The next morning, we woke up groggy and still feeling the effects of the previous night and headed out to Richmond for lunch with the girls.

Richmond is, as you can see, a part of Melbourne that is very Vietnamese.

The girls were stuck in traffic so we hung out at a local cafe, drinking coffee, reading the paper and killing time with our phones. Such great time-killers they are!

And before we met up with the girls, we had a Vietnamese pork roll to stave off the hunger.

It was really yummy.

Lunch was mostly forgettable – out of all the restaurants on the road, we chose one which doesn’t do pho and their other noodle dishes were crap!

So anyways, after lunch we headed to Bridge Road to do some shopping.

The place reminded me a bit of Subiaco with its eclectic mixture of shops selling clothes, homewares and furnishings. But it wasn’t as lively as I thought it be, this being a Saturday. Recession, perhaps? Some of the shops were so devoid of customers that I saw shop staff lazing about on the couches inside.

I hunted around for a dress shirt, a jumper and a jacket and got them. The guys were done shopping fairly quickly but the girls hung around a bit longer. As the day was getting dark, and the Melbourne wind chill unrelenting, the guys decided to head home to rest up before another night of being out on the town.

Dinner time came and we took the tram into the city. It was a weird feeling waiting in the middle of the road while cars in both directions drive past us.

We all met up at Ants Bistro in Chinatown for Szechuan food. It was awesome but I was too busy eating so there aren’t any photos of the place or food. I can highly recommend it if you visit Melbourne. Be sure to book though, it was quite packed when we were there.

After dinner, we headed off to the Docklands for Watermark. It was gonna be “Lavish” – their Asian clubbing night playing house and RnB.

There were so many Asians in the place that at some point in the night, I updated my Facebook status thus,

In an Asian club in Melbourne. Wow, so many Asians.

Although the eye-candy was good, the music was not to our liking so we went upstairs where they had bottle service. A bottle of Chivas Regal with free-flowing mixers and ice for $180. Bargain!

And so we overdid it again slightly the second night in a row! Erm yeah well, I guess it’s not that surprising. But we sure had a lot of fun.

The next morning, our last day in the city, we decided to head out to the CBD and wander around. This building caught my eye – it’s part of the RMIT campus. Funky, innit?

We wandered along Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets, and crossed to Southbank and back. Our last stop of the day was Koko Black at The Royal Arcade.

And here’s the end of the photographic proof of our little weekender to Melbourne. Our flight that night was gonna be at 10:00pm but we decided to head back to Simon’s sister’s place around 5:00pm to, yup you guessed it – have another nap.

Simon’s sister made us dinner at around 7:30pm and then drove us to the airport at around 8:40pm. We caught up with the girls at the airport, reminisced about our 3 days in Melbourne, and when we got onto the plane, all of us fell fast asleep.

The trip was tiring but it was so much fun. Let’s do it again!