A Day With Contiki Kids - Melbourne Style

I got into Melbourne last night to meet Aunt Sue and Jeff. The plane ride was easy - a three hour flight from Perth but with a three hour time change. The car that had been arranged for me never showed up so I jumped into a cab. I guess everyone else who is here got ripped off as my cab was only $45 and everyone else was in the range of $100+. We are staying at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne hotel. It is a stunning hotel in a very expensive area of Melbourne. There is a Louis Vuitton in the lobby.

I literally got checked in to go to dinner with the entire business group. The restaurant was horrible - very limited choices. I had a steak that was undercooked and more fat than meat. I was really looking forward to a good meal. The BMO crew are very well education and interesting to chat to. Everyone decided that I should be the tourist the next couple of days as the business was over my skill level.

The next morning, I met Sue, Jeff, and Adel for breakfast at 8 am which is 5 am Perth time. We power walked to the Crown Casino before they all had to go to meetings for the day. I walked to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) to just take a meander around it. The gallery had an indigenous art floor, a fashion floor, an indigenous photography floor, and an Australian painter floor.

I met up with a couple of kids I knew on my Asia Contiki tour. The boys showed me where to have an off the wall burger, cupcake, and good coffee. The conversation was hilarious and I might have relived my trip with them. They took me to:

• Eureka building - is 88 stories, the largest residential building in the Southern Hemisphere, and just massive.
• Old finance building - the home to the gold rush museum 
• Federation square - a major area in the downtown core, massive TV, and a neat bar
• South gate bridge - the bridge that has an artistic flair that connects over the river 
• Federation bells - a set of bells that people can choreograph a symphony and listen to it in the park live

I met up with Aunt Sue, Jeff, and Adel for dinner. We went to the Atlantic restaurant. I had a Caesar salad to start and scallops as a main. It was delicious. Seafood makes any day that much better.