Melbourne is the capital of the state of Victoria in Australia. It is located between Perth and Adeliade (to the west) and Sydney and Brisbane (to the east). I visited Melbourne between 16 and 21 January 2012 to attend the 10th Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Conference (APBC) 2012, which is an annual conference in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics; I went there to present my paper.
Melbourne is an interesting city with a lot of character -- a good mix of modern and historic buildings and monuments and spacious green gardens. For the cricket-crazy, you'll recognize Melbourne for its popular cricket stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), and for tennis lovers, its home for the Australian Open.
Like many other major cities in the world, Melbourne has a central business district (CBD) where most of the business activities and centers concentrate, and several residential suburbs within an hour or two drive from the CBD. The most popular among the areas within the CBD is the Federation Square, a local hang out place with lot of buzz and almost the first place international tourists would come to. It is the cultural center of Melbourne with a funny looking building representing the modern architecture of Melbourne, and the famous Flinders Street train station and St. Paul's Cathedral reminiscing the Victorian era. The Yarra river runs very close to the Federation Square with the riverfront also being a popular hang out place. The Square has a tourist information center where local and international tourists can enquire and book tour tickets to visit places in and around Melbourne.
The other interesting places in the CBD are in and around the Exhibition street, which is essentially a hub for some companies and office buildings, shops, restaurants, bars, theatres, the China Town and many other places to hang out. It also houses the Victorian Parliament, some cathedrals and museums.
The metro/suburban trains and trams. Melbourne has a decent network of metro trains for local transport, many of which commence from the Flinders Street and Southern Cross stations in the CBD. However,
if you are coming from a place like Singapore, London or Tokyo, you might feel the transportation
system in Melbourne is not so advanced or sophisticated as in these places. The trains as well as the stations are old, and public transport itself is not quite efficient, though very expensive.
Anyways, they are good enough to take you to most parts of Melbourne.
Update in 2013: After having been in Australia for almost a year now, I change my opinion now about this paragaraph. Often when you come to a laid-back place like Australia from a lightning fast paced city like Singapore ot Tokyo, you do get this kind of a feeling -- even a second delay in the train arrival can make you feel the service is lousy. But, now I am glad that things are slower paced here; I am happy that trains sometimes don't arrive on time :-)
To get onto these trains, you'll need to buy a MetLink ticket or the recently-introduced Myki Card, which is just like the EZlink (Singapore), Oyster (London) or Suika (Tokyo) cards - you top-up some amount onto the card and tap-in and tap-out at stations. Melbourne also has a decent network of trams that whirl in and around the city, intersecting with the roads, but giving a good back-up to the train system. You can use your MetLink and Myki cards on the trams too. Rides on the city loop trams (around the Federation Square) are free of charge, probably to promote tourism.
Melbourne, and in fact Australia in general, is a very expensive place, and I felt is not
so "service-oriented" as Singapore or Tokyo - the over all public facilities are quite
lousy, but probably serves the purpose because of the sparse population and the general laid back
attitude in Australia. The trains aren't so efficient or timely and can get unsafe and noisy if
you traveling after dark due to a lot of "bogans" aboard.
Shops and restaurants close quite early (around 6PM) in many suburbs, and I couldn't spot many medical facilities or pharmacy shops so easily like in Singapore or India.
Update in 2013: After having been in Australia for almost a year now, I change my opinion now about this paragaraph. Often when you come to a laid-back place like Australia from a lightning fast paced city like Singapore ot Tokyo, you do get this kind of a feeling -- even a second delay in the train arrival can make you feel the service is lousy. But, now I am glad that things are slower paced here; I am happy that trains sometimes don't arrive on time :-)
However, in spite of these negatives, Melbourne is consistently voted among the 'most liveable cities' ranking better than Singapore or Tokyo. What I think makes it so 'liveable' is its a little bit of "randomness" that Singapore and Tokyo do not allow. Everything in Singapore or Tokyo works so perfectly and predictably that if you are to be part of the system you need to be perfect as well, which makes daily life almost mechanical and therefore stressful. But, in Melbourne, I felt things are quite relaxed and you don't find the sort of 'rat race' here that you see elsewhere, particularly in Singapore or Tokyo.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground or the MCG or just the 'G, as known to the locals, is the largest stadium in Australia and also one of the largest and oldest stadiums in the world. It is located at Yarra Park at the city center, very close to the Richmond train station. The 'G is one of the few grounds in the world that houses both cricket as well as soccer matches - the cricket pitch is "portable" to make way for soccer matches.
The MCG is home for the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) and some sub-clubs. It is remembered for the 1956 Olympic Games and the 2006 Commonwealth games. Its history dates back to 1877 when the first ever test match - between England and Australia - was played, and the 'G Museum showcases many such memories of this long history - for example, a cricket bat with the signatures of members of the visiting 1952 Indian cricket team. Many Australian and world records were created here including the recent one where Shane Warne took his 700th wicket. It also showcases a famous photograph of the two great cricketing legends together - Sir Don Bradman with Sachin Tendulkar - Don presenting Sachin a memorabilia. When Don first saw Sachin bat, he felt that Sachin was the only player who played very similar to him.
There are regular guided tours (about 75 mins) organized between 10 am and 3 pm on non-event days. I managed to go for one of the tours.
The Royal Melbourne Zoo is also worth a visit in Melbourne. The Zoo is not far from the city, just a few stations along the Upfield line northwards from the CBD. Apart from the Koala, Kangaroos and Emu, it also houses other animals very native to Australia - like some unique kind of lizards and reptiles, the Echidna and the Platypus.
The photographs. Yes, here they are.
Melbourne city
The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG)
The Royal Melbourne Zoo
The APBC 2012 Conference -- coming soon!