WARNING: Photo Intensive! Only suitable for those using Broadband or else you'll probably have to wait really long for them to load. I think even Broadband users will have a problem.
Read this if you're really really free cos it's a long post!
Some photos are also contributed by my lovely classmates: Jess, Eliza & Cheryl
Okay this post marks the beginning of more other posts to come about the Australia Trip. I decided to blog about the Aussie trip first before i go on to my Grandma's Birthday.
DAY 1:
Arrived in Melbourne at 5am local time, plane ride was okay and it's been a long time since i actually sat on a non-budget airline. Good experience for me.
Of all places, our first stop in Melbourne was at the Crown Casino, supposedly one of the largest in Australia? Surprisingly they're still some people playing at 6am?!
My first official meal in Australia at Queen Victoria Market (QVM): French Toast with bacon and a cup of Hot Chocolate. A$10 if i'm not wrong, what an amount to spend on the first day. I also bought a 'musical box' not sure how to call it, but it was pretty cool... Another A$10 gone... QVM really have lots of nice stuff to buy cheaper than other outlets i suppose..
One thing i got to mention is that the Fish came along with me and i'm really proud of what it produced throughout the whole trip. Great photos, happy owner! (I also dunno why i looked unglam in all my pictures =.=)
There was more sightseeing during the day (that's even b4 we checked into the hotel). I think this was the St. Patrick's Cathedral. One of the oldest in Melbourne. Pretty cool infrastructure!
I kinda like this place the most, i think it's the Australian War Shrine where they commemorate the soldiers that fought during the World Wars. So happened that day they were rehearsing for the commemoration ceremony.
Other than that, we visited other places like the David Cook's Park and some miscellaneous attractions..
This shot at the Victoria Art Gallery was also the beginning of more jump shots from my class!
So that was the end of Day 1.. Nothing much except for sightseeing and many of us were pretty tired!
DAY 2:
The start of our education part of the trip. We visited Victoria College of Pharmacy or is now known the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science under Monash University. The campus only contain the Faculty so it's pretty small.. they even had some virtual pharmacy practice going on in their classes. I also found out that there were many Asians in the school! o.0
A rather random shot in the lecture theatre forming the letter M for Monash!
The mural in the grand hall was pretty huge as well and they were paintings of how medicine evolved over centuries, we took some time to cam-whored a little (i don't think is that little though).
After the campus tour, we visited Compoundia, a different kind of pharmacy as compared to the other community pharmacies. I won't describe more about it but more importantly i had my first cup of beer at this bar. The taste was weird but i managed to stay alive. hahaha
At night we went to recce the Melbourne city and this place we visited called Melbourne Central is like a Wisma Atria cum Plaza Sing cum Wheelock Place in Orchard. For no reason i bought some apples to eat in the hotel... Hmm.. cheap mah!
DAY 3:
Again another education trip to another university this time round in RMIT, pretty nice rural campus and the uni maintained the roots of indigenous people of Australia in their campus itself. I would like to emphasize again that though Australia is a pretty nice place to study, the money my parents have to fork out is intensed, no way i'm willing to 'borrow' that much from my parents just for education alone.
I actually took this fisheye shot right after a group photo at RMIT, pretty random but we get good expressions from everyone. LOL
DAY 4:
Instead of universities, this time round we visited a Pharmaceutical company (EGO, named after the founder and the founder's dad) that only produced dermatological products. One famous product marketed in Singapore is the Sun Sense sunscreen.
Right after the visit, it was free & easy for us and a few of us literally spent the whole day walking around Melbourne, i think i almost covered all of the city itself in that one day!
You can see the city of Melbourne at the background
One of the most honourable walking trip was the stadium or place where the 1956 olympics took place. Pretty cool huh?
Being a typical Asian, i also took the FREE city tram ride around Melbourne.
What's a study trip for without visiting the local library? I actually think this was one of the coolest libraries i've visited. Nice architectural designs mimicking the colonial days...
Lastly, to end this post of the first 4 days in Melbourne/Australia, i had a bowl of beef special noodles in a famous vietnamese restaurant where Bill Clinton ate when he was the POTUS. He ate more than me: 2 big bowls of noodles!
More to come when i'm done resizing for the next post: The Great Ocean Road Trip