Melbourne 3rd Revisit: St. Kilda

St. Kilda is considered as one of the most fashionable suburbs in Melbourne. To us, it is like Bangsar in KL, but of course it is more attractive and happening than Bangsar as it is a suburb near the beaches...

It is a good place to live in... a wonderful place for drinks and dining and during the summer, it transforms into a popular place for outdoor beach activities!



For people who are into wildlife, you can try your luck in St Kilda too. as St. Kilda harbour/ pier is also a preserved environment for penguins...


For people who are into photography, St. Kilda is also a place that you can consider for photo shooting during your visit to Melbourne.


Due to it's fantastic scenery, St. Kilda has also become one of our favourite places in Melbourne.


A visit to St. Kilda will never be complete without tasting of a cup of coffee/ hot chocolate and a piece of cake in Acland Street. So we also enjoyed our wonderful afternoon in Acland street :)

Note: Acland Street is one of Melbourne's Food Precincts. It is also a long-time favourite of Melbournians and tourists alike because of its famous cakes shops. It is now the number one stop for backpackers because of the busy cafes and close proximity to St Kilda's beaches.


Here's how to get to St. Kilda from Melbourne city.
1. Take tram No.16, No.86 or No.96 from Swanston Street or Bourke Street.
2. Drop off at 'Esplanade Hotel' or 'Luna Park'
3. Walk to St. Kilda Pier (5 mins)
4. Here is the google map showing the direction from Melbourne city to St. Kilda Pier.

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5. Here's the google map showing the direction from St. Kilda Pier to Acland Street.


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Melbourne 3rd Revisit: St. Patrick's Cathedral

On the 1st day we arrived Melbourne, we visited one of the oldest church in the city - St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's Mother Church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and one of the architectural glories of Melbourne. It is located in the CBD of Melbourne and is just 10 mins walk from the Parliament house of Melbourne.





As Melbourne is also known as the garden city, so after we visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, we also visited a garden close to the church - Fitzroy Garden. Here are some photos taken in Fitzroy Garden.

There is a very famous building in Fitzroy Garden - Cook's Cottage, a memorial to Captain James Cook.

But we did not go in as we have been there before, plus you need to pay AUD3 per entry. So we just shot some photos right next to it :-\


Traveling in Melbourne City is easy as the government of Melbourne provides very good and most importantly FREE shuttle city circle service (bus and tram).

How to get there:
1. Hop on to a free city circle tram (http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/route/view/1112) and stop at the Parliament House at Spring Street.

2. Walk from Parliament House to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Please follow the map below:


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3. If you are interested in visiting Fitzroy Garden (http://www.fitzroygardens.com/), please follow the map below:


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Here is a map of Melbourne CBD for sharing. It highlights free city circle tram and bus routes.

Me!bourne: Preview

Finally our long-waited re-visit trip to one of our favorite cities is just around the corner! We will be seeing you soon lovely!!

Yesh! Where else? It's Melbourne (again)!! But who cares! Melbourne is simply the place to be!

Note: This is an old pic taken in Dec'2007 to show you how excited we are about our re-visit to Melbourne! :D

Perth - Wine Tasting at Swan Valley

Perth is also known as the Swan City. It is a beautiful city with quite a number of lakes. Perhaps it is also known as the Lake City, too.

According to cousin Jen, black swans can be found in almost all lakes or river in Perth. Generally Perth only has one main river, which is also named after swan. Yeah that's right, the Swan River, duh.

I suppose almost all Australians are animal lovers. Can you imagine black swans walking and swimming around in, say Tasik Titiwangsa in KL? What a beautiful scene. Nonetheless, I can assure you it can never happen here in KL, or Malaysia, because if we do have swans swimming around in Titiwangsa, surely they will become 'Angsa Panggang' or Roasted Swans, no kidding ok -__-!!

Nah, forget about the crap, that's just for a laugh. The beautiful photos above were taken at Swan River of Perth - while we were on our way to the Swan Valley for wine tasting.

YES WINE TASTING - FREE FLOW OF WINEEEE!! Exciting!!


According to Sunny - To taste if the quality, 1st you smell it, then you have a small sip of it... then you smell again... then you have another small sip...


Due to the limited time we have, we only managed to visit 6-8 wineries out of (more than) 60. However it was sufficient enough to get us drunk. Both YS and Sunny had had more than 10 glasses of wine all together!! How satisfying!

Our recommendations:
1) Pinelli Wines - www.pinelliwines.com.au/
2) Sandalford Wines - www.sandalford.com/


Needless to say, we also bought some bottles of wine. We experienced a very beautiful sunset there! Loves it!




Information Sharing Corner:
1) Swan Valley official website - http://www.swanvalley.com.au
2) Swan Valley wineries map in PDF format is available here - http://www.swanvalley.com.au/NR/rdonlyres/76A7DA63-9C19-466B-A5FF-ED74FE74C467/0/2010SwanValleymap.pdf
3) To get there (Swan Valley) from Perth CDB by car:

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4) You can hire a car in Perth at http://www.avis.com.au or http://www.budget.com.au at as low as AUD29 per day.

Perth - Kalamunda Monthly Village Market

Kalamunda Monthly Village Art & Craft Market that is held on the first Saturday of each month.

As told by the name 'Village Art & Craft', they sell mostly art craft in the market. Seriously, we find Aussies are kinda artistic, or rather they are good in art. The garden deco are all handmade you see. Salute!!

Jen said we were lucky, as we were in Perth on the 1st week of May, so we managed to visit Kalamunda Village Market ;)

Kalamunda Market is similar to our 'Pasar Tani' or 'Pasar Pagi' in Malaysia. But why their 'Pasar Pagi' is so much nicer than ours one? -_-" Their market is very nice to walk one you know! Perhaps weather is one of the factors I believe.


After walking for close to 1 hour, we stopped at a cafe for Sunny's favourite GIANT sausage bun. It was so huge -_-" We we watching him while he was enjoy his giant sausage, he could not finish though.


Besides sausage buns, we also have some pancakes and organic coffee. They were all nice, especially the coffee, seriously, it tasted really great! It was costly, though O_O"




A funny video we took at Kalamunda. This man was creative! The chicky stuff is sold at 2 bucks each. Sunny bought one, and he gave it to our niece, Sammy.

Kalamunda Village Market is located at Kalamunda, and it is rather far from the city. If you are interested in visiting the market, below is for your information:


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Cost: Free
Start Date: 06/12/2008
Start Time: 8.30am-3pm
End Date: On-going
Recurring Days: First Saturday of every month
Address: Kalamunda Town Square, Barber Street Kalamunda WA Australia

Perth - Fremantle

Fremantle is the port city of Perth Western Australia. Fremantle, unlike many Australian cities preserved its heritage buildings.


We visited Fremantle on a Sunday when we were in Perth. Fremantle is a popular spot, particularly at weekends when you will find markets, entertainment and plenty of alfresco style cafes and eateries.


Jen and Shin suggested to have a seafood dinner at Fremantle. Before we headed to the all-time favourite restaurant of theirs, we had a walk at the seaside.

The scenery was fantastic, and we had a great time there.

We also spent some time shopping at the Fremantle Market (Freo Market). Generally, in terms of things they sell at the Freo market, we find it is rather similar to The Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, just that it is slightly smaller than Victoria Market.

They sell foods, fruits, vegetables, kitchen utensils, handmade art crafts, souvenirs etc.

Time passed really fast and it was already dinner time. Jen brought us to Cicerello's Landing, a well-known seafood restaurant at Fremantle. According to Jen, they open daily till midnight, and hence has become one of the places that they love to hang out at night. (FYI, shops usually close at 5.30pm in Perth.

We ordered quite a lot of foods, and needless to say, we left Fremantle with very-fulled stomach!

Freo is about 18-20KM from Perth city, and is accesible by cat bus from the city. Alternatively, you may drive to Freo, too. If you have time, you can also try fishing at Freo, it is one of the favourite activities of MM's aunt ;)


Below are some information for sharing:
1) Map - From Perth CDB to Frementle - by car


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2) Frementle Freo Market Official Website - http://www.fremantlemarkets.com.au

3) How to go to Freo Market by train:
3.1) From Perth Train Station, take Fremantle Line To Fremantle Station.
3.2) When you arrive @ Frementle Station, do the following:
3.2.1) Head southwest on Phillimore Street
3.2.2) Turn left to stay on Phillimore Steet
3.2.3) Turn right at Market Steet

Perth - Our Lovely Nieces

Look at them, they are simply lovely and cute!

Yeah, they are my lovely nieces, Jing & Xuan from Perth.

Xuan Xuan is the youngest daughter of my cousin. When we 1st met her, she was very shy, and in fact she was a little scared of seeing us. Perhaps we have faces that scare children away, haha, I believe you can probably tell from the photo...

Nonetheless, after meeting Xuan Xuan for a few times, she felt a little more comfortable with us around. She was still shy, though :)

On the other hand, Xuan Xuan's sister Jing (Sammy) behaved otherwise. She is a very cheerful girl, and in fact a little boyish, haha... That fella even asked us to call her silly, wt*, haha...

She is really cute, and had shared with us a lot of jokes that really brightened our days. I still remember the touchy words she told me the day we left Perth T___T How I wish I could have kids that are as lovely as they are...

Yeah, we had a great time in Perth, and we really miss the monkeys. We really hope they will be able to make it for our wedding in November.







P/S: Wtf! My Nokia E71 went missing in the office!! I know the possibility of me getting it back is very slim... Anywayz, did anyone see my phone? Please return it to me.

Perth - The Swan City

During our visit to Perth, we visited the city twice, that's on the 1st and last day. Thanks to my cousin, Jen, cos' she took 2 days of leave for this.

Perth city is rather small as compared to Melbourne city or Sydney city.

Nonetheless, it is rather different from the 2 cities above, as Perth has less Chinese population than Melbourne and Sydney do :)

So we felt like we were at oversea (Angmo country) when we were in Perth.

Adult shops are commonly found in Australia and other non-Muslim countries like Thailand. The one in the photo - Libido is just opposite the bank Jen works in. Hmm.. and she bought us there for window shopping.


Guess the visit was an eye-opener for this fella, and he was caught buying something from shop.., Wanna know what did he buy?

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He bought this as souvenirs for his friends -_______-" Doink!

Besides some Vietnamese meal (we will blog about it soon), one of the must-try in Perth is bubble tea from Easy-Way.


Trust me, it is worth trying, it is rather costly though.

Another must-try drink is the Vietnamese Coffee. You can get it from the Vietnamese sandwich bar 2-3 shop lots away from Libido.

Besides having some nice foods and drinks in the city, we also shopped a bit and snapped some photos.

Hay Street and Murray Street are the business or rather shopping streets in the city. They have Sportgirls, Supre, Mango, Nike, Quicksilver, Billabong and blah blah blah...

However, we didn't do much shopping there but elsewhere.


Yeah, we did our shopping mainly at the Harbour town! It has lotsa lotsa factory outlets!


Nike, Adidas, Converse, Paul Frank..., you name it and you will get it there! I got a pair of Paul Frank pyjamas there at AUD20!!!! So cheap can die okay! -_-"