Hey peeps. In a few hours, I’m flying off to Singapore for a week, and then China for another week with a one-day stopover in KL before returning on the 5th of Jan 2009. I won’t be taking my laptop so depending on whether I get to use a computer or not, blogging will be sporadic at best till I return.

It should be worth it though - I will definitely have lots of photos to show when I get back. You’d know right away if I’ve updated the blog if you’ve subscribed to the blog’s feed, which is here …

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Have a safe and wonderful holiday season.

During the four days that I spent in Melbourne, I went out drinking three times. It was quite a bit. Heh. Above you see the bar at the Irish pub close to work on the Southbank.

Two of those three times were spent pub-crawling with my Melbourne colleague Rob a.k.a champion host! Among the places that we went around the CBD area were Beer Brass with a great view looking across the Yarra …

and the Young and Jackson with a great view of Flinders Street Station (again! yeah I can’t get enough of it).

During one of our pit stops for food in between the drinking, we stumbled into this restaurant called “Noodle Kingdom” on Russell Street - the Chinese words translate literally to “Every Family Happy”. Or as Rob called it, “the dodgy Chinese restaurant”.

I was feeling like noodles that day and the sign on the windows say they do Shanghai dumplings so that sold me. The lamb stew noodles that I had was very good but the dumplings were meh. The dumpling skin could have been softer and they should have contained a bit more hot stock when you bite into them.

One of the better places that Rob took Phil and I to was the Automatic within the Crown Casino complex. Or did we stumble into it? I can’t remember.

Drinks to start dinner with: Rob and I had Hoegaarden and Phil had mint julep.

And then we had 3 pizzas and more drinks.

After that, we saw some cakes near the front counter and felt tempted …

but we weren’t girls, so Rob got us little chocolates instead. Hahah!

The final night of drinking was done at the company Christmas do at Albert Park.

There were free flowing drinks and finger food. A lot of both were consumed, a lot of conversations were had. And a lot of team bonding (natch) was made. Heh. I also met a fellow employee who has been reading my blog for a while - Mirebella. What are the odds?! Phil said that I was “internet famous”.

The rest of the night was a blur. As testament to that, here are two blurry shots. First up, the company provided a bus ride back into the CBD. It was a loud and raucous affair as you can imagine.

And here’s one of Rob posing with a very long pink Hummer limousine outside Crown Casino.

We had some McD and decided to call it a night. The next afternoon we’d be flying home to Perth. Our flight was delayed for 3 hours and Phil and I was bored shitless at the airport. But hey, this whole trip more than makes up for it.

These are shots that didn’t really fit into a narrative but the scenes struck my fancy when I saw them and photos were taken. Above you can see one of the Flinders Street Station entrances taken at night.

And this is the shop across from it, Lord of the Fries. Catchy name, but didn’t have the chance to try them out though.

Some parts of Crown casino are your typical casino garishness but some parts of it ooze clean and sharp classiness like this …

There’s this shop called Magnation which sells nothing but magazines and design books …

And you can buy a coffee and browse as much as you want.

There’s another shop called Minotaur …

which sells rows upon rows of TV/Sci-Fi, anime/manga, and comics related stuff …

including DVDs, hats, T-shirts, knick-knacks and figures.

It was raining most of the time that I was in Melbourne but check out the crowd in front of Myer one fine rainy day.

Next up, my final post in this series where it’s all about the food and the drinks.

I’m an urbanite. I love all that a big city entails - the look and the feel. Melbourne is one such city and it’s awesome.

Melbourne is the only major city in Australia with trams running almost everywhere.

And what I like most about Melbourne are the buildings and architecture, especially those preserved from the last century and before.

Check out the GPO here looking a little bit like Big Ben with the clock tower.

Yes, it’s all very pretty.

And this place needs no further introduction - Flinders Street Station.

Next up, some interior and exterior shots of funky shops and places.

Last week (9-14) my colleague Phil and I were sent to Melbourne for work/training and to attend the company’s Christmas function. The first two nights were in an Ibis hotel east of the city near the company HQ. The hotel was more modern than the one I stayed at last trip. I like the look a lot.

This is the room.

This is the lobby and restaurant. Tres chic.

We spent a day in the company HQ doing some training on internal processes and some work later on in the day. The next morning we’d move to the Rendezvous Hotel on Flinders Street. The rooms were not much compared to the Ibis’. But this was the view outside the hotel’s front door, looking right at the iconic Flinders Street Station.

The company’s southbank office was swanky - it’s the shorter building in front of the PricewaterhouseCoopers one. We’d spent 2 days here piggy backing colleagues of ours, learning more internal processes, and also to get to know the faces of those whom we’ve been dealing with electronically thus far.

This was the view from a colleague’s desk.

This is what we see on the ground level when we walked out for lunch.

And from another angle …

It is indeed, very pretty.

Next up, the buildings, streets and architecture.

Am in Melbourne for work/training and the company’s Christmas function. Be back in Perth on Sunday evening. In the mean time, if you are not already subscribed to my RSS feed …

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That way, you’d know right away when I update next.

Last night I had a blast at Simon’s place for Christmas drinks and pot-luck. There was a lot of yummy food which really helped proceedings later in the night, because as you can see in the photo we had consumed a large amount of alcohol .

We got mildly smashed, and we laughed, talked and mingled. I met and reacquainted myself with some of Simon’s friends and got to know a few more new faces. It was quite a nice way to spend a cool summer night.