Saturday, January 16, 2010

Australia: Day 11, Melbourne, Phillip Island

We started off the next morning by taking the trolly to the Queen Victoria Market. It was a huge market where I did most of my shopping.

This guy was making all these paintings. He was great to watch and Karen bought one of his pieces showing the Twelve Apostles.

I love that paint that's super thick and goopy.

My one regret from this trip is not buying this piece. I fell in love with it, but didn't want to deal with carrying it around and getting it back to the states. I also had spent a lot of money and didn't want to make a big purchase. Kicking myself...


The picture is deceiving, I bought so much.

Using public transportation. It was so nice and clean.

Enjoying beautiful Melbourne.

There was a giant screen videoing everyone walking in front of it, and then showing it in real time, so of course everyone walks in front and waves at themselves, myself included. Do you see me?

I loved this little area in the middle of downtown Melbourne. There were a bunch of office buildings around and people just chillin. Maybe their lunch hour? It reminded me of Bryant Park when the weather's nice. Melbourne actually reminded me a lot of a cleaner NYC.


That evening we drove to Phillip Island to see the famous Penguin Parade. Every night after the sun goes down the world's smallest penguins, standing at 13 inches at their tallest, come to the beach from the ocean and waddle up the sand into their little homes.


They were very strict about the no camera policy. The park rangers monitoring us were no joke. We weren't allowed to talk, stand up, pull anything out that resembled a camera, etc. It felt like they were the secret service or something.

Buuuuut, maybe I snuck a little photo while we were all waiting on the sand for the penguins to show up.

And then MAYBE I snuck this picture of a little penguin. I could not help myself. But I really had to be so stealth. We saw some people get caught and the guards went crazy. It was no joke. Karen and I took a little video, mostly because we wanted to capture the sounds the penguins were making, but you also hear us whispering because we're so scared of the park rangers. It was pretty comical.



2 comments:

nerak said...

When I think of the penguin parade, I think of the park ranger totally laying into that Asian lady for taking a flash photograph! And her hiding the camera behind her back and the ranger scolding her like a 6-year-old child (while the rest of us snuck away with our cameras to avoid getting in trouble.)

Haha. So great.

elise said...

I love those little penguins.

I think it is so cool to see different cities around the world. Like the city, city, not the vacation parts.