I arrived in Melbourne at 8 pm. I took the Skybus to the CBD, another shuttle bus dropped me off the hostel Urban Accomodation in Southbank. Now I had the hostel / backpacker feeling again – which I hadn’t had for a long time. 🙂
In general the hostel was not too bad and quite clean. I even met a nice girl from Hungary, we enjoyed breakfast and dinner (pasta with tomato sauce) together and also spent one day walking around in St. Kilda, the famous beachside of Melbourne. The Yarra River and the Crown Casino were really close and even the CBD was within easy walking distance. Being in the Crown Casino makes you feel like being in Las Vegas.
The first days I spent mainly walking around the greater CBD area and exploring the famous laneways of Melbourne. A walk to the famous and very impressive Shrine of Remembrance was also included.
After four nights I changed my accomodation and moved into an AirBnB in Princes Hill not too far from Lygon Street and Melbourne Uni. From there I explored the University and the surroundings again. I recognised a lot of places again from my time in Melbourne in 2010 when I had attended a Summer Film School at the Melbourne Uni.
A visit to the ACMI, the film museum of Melbourne, was of course mandatory, too. Really one of the best museums if you’re interested in film. There is so much so see and explore from technical equipment to trivia and facts about famous movies. And a lot of gear can actually be tried out. The have a lot of really old school computer and arcade video games from the 80’s & 90’s and you can just grab the controller and give it a try. That was really fun!
Another cool thing is the replica of the original car from the Mad Max movie.
And last but not least they still have the Matrix camera installation they already had eight years ago. Within a cubicle there are quite a number of cameras installed and distributed over 360 degrees. You push a button and after the third tone you make a crazy jump or move. A short video is recorded which you can see on a screen outside the cubicle and you can even email the link to you. Unfortunately the format is Flash which is a bit outdated.
