Day 1 in Melbourne CBD (1 December 2016)

We took a 30-minute bus-ride from the airport to Southern Cross Station to take a city bus to our hotel. I had read from online that the buses were just outside Terminal 3. We were touching down at Terminal 2 so with our Changi Airport as reference, I had imagined that their Terminals were like ours - very far apart from one another. However, no amount of research on how to get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 could answer my question because everybody just said,"Go to Terminal 3 and take the bus outside."

To my relief, it turned out that their Terminals were just next to each other! We walked out of Terminal 2 and the buses were just outside.

When we reached Southern Cross Station bus terminal, I enquired at this little booth and a composed but friendly man asked me for the hotel we were going to and the number of passengers taking the bus before assuring me that someone would call for us if we would just wait beside the booth.

 True enough. After waiting for about 10 minutes together with other tourists going to different hotels, our hotel was called. We went forward and followed a guy who led us to the hotel-transfer Sky Bus.

We placed our luggage on the rack and took our seats.

The journey to our hotel took about 50 minutes.

It's more of a service apartment than a hotel, but it served our needs.

Coco and my mother took this bedroom 

while William, Baby and I had this 

A huge bathroom

Photographs do not justify it. For some reason, it does not look very clean due to the colour tone but it was bright and clean in reality. It came equipped with a washer and dryer just directly opposite the toilet bowl. Very handy for us who needed to wash our jeans for the cold weather! 

Spacious living area 

Nice kitchenette

My call for our first meal: the famous Chin Chin restaurant 

Silly me didn't know that it was a fusion-Thai restaurant 

Pork 'Roll Ups' (AUD 23.50)

Pad Thai Noodles (AUD 26.50)

Fried Rice 

I decided to ride on an Inner Circle Tram to get a feel of the city and at the same time, catch Kanghastan while William returned to the hotel to nap and my mother, sister and Coco went for a coffee.

The ride to-and-fro the same stop took 45 minutes

"Our Burger King is their Hungry Jack's!"

After the tram ride, we met up with my sister and company to take a horse-carriage ride!

Quite an expensive ride. AUD 100 for 6 pax

As we trotted back to our hotel, we chanced upon some awesome graffiti in an alley which we stopped to take pictures with.

We rested for a couple of hours in the hotel before heading out for dinner, but by then it was 'late'. 

We had some problems finding a place to eat as we did not want to eat an ang moh meal but most eateries were closing at 8pm or 9pm, even in Chinatown!

Our dinner was at City Orchid Garden in Chinatown.

Fried rice was tasty. 

Honeyed chicken

Fried pork knuckle