of ingredients. We were paying for quality food too when compared to the cheap hawker back at home. Of course cheap and tasty food almost always warrants a long queue and wait.
We took the Free Tram to the Queen Victoria Market place which supposed closes at 4pm. But opening hours changes daily. We made it in time to spend 2 hours in the market but didn't buy anything. A lot of the things aren't cheaper than back home. Many of the items came from China and perhaps Bangkok too. We probably could get it for 1/3 the price.
At 5 pm, we started our Arcade walk trail. There's an online print of this interesting trail to locate the Arcades and history of the Melbourne city. But be warned, it wasn't easy and many of the Arcades are closed by 5 pm making it difficult to follow the exact same route. We had to take detours to go from the entrance of the arcades to the exit.
Whew! And we managed to photo-hunt all this difficult to find places. It was a challenge.
And the hardest are the Gog and Magog which are hiding within the royal Arcade itself.
Well, there was some historical story behind the toilet. Not that I like taking pictures of toilets.
We were famished after the walk and off we go to our dinner place at an Authentic Italian Cafe Cavallino, recommended by one of our bloggers.
It was crowded like crazy but we got a seat relatively quick. I thought there was no system in queue but the waiter remembers. Just let him know and stand by the pavement and he will find you a seat.
We had a pasta and a cavalli pizza. Yum! Dessert was at Casa Del Gelato along the same Lygon street. Ricotta Cheese was the recommendation.
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