towers

I'm posting because I'm battling the sleep my body is craving because of the old jet lag, so I thought I'd jot down a few first impressions:

1 To the smokers - bring as many boxes from duty free as you can carry, declare them and pay the duty. It works out much cheaper (there's no fine or penalty if you declare them) - 5 boxes of 200 cost me AUS$450 (including the $80 they cost me in Abu Dhabi) - in newsagents at $15 per pack of 20 it would be $750!!! Saving $300 is always a good idea.

2 People in Melbourne are the friendliest I've ever met. Went out for a bite to eat on Hardware Lane last night - was given many a glass of wine on house, got invited by the staff out to some amazing bars till 4 in the morning and have already got a few invites to hook up later next week.

3 The Queen Victoria Market - Simply wow. The quality and choice of fresh produce, seafood, meat, deli stuff is just phenomenal. The prices seemed really reasonable (cheap even) to me. The banter is great and diversity of stuff just inspiring.

4 It's winter, I'm watching people in coats, gloves and hats - for me it feels like early April - not bad at all. Oh, and it starts getting dark from 5.

5 Taxi into town from airport is $60 - I've singularly failed to remember to ask for a receipt for any journey - easy to do when just off/getting on the flight. For those coming over for a company remember these things!

6 Prices. I know I'm getting hammered at the moment because I don't know where to find the more reasonably priced stuff - but it is here and just takes some time getting used to it I'd say. The price of ciggies was still a shock though. Booze in the off licence seems pretty similar, restaurants like anywhere do vary - but London is a good comparison from what I can tell of my bit of menu reading last night, taxis pretty similar.

7 Food. Heaven - if you love your food I think Melbourne is for you (and me ). The ingenuity in the dishes of restaurants and the variety is pretty impressive.

Anyway - I just thought I'd jot down a few things from my foxhole in Melbourne's CBD - it's early days and all the finding a rental, utilities etc etc are ahead of me but I tell you what, right now, I believe the hype!

Buzzy--Bee

Not sure what hype you're referring to, but glad you're enjoying Melbourne!

BB

tartankoala

Yeah you'll get used to that quite quickly. It's always funny to see people wrapped up like they are in Siberia when you are walking about in t-shirt and shorts!

Hino

Saving $530 would be an even better idea

BadgeIsBack

I think we should stamp out this nonsense...

On the other hand, welcome to Melbourne!

sjz

Just gotta even this up a little….

1) I don’t smoke so it doesn’t affect me but I sure am sick of the playground politics employed in the government vs industry tobacco wars and those witty, well crafted TV adds(!).

2) Hardware lane is just for tourists sorry. Its right up there (or down there) with Lygon Street and St Kilda. Melbourne residents don’t generally go there because you’re paying a lot for mediocre food. Think Leicester square in terms of food quality. Free drinks are the norm in hardware lane btw because they have to compete with the other restaurants on the strip. Don’t expect an elegant, cool climate chardonnay though as an incentive to pay for overpriced sloppy pasta or some such.

3) Queen Vic market is another tourist attraction these days. Hence the huge number of fast food sellers there (sure, some are definitely tasty….I can recommend the boreks – there’s a reason there’s always a queue outside that place). The provisions there are either the same price as the supermarket or more expensive however. True, you can get some speciality stuff there but normally only the same as what you can get from the speciality shops lining the entrance ways to all the suburban Coles and Safeways supermarkets here that are only good for basics. You aren't going to find things like proper woodland mushrooms in any of those places. Prahan and South Melbourne markets are better but are also going the same way as Queen Vic. Think of it as weekend entertainment rather than european-style market shopping…

4) Winters are warmer here, absolutely – depends if you want to swap a very cold winter with open fires etc balanced by long summer evenings or grey skies and missly rain for 6 months solid followed by summer days where its too hot to go outside and darkness falling (and mozzies arriving) at 7pm in summer. Taste is personal but I'm sure you can tell by my tone I've had enough of the aussie climate.

5) Nothing to comment on there….

6) There is no reasonably-priced stuff in Australia. Best to do all your shopping on UK websites and get is sent over.

7) Diversity of food options here is fantastic – it was one of the things that attracted us to the place many years ago. Stay here a bit longer though and you’ll start to get picky again. What you need is (say) 1 good Vietnamese restaurant, not 10, mediocre-to-good ones. If you’re thinking hawker-style eating then there are loads of places doing good cheap stuff, especially in the more studenty parts of town. Melbourne doesn’t do Indian nearly as well as the UK though but it is on the increase finally...

Early days? Erm, what are you going to do next weekend? Other than St Kilda beach and the Arts Centre you’ve now covered all Melbourne’s tourist attractions (since they shut the big wheel down at docklands – the summer heat finished it off but it was a failure anyway).

No I’m not really that negative about Melbourne but thought that innitial post sounds too much like a holiday report and needed to be balanced up a little. Sorry.

Buzzy--Bee

Are you for real??? It doesn't get dark until after 9pm in summer in Melbourne. Are you sure you don't actually live in Queensland?

Yep. I reckon you don't live in Melbourne. I've been here 4 years and never been bored for a weekend yet.

BB

aussietobe

WOW.

sjz

Yep, I live here in good old Melbourne.

My point was more that weather is always a two-sided coin - e.g. more sun and less rain makes for a brown landscape. Usual stuff that's been said many times before - blah blah blah..... But I did say taste is personal - its just the fact that Melbourne's winter is milder than the UK's is not necessarily the be all and end all of it. btw, no, I can't go out into my garden in summer after 7pm due to mozzies which come out at dusk.

When you've been here nearly 8 years as I have you might start to get bored with Melbourne and its suburbs every weekend. Its around the time that you get bored with Melbourne (or any Aus city) and then realise that its 4 hours plane trip to get anywhere different from where you are now and then you start to feel isolated from the rest of the world. Or at least we do.... as I said, taste is personal.

asprilla

Well the poster does refer to "provisions" in the supermarket. That's Melbourne-speak, for sure.

the troubadour

Pretty fair assessment i'd say. Many of the conclusions reached I had in part found to be the case.
Although think Melbourne is a grand enough place to live providing one resides in a compatable area, there was still something that convinced the both of us that the upheaval to relocate from Perth to there in balance was not worth the hassle. Although did check it out on two occassions and came very close to going.
Who knows may still further down the track?

jad n rich

Weve had 2 similar chances to work in melbourne and like you the upheaval was almost as much as moving overseas and it just didnt seem worth the hassle

My cousin there also put the mockers on my main reason - 'more to do', there is more 'on' there, he said yeah but so much of it is just sport. Hes been there 4 years now, 3 prior in Sydney, now heading back to UK.

Also unless you want to be an hour plus out, its the most freakingly expensive place to buy a house Its simply insane.


Crazy stuff down there today with the 14 year old teen - jeez how do things go from the teen sport of egg chucking to murder

Ive never found the 'long summer evenings' that great, the 9pm thing is only a few weeks, and often the bush flies melb gets kill any chance of sitting outside

I like melb, love a weekend there, but as the partner said - 'its still australia ' - dont blame me hes an aussie

Bix

Good post Towers.

Say after me "My chips will not be pissed upon".
There, now you can continue having fun exploring the new.
Enjoy it mate.

Kooky.

Seems to be a common theme; we were recently given the opportunity to move to Melbourne but it didn't seem worth the hassle, or different enough from Sydney, to go through another move right now - especially when we'd finally bought our own place. Never say never, but it would have to be a pretty special opportunity and the chief earner made the call that it was not.

OP - don't let anybody burst your bubble! Enjoy those first few weeks of jetlagged delirium. You'll come down to earth a bit when you need to find a doctor, a dentist, and all that boring real-life stuff. For now, enjoy being "on holiday". We've been in Sydney over 3 years now and I still get a buzz going over the bridge and round the harbour, or watching the sun set from the Opera Bar, or sitting on a bench eating pizza (I'm classy, me) at the bottom of Blues Point Rd, watching the ferries come and go underneath the bridge - I hope I never lose that feeling.

Almo

I think as per most cities some of the above is true, with a pinch of salt. You can find what you want, if you look. My train ride is 23 mins to the city and my house would sell for around 400-430k.

Flies were awful the first couple of years we were here but I don't think they were bad at all this year.

Also, I know you didn't post this jad n rich, but I'd have to strongly disagree with the poster who said about Vic Market being just a tourist attraction. I wouldn't eat beef from the supermarkets, it's cheaper and better from the butcher we use at the market. Fruit and veg are good, and cheap when in season (as per anywhere) and the cheese selection is awesome. Sure, there's a load of tat in the clothes/toys/souvenir area but I don't go there.

All that said, we're moving back to the UK in a year