After a long flight of about 8 hours, our feet finally landed in Melbourne airport!
We managed to pack 3 jackets into our 3 bags! 1 for all our clothing, 1 essentials for our water, umbrellas, itinerary, medical supplies etc. (This is also our going out bag) 1 to stuff excess things like the lady's vanity stuff, sunglasses, passport, camera, jacket, tissue paper etc.
All in all, we managed to stay within the 7kg per passenger limit despite bringing with us 3 heavy jackets, 1 DSLR camera and clothings for both of us necessary for the next 7 days.
Traveling Time: SIN-MEL (Approx 8 hours)
Time Difference: MEL is ahead of SIN by 3 hours
Weather in November: Cold especially at night with occasion showers (10 - 15°C)
Driving: Same side of the road as Singapore
Melbourne has a long day and short night, they start their day as early as 7.30am and end their day by about 5-6pm to spend time with their families. Major groceries stores such as Coles and Target close at about 9-10pm. Major cafes and restaurants close at about 5pm but you will still be able to find some that closes at about 10pm.
From the airport to your apartment, we recommend going by the SkyBus shuttle.
You need not purchase the tickets online, there are counters outside the airport, at the bus terminal, so you can purchase them there and then. A round trip will cost you $36 per adult.
We choose a reasonably cheap apartment Arrow on Swanston this round because we have busted our budget on the Scoot flights which we were forced to reschedule due to some issues. Apartments in Australia are relatively small from previous experience.This apartment literally served as "a roof above our heads". It was small and cozy and had a mini kitchen where we could prepare food for breakfast and microwave-able on those nights which we were lazy to head out.
This is is 2-3 ☆ apartment which served our very basic needs for the 7 nights. If you are looking at any high class in-room facilities or something fabulous like a bathtub or an in-room Jacuzzi, you can totally forget about it. Even the house-keeping services cannot make our mark. Our used glasses and utensils were not washed. Toilet gutter was not cleared and on some days after a change of towel, the face towel were not replaced. After requesting, the husband still had to go down to the lobby to self-collect.
Throughout our 7 days trip, we allocated only 2 days for full day of sight-seeing tours on alternate days, and had the other 5 days to roam around the city areas. We manage to cover the Queen Victoria Market, Eureka Sky Deck, Crown Casino, Melbourne Aquarium and explored mostly in the city centre areas by our foot.
We didn't bothered much about finding great food and going cafe hopping or shopping as the weather was quite cold and I am not exactly sure what got into me, I was feeling very tired, restless and lethargic most of the time, so I just wanted to settle our meals and head back to our rooms on most days. However, I enjoyed every bits of the sight-seeing days.I was glad that we didn't fell sick though.
I wonder is it because age is catching up on me?
We woke up around 10am on non-touring days had our breakfast which typically consist of our self-made salad, orange juice or tea and Milo, Cookies, Muffins or Short Breads which we got from the grocery stores. We would then head out near noon time to walk around and find lunch before mostly heading to malls and grocery stores to do our shopping, city sight-seeings and simple dinner before heading back to the room at about 9-10pm.
Photo with giant chess set outside some building we spotted along the street
I will be sharing with you more on the 2 sight-seeing tours of the trip (hopefully), meanwhile you can ogle on the photos taken along the lovely streets of Melbourne city centre.
Cathedral
Flinder's Street Station
Wall art of a random building
Library at night
Lovely flowers along the street
Melbourne city is lovely and peaceful. It is known as Australia's most livable city.
Melbourne has many beautiful architectural buildings which I love to take photos with and a nice cooling weather in November.
Fashionistas can layer their clothes and show off their sense of fashion.
For myself, I prefer to dress simple when I travel, as I do not own many fashionable pieces so I have 2 of my jacket as my outer piece and interchange them depending on the weather that day.
That's the end of the short summary of my Melbourne trip. Stay tuned to read more about our sight-seeing in Melbourne if you are interested.
Cheers!
