Breakfast at Lune Croissanterie -
I freaking love croissants! Plain croissants that are crispy and warm are absolutely satisfying. Lune Croissanterie is apparently quite popular and they opened early in the morning up till afternoon or until they are sold out. It is a definite must-try so we went in the morning for breakfast.
Took the tram and walked a distance down in search of our breakfast. Looking inside, it does look a little like a laboratory creating and researching on the best receipes for croissants. Inside, it does not look like a typical shop. There is a counter in which all the croissants sample were displayed so that customers can decide what they are getting. That is indeed the true physical menu.
I took some time to decide on the four types that we were getting - plain, ham & gruyere, traditional chocolate, tiramisu cruffin (Total: A$37.80).
It is a pity that the croissants were not hot or warm. They may be if we were there at the time it opens. Nevertheless, they are so good! But I don't know why it requires 3 days of preparation work. One of the must-try is the ham & gruyere. It is a very expensive (A$9!) yet delicious tasting croissant. Crispy and complimented well with the saltish ham and cheese. Initially, my bf and I shared one. But he took a bit more than his half and I decided that I really need one more. Cannot remember if I did share.. it is too delicious.
There are some seats at the counter table at the side if you would like to dine in. Otherwise, you can sit at the benches at the sides within the shop. I guess most people usually takeaway their order, so the design of the shop has a lot of space, and only minimum sitting area.
On the way to Melbourne Zoo -
We took a bus nearby Lune and then walked a distance to the zoo. It's all quite confusing, so you may want to download the Public Transports Victoria app to guide you along with the navigations. Google maps works as well.
During our cooling walk to the zoo, we saw this fallen tree branch on the ground. On it, there was this slightly fatter looking bird perched on it. Somehow, it did not look like it could fly off, like it was stuck. It does not look like it was a baby nor look like it was injured. With curiosity, my bf bent lower to have a closer look at the bird.
Out of nowhere, this other bird of the same kind came swooping down, seemingly wanting to attack the human body that is nearing its family. I shouted out to my bf, being aware of the bird's intention before I saw it happened. Thankfully, my bf instinctively reacted quickly to avoid the potential peck on his head. We stayed away quickly and had a good laugh after that!
Melbourne Zoo -
Initially I wanted to buy cheaper tickets through Klook, but it was not available until 3 days later T.T. I checked with Klook on the availability and they stated that the stock is up to the provider. So, unless you are like me that you want to be very sure you are really going before purchasing, you may buy beforehand. That was what I did for Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea because I didn't want to risk disappointment at the park. People there are damn chiong for Disney one.
The first animal we saw are the Meerkats. There are several enclosures of them. One of them was so cute. Look at how straight it is standing! It looks like the captain looking out at the sea.
The lemurs have their own secured area and they have double entrance and exit to ensure that the animals do not escape. You can only open one door at a time, the other will open only if the other closes. Red signals for us to wait while green means that the door can be opened. It's pretty cool. Inside their habitat, they were all lazing around in their "beds".
Can you spot the gorilla there?
At this point, I started to realise that Australian parents educate their children slightly differently from us. This is, of course, just my generalisation and opinion. I was observing how the mummies and daddies were guiding their kids to look for the answers themselves, instead of providing them directly. Instead of pointing to the aninal and asking if they saw it, they ask them to show the adults where the animals were. The related questions were prompted to see the interest and reaction of the child to the animals. I just felt that their approach allows the child to think and behave more freely and creatively, instead of just following a certain set of instructions.
We went into a butterfly park and there were just so many of them, displaying their colourful wings. Many people were trying to attract the butterflies to land on their hands and the success rate is pretty high with that quantity of butterflies inside. Just stay still and let the butterfly think you are sweet. A success for me! None for my bf. It feels a little tickly on the skin. There was once, when a butterfly was outside my house, and I just let out my finger for a while. To my surprise, it actually landed on it for a very brief moment.
We then visited the elephants and saw for the first time how an elephant takes its bath. They have small little compartment doors for the legs. The ele was so obedient and lifted its limbs for washing with command. Down the road, we were observing another elephant bunching the sand and dried leaves together with its trunk. We were discussing whether the elephant was going to eat it or just playing around. Right after my bf confidently said that elephant would not eat it, the trunk went to its mouth!
My bf: "He's like; Oh let's play with the sand, you know, turn it around. He's not eating it la. Nothing better to do."
The next moment. *Elephant puts the stuff he gathered into its mouth*
I was roaring with laughter.
My bf: "Can eat one meh, so sandy."
Looking at the video, the background sound reminded me of this bird noises. At first, we were wondering what kind of sound is that. It just sound like a constant ezlink card tapping sound. Constant beep beep beep.
There is a red panda enclosure but everyone was looking so hard to find it. And guess what, it was high up on the tree! It must be taking shade from the sun and from the people's attention. Imagine they just stay up there for the whole day, and you will never see it. Anyway, it was about lunch time but since food is considered expensive there, we just had a small snack of nuggets and fries. It was nice and warm.
We saw the sea animals next. The sealions are so funny, some of them are just lying there lazily. We managed to see one swimming in the water gracefully. It's funny how an interior, possibly air-conditioned place felt hotter than the outside. The weather was that cooling that day! It was such a great day for the zoo. A bit of sun, but still windy and cool.
Then, we got to visit some true Australian animals like the Tasmanian Devil. The wombats are so cute. They look like partially like a pig. There was also a Koala at a different area which I did not managed to capture a photo.
We overheard a conversation between two uncles. One of them sounded excited and wanted to look at the wombat. The other one was like "I don't want to see the wombat. I just want to look at the birds". So funny to visit the zoo just to see birds haha.
I really enjoyed exploring this zoo. It caters to the animals' natural habitats. It has a good natural-feel layout and not all man-made concrete. We were walking on sand, pebbles, mud grounds, which makes the whole exploration more unique. The zoo is also all about environment and animal saving. At each area, you will see causes catered to reducing pollution and saving the habitats of the animals to prevent their extinction.
Taking the Metro for the first time -
We left the zoo around 3pm (started at 10am). We took the Metro from Royal Park Station back to Parliament station. I was not used to the transport system. The route and timetable was a bit complicated for me, and the interval between trains is longer. The interior of the cabin is not exactly very clean as well (tickets are considered more expensive). I have always been an MRT (mass rapid transit) girl and this makes me even more appreciative of the transport system in Singapore!
A walk down Chinatown -
We explored a bit at the Chinatown of Melbourne and found a foodcourt to have some food. It was our tea time although we ate full meals. I love the soup of the beef noodles (but no photo)! It made my bibimbap feels less tasty.
Dinner at Takumi -
Our dinner was at this authentic Japanese restaurant on the opposite street. It is a mixture of raw appetisers and bbq seafood and meat (Set A at A$45 & Set B at A$60). The salmon carpaccio is nice but the raw beef was something we could not get used to. I ended up cooking the meat, which I think the waitress found very weird. The grilled beef were great and well marinated.
There was another big group of Chinese customers and they were just super noisy. Their kids were just running around and the adults could not be bothered. We were on endless rounds of closing the door as the kids were opening it to go outside. It was quite a cooling night that day so it was cold to leave the door opened. I would say the whole experience was quite bad for us.
We could have went for a nice walk that day but I was not properly dressed and it was too cold. We decided to go on another night instead. If we could have known that very night was the most cooling night...
We took a bus nearby Lune and then walked a distance to the zoo. It's all quite confusing, so you may want to download the Public Transports Victoria app to guide you along with the navigations. Google maps works as well.
During our cooling walk to the zoo, we saw this fallen tree branch on the ground. On it, there was this slightly fatter looking bird perched on it. Somehow, it did not look like it could fly off, like it was stuck. It does not look like it was a baby nor look like it was injured. With curiosity, my bf bent lower to have a closer look at the bird.
Out of nowhere, this other bird of the same kind came swooping down, seemingly wanting to attack the human body that is nearing its family. I shouted out to my bf, being aware of the bird's intention before I saw it happened. Thankfully, my bf instinctively reacted quickly to avoid the potential peck on his head. We stayed away quickly and had a good laugh after that!
Melbourne Zoo -
Initially I wanted to buy cheaper tickets through Klook, but it was not available until 3 days later T.T. I checked with Klook on the availability and they stated that the stock is up to the provider. So, unless you are like me that you want to be very sure you are really going before purchasing, you may buy beforehand. That was what I did for Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea because I didn't want to risk disappointment at the park. People there are damn chiong for Disney one.
The first animal we saw are the Meerkats. There are several enclosures of them. One of them was so cute. Look at how straight it is standing! It looks like the captain looking out at the sea.
The lemurs have their own secured area and they have double entrance and exit to ensure that the animals do not escape. You can only open one door at a time, the other will open only if the other closes. Red signals for us to wait while green means that the door can be opened. It's pretty cool. Inside their habitat, they were all lazing around in their "beds".
Can you spot the gorilla there?
At this point, I started to realise that Australian parents educate their children slightly differently from us. This is, of course, just my generalisation and opinion. I was observing how the mummies and daddies were guiding their kids to look for the answers themselves, instead of providing them directly. Instead of pointing to the aninal and asking if they saw it, they ask them to show the adults where the animals were. The related questions were prompted to see the interest and reaction of the child to the animals. I just felt that their approach allows the child to think and behave more freely and creatively, instead of just following a certain set of instructions.
We then visited the elephants and saw for the first time how an elephant takes its bath. They have small little compartment doors for the legs. The ele was so obedient and lifted its limbs for washing with command. Down the road, we were observing another elephant bunching the sand and dried leaves together with its trunk. We were discussing whether the elephant was going to eat it or just playing around. Right after my bf confidently said that elephant would not eat it, the trunk went to its mouth!
My bf: "He's like; Oh let's play with the sand, you know, turn it around. He's not eating it la. Nothing better to do."
The next moment. *Elephant puts the stuff he gathered into its mouth*
I was roaring with laughter.
My bf: "Can eat one meh, so sandy."
Looking at the video, the background sound reminded me of this bird noises. At first, we were wondering what kind of sound is that. It just sound like a constant ezlink card tapping sound. Constant beep beep beep.
There is a red panda enclosure but everyone was looking so hard to find it. And guess what, it was high up on the tree! It must be taking shade from the sun and from the people's attention. Imagine they just stay up there for the whole day, and you will never see it. Anyway, it was about lunch time but since food is considered expensive there, we just had a small snack of nuggets and fries. It was nice and warm.
We saw the sea animals next. The sealions are so funny, some of them are just lying there lazily. We managed to see one swimming in the water gracefully. It's funny how an interior, possibly air-conditioned place felt hotter than the outside. The weather was that cooling that day! It was such a great day for the zoo. A bit of sun, but still windy and cool.
Then, we got to visit some true Australian animals like the Tasmanian Devil. The wombats are so cute. They look like partially like a pig. There was also a Koala at a different area which I did not managed to capture a photo.
We overheard a conversation between two uncles. One of them sounded excited and wanted to look at the wombat. The other one was like "I don't want to see the wombat. I just want to look at the birds". So funny to visit the zoo just to see birds haha.
I really enjoyed exploring this zoo. It caters to the animals' natural habitats. It has a good natural-feel layout and not all man-made concrete. We were walking on sand, pebbles, mud grounds, which makes the whole exploration more unique. The zoo is also all about environment and animal saving. At each area, you will see causes catered to reducing pollution and saving the habitats of the animals to prevent their extinction.
Taking the Metro for the first time -
We left the zoo around 3pm (started at 10am). We took the Metro from Royal Park Station back to Parliament station. I was not used to the transport system. The route and timetable was a bit complicated for me, and the interval between trains is longer. The interior of the cabin is not exactly very clean as well (tickets are considered more expensive). I have always been an MRT (mass rapid transit) girl and this makes me even more appreciative of the transport system in Singapore!
A walk down Chinatown -
We explored a bit at the Chinatown of Melbourne and found a foodcourt to have some food. It was our tea time although we ate full meals. I love the soup of the beef noodles (but no photo)! It made my bibimbap feels less tasty.
Dinner at Takumi -
Our dinner was at this authentic Japanese restaurant on the opposite street. It is a mixture of raw appetisers and bbq seafood and meat (Set A at A$45 & Set B at A$60). The salmon carpaccio is nice but the raw beef was something we could not get used to. I ended up cooking the meat, which I think the waitress found very weird. The grilled beef were great and well marinated.
There was another big group of Chinese customers and they were just super noisy. Their kids were just running around and the adults could not be bothered. We were on endless rounds of closing the door as the kids were opening it to go outside. It was quite a cooling night that day so it was cold to leave the door opened. I would say the whole experience was quite bad for us.
We could have went for a nice walk that day but I was not properly dressed and it was too cold. We decided to go on another night instead. If we could have known that very night was the most cooling night...