Hey everyone :) this post has been long overdue but I thought I'd blog about my recent adventure to melbourne. Well, by recent, I mean back in July but you know they say time is relative *cue lame laughter at self*. I went with some uni friends (Tam, victoria, justin, jackie namely) to melbourne on the 8th of July. It was always a subject of much debate - when we were going to travel together. However, I'm glad to say we finally got things together and planned our trip. We're lucky it was a domestic trip though, so we didn't have to research too much. I can gladly say it was one of the most enjoyable trips I've been on. 

Anyhow, here are a few photos we took on the first day. I tried to spruce up the pictures a little to put some effort into this post :) 

On the morning of our flight, Vincent was kind enough to pick a few of us up to send us to the airport :3 Thank you!! I never feel excited before travelling, and well you can probably tell I looked a bit tired. However, right before boarding the plane, good spirits seemed to hit us all. 

Off we go!! On our first journey together. 

I think it finally hit me here that we were actually going travelling, as stupid as it sounds. Kudos to justin for the photo (which we later found out we shouldn't have been taking). 

Victoria was in charge of planning the first day, and after taking a taxi to our apartment we went to a place called Purple peanuts Japanese cafe which was located about 10-15minutes walk away. 

Our first meal in Melbourne and I must say that the concept was really quite unique - the menu not the sort you usually find in Japanese takeaway stores. 

I ordered a tsuke don: Salmon sashimi marinated in mirin, sake, sesame and soy along with vinegared rice and mixed salad! Absolutely loved how fresh tasting it was!! Price wasn't too bad either: $11.90

Just casually tried to take a few picturesque photos on our way back to check into the apartment which was located on Collins st. 

After we settled in, we decided that a hunt for some drinks was in order so we kind of wandered down to Degraves street in an attempt to find some nice coffee.  

While we were walking down the street, we came across this quaint little store which looked very cute. Of course I insisted on taking a picture. Flower girls 1 2 3. The things we do for photos - and to which five seconds later we realised one of the passerbys was actually someone we knew from brisbane. We made it to degraves street in the end!! We had no idea where to start though, for finding nice coffee. 

We tried to find an underground coffee place but we ended up walking in circles because we could not find it at all. 

We settled for a few drinks at one of the side cafes before taking the tram to the Queen victoria winter night markets which were on every Wednesday. 

This little moment here was after a very traumatic ordeal on our way to St. Kilda. The story is, that after cramming all six of us into a five-seater car we were driving along the road when we noticed police vans and trucks parked on the side. 

Evidently, it seemed to be an upscaled version of Brisbane's occasional breath tests, except they were also looking out for drug users as well. Naturally as it wasn't exactly legal to seat six people in a five-seater car, we started to panic. Tam was crouched at my feet and I kind of just plopped my bag over her head and hoped for the best. To our shock, Victoria's cousin was unaware he had to stop for the breath test (he just came from China). He stopped the car suddenly after we told him, and got out of the car but forgot to pull the hand break up. 

One police officer immediately grabbed him by the arm and shoved him up against the glass window of our car door and demanded to know what he thought he was doing. A bit extreme I have to say, but  at least they were too distracted to check the back of the car where we were. After much confusion they finally relented and realised we were just a bunch of confused asian tourists. 

For a while after, we were all jelly-legged. Long story short though, we did manage to make it to St. Kilda beach unscathed (and undiscovered). We joked that maybe we needn't have worried about visiting the Old melbourne Gaol as we almost got hauled to a modern police station that night.

It was all worth it in the end though, because the beach at night was quite breath-taking and calm as there was barely anyone around. 

To end the day, we had some dessert in Chinatown before Victoria's cousin drove us back to the apartment. A really big thanks to him for putting so much effort into taking us around. We even spotted some guys dressed up as transformers dancing to Uptown Funk. 

We pulled her cousin in for our usual X-ray pose! 

We asked for a photo and much to our amusement, we were met with a few seedy lines from Bumblebee on the right.  I was too speechless to respond. Tam managed to accidentally headbutt one guy in the mask though.