20th may 2008,melbourne

20th May 2008
I got up at 10..really late!!
Today was a rare day when I had a break during a business visit.
So I took my own sweet time to get ready .
The first thing I did was to get in touch with harsh , my friend in Melbourne university.
So after getting down the details of the meeting point , I was on my way to the Melbourne central station.The trickiest part in local travel in a foreign city is using the public transport and understanding the maps,train timings, etc etc
After buying the tickets from a Seven –Eleven and some instructions from the indian store incharge I headed for the train.The instructions were also unique .I had to remember the street names like this
Kings Street(where I was staying) then William ,Queen and Elizabeth
So it was king- William, queen –elizabeth.Pretty interesting!
Walking down Melbourne downtown was just like being in Manhattan, with parallel streets,
Lots of pedestrians mostly in business suites, I hear Australia is more of a service place with most of the people in jobs.Walking down the streets I bumped in a lot of Indians once again.
Quite a lot of students as well.You can make that out from their backpacks and casual clothes.
Since I had skipped breakfast we headed straight for Hungry Jacks, its like australias McDonalds.
I immediately liked the indian girl taking our orders, tried real hard to read her name on the name batch but couldn’t quite get hold of it.
From here we headed straight to Eureka Towers, supposedly australia’s tallest building and with an observation deck at the 90th floor.A truly charming place.
You can see most of Melbourne from this height.But being a weekday harsh had to leave soon and by 4 pm I was alone once again.
The walk back to the hotel was kind of depressing.I had plenty of time at my disposal but didn’t feel like going anywhere.Plus by this time most of downtown was carrying a deserted look.
On my way back I saw a café by the name The Sherlock Holmes with his most famous line”elementary my dear Watson” written, pretty amusing.
There was another place to see, the immigrants museum on my way back.
But I decided not to go in at the last moment.There was no way I was going to a museum.
So unwantedly I trudged back to the hotel and finally retired to my room.
So with nothing left to do I had no option but to watch TV!
After 2 hrs of non stop TV and with just 3 channels to choose from I was completely going crazy.
So I decided to take a walk , I was also pretty hungry by now.
By 8 pm all the streets wore a bare look , with just a few cars plying about it seemed as if it were very late in the night!
Then I started my stroll outside ,crossing kings street and back.
I came across the usual fast food stuff,subway,pizza joints,Japanese,thai and an Indian restaurant
As well.But indian food was the last thing I would try here!
Finally I came to a really dark part of the street.It also scary walking at night in these places
Who knows when some one may pop out a gun at you!
But still the excitement of being all alone in an alien part of the world can be quite thrilling.
So I came across a sign saying “adult club” but there was not a single light in sight.So I strolled
A little further and came across a heavy gate guarded by two huge looking fellows
I guess I had to turn back now!
And there were several more in the block.
So after strolling around for a good thirty more minutes in the streets I decided it was time to get back.On way I got dinner packed from a subway, though quite unwillingly but I didn’t feel like eating at a fancy place all alone!
So I did enjoy my day in Melbourne finally the icing on the cake was the IPL match witch began at 12 midn ight and offcourse I had to get back to business from tomorrow.