Melbourne & Adelaide

At first, we had to catch our flight to Melbourne...again flying in the night and Mark and me were quite tired when we arrived. Though we didn't waste any time and did a free walking tour on the first day. In total, we have seen a lot of places such as the botanical gardens (again), Chinatown (again), the Melbourne Cricket Ground as well as the National Sports Museum, the Victoria Market and we had a nice view onto the skyline from the top of the Eureka Tower. We also experienced an extreme climate change in one day. On the one day, temperatures went beyond 40 and on the next day in matter of an hour it started to rain and temperatures dropped by 20 degrees. Besides, we met Rainer and Mareike who were staying in the same room in our hostel. They are really nice and we went out together one night. We exchanged phone numbers and we might see them again in Sydney because they are also there around NYE. Looking forward to it!

Melbourne city

Melbourne city

downtown

Melbourne skyline

Botanical Gardens

view onto the skyline from the Eureka tower

On Monday afternoon, we were heading to the airport to fly to Adelaide. Arriving in the late afternoon, we just checked in to our hostel and walked around downtown to eat something and finally we ended up in a bar having a drink. At the next day we met Steffen, a friend from back home who is currently doing his world trip. Check out his travel blog: www.steffenworldtrip.blogspot.de
He has traveled to a lot of countries yet!

In Adelaide we hired free bikes and rode around the city to see - who knew? - the botanical gardens, but also the Adelaide Oval (it's a sports stadium), the Central Market which was next to Chinatown. And we went to the Montefiore Hill were we had a nice view onto the city (more or less, the Oval is covering a lot). It was nice to meet Steffen, we might see each other again in New Zealand. After Steffen had to go because he had booked a bus to Melbourne in the evening, Mark and me went to the hill again to see the sunset. We were quite excited about our rental car that we picked up on the following day but you can read about that in the next post ;)

 Steffen, Mark and me on our bike tour

Adelaide river view

river view at night

Botanical Garden

Adelaide city

Christmas decoration

track along the river

First stop: Singapore!

It was a long flight: about 6 hours, then stopping over in Dubai, then another 6 hours to Singapore and finally arriving in the south-eastern metropolis. It was about 25°C all the time (also in the night) and a perceived humdity of 100 percent!
First of all, heading to our hotel, the Marina Bay Sands! We were not in the mood to take the metro. Fortunately, taxi cabs are very cheap in Singapore, compared to Europe. After arriving at the hotel, we wanted to see the pool and we spent almost the whole day on the top. We had an incredible view on the city while swimming in the infinity pool!
The other days, we visited for example the Botanical Gardens, Gardens by the Bay, Chinatown and Little India. One day we had a night out at Clarke Quay. Another night we very visiting the Singapore Zoo where we did a night safari which was quite poor and not worth the money.
All in all, Singapore is an amazing city and gets a high rank in my favorite city highscore list. It is multi-cultural with influences from both Asian countries and the western world.
Here are some impressions of the city captured in a few photos.

Amazing view from Marina Bay Sands hotel

incredible room in Marina Bay Sands hotel

view on the Gardens by the Bay

 street near the Marina Bay

Marina Bay Sands

 Singapore Skyline

Chinatown

 Clarke Quay

 Gardens by the Bay & Singapore Flyer

Final Countdown

Now, it's not even one week to go. On this weekend, I said goodbye to friends, my grandparents and my sister. I am looking forward so much to my travels but on the other hand it gives me an uneasy feeling...

A busy week starts now and a lot of tasks are pending..getting all the stuff together and finally packing my backpack and heading towards the airport next weekend.

My Travel plans from Dec 15 to June 16:
- Singapore
- Australian east coast: Adelaide to Brisbane
- New Zealand

If anybody has some good tips for NZ, I'd appreciate it!


I am gonna miss you guys here but I'll keep you posted!