Melbourne City

[28 - 29 April 2010]

Finally I was able to visit Melbourne by planning everything in budget!!! Thanks to Jetstar. The journey to Melbourne was extremely tiring due to long hours sitting in the aeroplane without any FREE entertainment or FREE drink. Luckily we brought tiny netbook on board which can entertain us for about 4 hours. No direct flight from Singapore to Melbourne during my visit. ="= We had to transfer via Darwin.

Reached Melbourne airport around 12pm (Melbourne time). We spent AUD 26 (round trip) on skybus. By taking skybus, it will transfer us to Southern Cross station. From there, we can take FREE mini bus to our hotel. Do find more information in this website.

We choose not to wait for mini bus. It takes about 10 mins walk from Southern Cross station to our hotel. The weather was cold with little rain. Prayed for tomorrow will be better weather.

We booked for 5 nights at Travelodge Docklands. We booked it with promotion price due to newly open since Feb 2010. The environment is clean and neat but the location is a bit far from attractions.

We headed to Franklin Street to rent car after checked in hotel. Without spending any dollars in transportation, we can travel in Melbourne city.

First by taking FREE circle tram No 35.

Second by taking FREE tourist shuttle bus.

Last but not least, by F-O-O-T.... :P

We had late lunch at Mimo cafe. Ordered a really big portion of Fish & chips and burger.

After recharge ourselves, we headed to visitor information center. Remember grab a FREE Melbourne map and some discount coupons that attached in brochure.

St. Pauls Cathedral

Federation Square

Old Flinders station

Next we walked to Yarra River and Crown Casino.

We went back hotel early due to cold weather. We have to rest early tonight because tomorrow would be very fun. Yes! We are going for a road trip along Great Ocean Road! ^_^

Shanghai(上海)

[Feb 19, 2010]

Should never miss Xin Tian Di (新天地) at Shanghai. It is one of the nicest areas to go at night. Don't miss the brasilian barbeque restaurant. After dinner, have a nice drink at any bars around.

One of the most famous structure in Shanghai and the cradle of typical Shanghai snacks, is the elegant built Town God Temple (Cheng Huang Temple - 城隍庙). As local Shanghainese believe that, under the protection of Town God, they could be empowered to live peacefully and make a prosperous future. Today, Town God Temple become a very popular site for visitors from all over the world. Other than temple fair and worship, it's also been used as a nice place for shopping and dinning. Nowadays there are more than one hundred small shops and restaurants and the products on sell are countless.

At night, we went to Oriental Pearl Tower (东方明珠塔). The tower is 468 m high, the highest in Asia and the third highest in the world. There is a revolving teahouse and a sightseeing platform, which can accommodate 1600 people in the largest ball. Here visitor can get a panoramic view of the Bund and Pudong New area.

Another new attraction in the list is Shanghai wax museum (上海风情蜡像馆). People may think that it is similar like Madame Tussauds. In fact it is different. The wax museum only displays the ancient lifestyle of Shanghainese.

The next day we went for last minute shopping at Tao Bao Cheng (淘宝城) before heading back to Malaysia. It is definitely a great place to grab for cheap souvenirs like key chains, magnets, T-shirt with the word "Shanghai", baby clothes, lugagges, dress, and etc.