This entry was posted on 4/10/2007 3:50 AM and is filed under Australia.
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, is a sophisticated, hip and cool
city, located in the south-east corner of Australia. It's full of
vibrant energy, lots of hip boutiques, tons of restaurants, beautiful
parks, amazing sculptures and very nice people.
This city is
less than 200 years old and has an interesting blend of architectural
styles. We've been impressed by their futuristic design sense and
their fun mix of modern sculpture with aboriginal influences.
They say that the Melburians are fanatic about four things:
1.
Sports - Australian Rules "Footy" is almost a religion. And any
time of day on TV you can catch either a Footy game, a Cricket match,
or a Soccer game.
2. Fashion - This is one of the hippest places we've seen. The shops are funky, hip, cool, unique and numerous.
3.
Festivals - There's always something going on. Australian Open
Tennis, World Swim Competition, Australian Grand Prix, Food and Wine
Festival, International Flower and Garden Show, International Film
Festival, Melbourne Cup Carnival, Melbourne Fringe Festival (supports
the creation of new art), Fashion Happenings and the International
Comedy Festival.
4. Food - So many restaurants to choose
from. Lots of food courts with every ethnic choice available
under one roof and heaps of localized areas where eating is the main
attraction and where you're tempted daily to have some homemade gelato
before dinner.
Ever heard of Kalamansi? We hadn't either
so we needed to experience it. WOW! Delicious. A
fruit from Indonesia that tasted just like orange marmalade. And
yes, we shared a scoop of it BEFORE dinner. Bad girls!
We've
rented a 1 bedroom apartment with a little kitchen in the sister hotel
of the one we stayed in while we were in Sydney. It's called the
Quay West. It's the tall white round building in the following
photo on the left side. We're on the 12th floor in a larger
corner apartment. We're right in Southbank which is the center of
town.
This is the walking and bike path that goes along the Yarra River.
Here's our view...
It feels a little like San Francisco and a little like a cosmopolitan city in Europe. It's autumn now but the locals say that you can
experience all 4 seasons in one day here with the changeable and
unpredictable weather. So far it has been lovely, mostly sunny days with an occasional
overcast one. It feels "fresh" here at night - that's Aussie for brisk.
This is what it looks like at night...
This is the Arts Center right next door to us with its amazing spire.
And it's Comedy Festival month, so there are opportunities to get laughs everywhere.
We
were lucky enough to see Bonnie Raitt in concert here at Hamer Hall for
her "Souls Alike Tour". WOW! What a show! That woman
(now 57 years old) can Rock 'n Roll like crazy. It was a fabulous
show and we loved it!
Here's
another great musician named George Kamikawa, Japanese Blues
Cowboy. He didn't have a super hall to sing in, but he was one of
the best street performers we've seen. Lapsteel guitar,
bottleneck slide, harmonica and vocals and he had a drum pad under his
left foot with an electric pick up connected to the amp. A
veritable one man band.
And
here's a photo of our "office" lest you think that we're out having fun
all day. Actually we work on our currency trading strategies about 10
hours a day. We love the trading hours here and having very few
distractions allows us to dive into this fully.
