After having spent Wednesday and Thursday in the hotel, I made the trip from the airport to Melbourne on Friday. There is a nice bus connection that gets passenger to the city within about 40 minutes.
The trip itself is quite uneventful. The buses run every 15 minutes almost 24 hours a day. Prices for a ticket are 16 AU$ for a single and 26 AU$ for a return ticket. Additional details can be found on the skybus website.
The bus stops (the only stop from the Melbourne Airport) at the Souther Cross Station which is at the south west end of Melbourne's Business District.
From there I walked to Accenture on Friday. The walk is not too long however I am no longer used to the humidity. Found the place relatively easily and got my reserved space.
Hardly having sat down, it was time for a fire drill. Unlike in the US they whole building was involved and we had to evacuate to the outside where rain start to drizzle on all participants. Recognizing how long it will take to have employees from all 25 floors re-enter the building I split the scene and went to run some errands. I had plenty of time to setup a bank account and by the time back the whole fire drill was over.
The view from the Accenture office was splendid (see picture to the right. The scene is dominated by the large slim building (left part of the picture.) The skydeck there is open to the public. Something Christy and I definitely will have to visit once she arrives. (We have gone to the Hancock building in Chicago together, so the comparison with this one will be interesting.) To the left of the Skydeck building the sea and beach are dimly recognizable. I am sure this will make another place to visit, especially now that we are heading towards summer.
Saturday marked the beginning of the week long Horse Race excitement. It was Derby Day and as I arrived in the city there were lots of couples dressed up to go to the races. The colors for Derby Day at least were black and white. Formal dress is expected and the ladies get to wear their head decoration and extravagant hats. (For a moment I thought of the Ascot race.)
This trip brought me to the Victoria Markets. They cover about a block and if there is anything that can be sold, it can probably be found there.
From shoes, clothes, belts and hats to groceries (vegetables, fruits, meats, seafood, breads) to flowers. Everything was on display. For the first time in a very long time I heard the merchants calling out their goods. This reminded me immediately of the markets in London.
After having seen enough I moved on and walked back towards the Accenture office. Close by to the office is Chinatown. I walked up and down but there was not a lot going on. Also, the area is quite small. It is dominated by Dim Sum and small Chinese restaurants. Still, I found a few places Christy and I may visit. Among them is a Beijing Duck place and a Korean BBQ restaurant.
A quick trip to Coles yielded the Ginger beer syrup I learned to love.