Melbourne - Quite a City

I've been very impressed with Melbourne. It's quite a bustling city, with lots of diversity, some very cool architecture, and some great restaurants. It seems to be an "eating out" culture here. I've just been here for just two days, but even my U.K. associates whom have been here all week have said what I've noted: Every restaurant in this city is packed!

Last night we went to a very trendy Japanese restaurant, the Nobu Melbourne. The Nobu franchise has restaurants all over the world and Robert De Niro is part owner of this chain. The food was absolutely fantastic, and the place was hopping. VERY busy.

Tonight we went to a restaurant in a shopping center / train station called Melbourne Central. What a unique place this is; more in the photo captions below. But the restaurant we ate at is called the 100 Mile Cafe. The theme is that everything served there is grown/produced/raised within 100 miles of Melbourne. And WOW was the food outstanding!!! I had a porterhouse steak that was mighty delicious! And this place, too, was absolutely hopping. Every restaurant we walked past was full to capacity. Definitely an "eating out" culture here.

Below are some pictures from around Melbourne today. The captions will explain.

The architecture here in Melbourne is quite diverse, including everything from modern concrete-and-glass skyscrapers to this type of medieval gothic type of structure, pictured above. Walking past this place a couple hours later after the sun set, there were no lights on inside, and it really looked sort of creepy and haunted.

Kind of "central" to Melbourne Central is the "Piazza and Shot Tower," some ancient tower that they decided to protect by erecting a glass cone over it, and then turning the whole thing in to a giant mall built over a train station. This glass cone is quite visible from much of the city. Notice the the modern skyscraper visible through the glass, towering above this.

Some of the building facades here are really interesting, like the facades on these buildings. Certainly different than most of the buildings we have in the U.S.! I took this shot from the balcony of the restaurant we are at tonight. Notice the cars driving on the left - eek!

OK... they are REALLY environmentally conscience around here. In the "loo" at the restaurant tonight, they had a hand washing sink that drains in to the urinal, so that you wash your hands and flush the toilet all at the same time. Efficient, I suppose!