Day 2: Exploring Melbourne (Saturday May 13th)

Today I woke up early to get my workout done before heading into downtown Melbourne. I was planning to get there at 10:30 for the free walking tour. 

After I worked out, showered, got ready, ate breakfast, etc. I still had some time to kill before I needed to catch the tram. So I went next door to a cafe to enjoy (an expensive) coffee and work on my blog. 

I left in time to catch the tram just down the street. I crossed the street, only to realize that I crossed to the wrong side. Again, because they drive on the LEFT. As I realized where the tram stop was and that I needed to cross back - the tram came. Of course. I had even crossed the street in front of it! This was a good reminder to myself that I need to take things a beat slower in another country to take it all in. 

As I watched the tram leave while I was stuck on the other side of the street, I thought well, I'm going to miss the walking tour now. So to try and make up time, I walked (again, farther than I should have) to try and catch another tram. But by the time I did that, I should have just stayed at the first station to catch the next one which was coming in about 15min. 

Eventually, I caught a tram and actually got to the walking tour just as they were departing! Perfect timing I guess. 

I had mentioned the day before in the Hostelworld app chat that I was going to do the tour and another girl was interested in meeting up there. I saw her based on an orange scarf she had mentioned to look for and we became fast friends. That's one of the things I love the most about the backpacking community. She had also met another woman in the group who was from the states and traveling solo for a conference that week. 

The tour was great, we went all over the city! We saw architecture, parks, birds, street art, etc. 

After the tour, the three of us went up to Victoria market for lunch and got a delicious spinach and cheese filled crepe for $4 which is a steal for a lunch in Australia. 

We walked around the market a bit enjoying art, vendors with fresh fruits and veg, crafts, clothes, food, etc. It would be a great spot to pickup anything you need for a picnic. I even found my alley (a childhood nickname was string bean). 

Afterwards, the woman and I split off from the girl and we went to walk through the royal botanical gardens. Since it was fall, I didn't have high expectations. But they were still gorgeous! Everything was lush and green from the summer still - and massive! I saw the largest ferns and fiddleheads that I had ever seen. We also saw parrots! 

Afterwards, it was getting dark so we split our ways. She headed back to her hotel and I headed south back to my hostel in St. Kilda. 

Once I arrived, I had heard that sushi in Australia is unusually cheap, so I stopped at a Japanese restaurant near the hostel for dinner. Much to my surprise though, I of course picked the one bougie unique sushi place. Where the cheapest thing on the menu was $7 edamame. So for dinner, I had two "sushi tacos". You're probably wondering what those are or assuming that they're fish tacos - like I was. But they're actually fancy and delicious sushi in taco shape! 

Afterwards, I went back to my hostel and wanted to experience a little bit of the nightlife here since Melbourne is known for it. I didn't want to go downtown or break the bank though, so I didn't go very far. Just to the bar that was below the hostel which also offered $5 drinks for hostel guests. I ended up meeting two guys from my hostel too and we sat around enjoying cheap drinks, each other's company, and sharing odd bits about travel, where we were from, etc. 

I called it a night not too late since the next day was a travel day for me.