Hot in the City

Melbourne is considered the first ang-moh city I visited since my return from the US.
After spending such a long period of time in a western country, my desire to visit a ang-moh country wasn't that great. Nevertheless, since it was a business trip, I had no complaints.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza for our work trip. It is near the Crown Casino, which is like one of those casinos in Vegas but on a smaller scale. The whole complex is located on the south side of the Yarra River, which is a picturesque cute little river. It's typical of most rivers you see in most western cities. There are upscale stores and restaurants at Crown Casino. For work, we had dinner at Number 8 restaurant. It was a really nice restaurant situated along the river. The steak I had was juicy and the wines they served were really good NZ wines. One highlight of our dinner was at top of the hour, the torches along the river would be lit up with fire, huge hot fire!

My work hours in Melbourne ended at around 4pm on a Friday afternoon. I had to rush to tour the downtown before it became dark. That was the only time I had because I was going to be out of the city for the weekend. I was hopping 3 hours would be enough for a quick tour.

Melbourne reminded me of Boston, a small university city with a river, old British feel, somewhat artsy, with trams. There were a few famous streets and I sort of finish walking within 2 hours! There wasn't much to shop either. I went to Myer department store but the shoes they were selling were for my mom's! I had dinner at the Dome cafe at Block Arcade. That was quite nice. I took the free city tram for a tour of the city and went back to my hotel, exhausted.

I signed up for a winery tour on Saturday. The driver-guide was Jamie and he was kind enough to offer me the front seat at the bus, next to him. It was cool since I had the best view! Jamie said he used to be a sommelier at Number 8 but I wondered why he's a guide now. Hmm...He took us to 4 wineries. First, we went to a boutique winer, Yuering Farms. Then we proceed to Rochford winery for more wine tasting and lunch. Then we went to Yuering Station for more wine tasting. By then, I was at my limit for wine. Any wine would have tasted the same to me. Finally, we went to Domaine Chandon, the maker of sparkling wine. It was really tasty with cheese and bread. The vineyards were really lovely too under the great weather. It was a great tour.


The next day, I joined the GoWest tour company for a Great Ocean Road tour. The Great Ocean road is the Australian version of the Pacific Coast Highway in CA. I really missed the open space in the US so I thought this tour was help relive some of my memories. Unlike the winery tour which was full of non-Asians, this tour was full of Asians. I found that odd. Anyway, being alone in tours can be nerve-wrecking but it turned out to be ok because I met lots of interesting people. I met this Japanese 23 y/o boy in this tour, who's a waiter. Due to his limited amount of English language, it was tough yet funny to communicate with him. The views on the drive were magnificent. The finale of the tour was visiting the 12 Apostles. It was made even more thrilling when we took the helicoptor ride atop to view the rock formations. It was my maiden ride but it was so cool.


I thought my trip was pretty fulfilling. I visited lots of places and even took the tram to the beach to have fish and chips! doubt I would go back to Melbourne though, it's too small.