Australia with the Windahl family: Day 9 In Melbourne

It feels so good to be in such a pretty place to stay in. As I wrote yesterday this home is full of interesting art and decorated in a lovely way. There is a small backyard, if we would want to we could do a BBQ out there. Most likely we will not since the closest street Bridge street is full of small and cosy restaurants. There is also a tram stop, and it takes about 15 minutes to travel into the city center. We did so today, after a rather lazy and late morning. We got off close to the town hall and shopping center, and spent some time there before we decided to go to Melbourne Museum.

Bridge street, Richmond

Richmond town hall

The Museum is located in Carlton park, a couple of minutes on the tram from the central shopping area. The present building was opened in 2000 (and completed in 2001) and it is a fine and interesting piece of modern architecture. The museum's activities dates back to 1854 when exhibitions opened on another location. The first director was professor of natural history, and it is still a mix of a natural history and cultural history. There is also a giant IMAX theatre. We started to have a light lunch, and then we proceeded to the exhibitions. First stop was the dinosaur walk in the natural history part, and then we looked at Australian animals, the stuffed versions. There was also a part with insects, bugs, spiders etc, of all kinds. In some cases there were living examples, and Alice was brave and went through the whole spider-part of the exhibition. We got to see the venomous Australian redback spider for example. As always you can never escape from Linnaeus, and there was a picture of him an explanation of his systems. Even if I must say there was one mistake in the text; they wrote that he published Systema Naturae in 1758, missing that this is the 10th edition. The first one came in 1735. Alice continued a bit with science, while I, Lennart and Christina went to First people, the museum's exhibition of aboriginal history. It was a really fine exhibition where the history mainly was told by aboriginals themselves, and there was both artifacts, films, sounds, art-work etc. I felt I got better understanding of the aboriginal culture at least, and the story was not too simplified. There is always a risk with this kind of narrative that explanations are too simple and there is "a good and a bad side". Which in some ways there is of course, but it is never only that simple in my opinion. We did not have time to look at a special exhibition on Nelson Mandela, or watch a movie in the IMAX, but it was really worth going and it would be a pleasure to come back.

Royal Exhibition Building, next to Melbourne Museum

Shield to play on in the museum

The inescapable professor Carl Linnaeus

Australian animals

When we got on the tram we realized that last station was Docklands, so we decided to go there. Annika and Alice there did some more shopping, and had ice cream, while Lennart and Christina went for drinks on the New Quay. The docklands area has been refurbished and now has modern houses, bars, cafés and shopping centers. Rather typical for this kind of area, gentrified some would say. There is also a huge Ferris wheel, but it turned out to be rather expensive and we remained on the ground. All four ended up on the same tram back to Richmond, and after a GT drink we went for Japanese dinner. The place we meant to go to was closed but we found another one, in Bridge street called Maedaya. We had different small dishes and a Japanese BBQ, the kind where you fry thin bits of meet on a grill on the table. Really good, tonight too! It seems as if Richmond is a really good place to eat in, and prices are not very high. Tonight we for example paid 150 AUD for everything, all the dishes, beer, drinks, dessert and generous tip for 4 persons. Richmond may look a bit scruffy, and there are some homeless people begging outside Coles for example, but I really like the neighborhood so far!