Melbourne

We've had a great day in the civilisation of Melbourne today and yesterday evening, shopping and eating. I've added some links to pictures of the places, as we couldn't get pictures of them all (and forgot!)

Yesterday evening we went for a walk to see the Skydeck Eureka thing (click here) - apparently the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.  We got there and it didn't look any more impressive than any of the buildings on Canary Wharf, so we decided that instead of spending £30 to get a lift to the top, we would go and eat nice food instead.  Good choice. The building did have giant gold bees on the side of it though, which was impressive. As neither of us like heights that much we were happy!

Skydeck Eureka thing

Impressive golden Bees - very large!

View over the bridge to the skydeck thingy

The Arts centre - there is a big spiky dome thing in the background like a giant net

We generally walked around a bit and ended up on Hardware Lane (click here) which was a bit like Brick Lane in London but nicer and not full of Indian restaurants, but all kinds of restaurants and bars.

Today we got the tourist (free) circle tram (a bit like the circle line in London but overground so you can actually SEE things!) and got off to have brunch at a little cafe in the Block arcade which was expensive but very chic and enjoyable.  Then we walked around some more and ended up in Melbourne Central, a shopping arcade above the station that has a massive Victorian stone building in it (click here) and a big cone on top of the shopping arcade to house the stone building (click here).

Block Arcade for Brunch

Mmmm hot chocolate!

Pig joins us for brunch

Pig liked to ride the escalator alone, with thought it was time to let go and let him do it.

We shopped a bit and I got my nails in-filled as they were starting to come off.  I've got a nice purple shade now :)

It then started to rain so much that we cancelled our plans to go to the beach at St Kildas and decided to stay in the shopping centre instead.  We eat at Nandos in a cunning plan to hope that the rain would stop and then we could walk back to the hotel.  But it didn't so we had to get a taxi, which Johan managed to get - much to my delight.  It really rained - big heavy drops of rain and lots of them!

  

Me at the nail place - Johan was very bored so taking these gave him a reason to live for about 2 hours!

Now we are back at the hotel having a mini rest and then we will hit the gym soon which is on level 11 and overlooks the city centre with big glass windows.