Before heading into town on Wednesday, we all stopped at Breadtop, an Australian chain that serves oriental-style pastries. I really liked their coconut roll, which was similar to a cinnamon roll, but with coconut.

Our first destination in the city was the Melbourne Aquarium. Melbourne has an extensive tram network (similar to streetcars or trolleys here), so anytime we needed to go somewhere that wasn't within a block of a train station, we could hop on one of the frequently-running tram cars to get to where we were going. We took the train into Melbourne and then hopped on a tram to get the few blocks to the aquarium. We had to wait in line a few minutes and then buy tickets at $31.50 a person, which was the most we'd paid for an aquarium. The first thing we saw was the penguin exhibit. There were lots of Emperor Penguins that we (and lots of loud children) watched for a while. After that we proceeded through the rest of the aquarium, checking out the fish and other stuff they had. The jellyfish (called jellies there) were pretty neat as well. While the aquarium was cool, overall it was not one of the better values of the trip.

Feeding penguins on Vimeo.

Penguin swimming on Vimeo.

After the aquarium, we went back to Federation Square to have lunch at Tjanabi, which serves upscale contemporary Australian food. I had the house made sweet potato gnocchi with field mushroom and cream sauce. Lesley had the South Gippsland lamp shank slowly braised in red wine and vegetables with a touch of tomato. Fortunately their lunch prices are very reasonable and the food was pretty good. We then had little cupcakes again from Little Cupcakes for dessert.

At this time Sofia had to go to work for the rest of the day, so Adam went with us back to St. Paul's Cathedral. When we went before, they were doing some work on the interior, so we wanted to go back to take more photos, and Adam hadn't been there before, so we wanted to take him to see it.

We then headed back to the National Gallery of Victoria. We started by looking at the modern art where they had some pretty neat blown glass pieces. Adam had to leave at that time because he had an appointment to look an apartment, so Lesley and I stayed at the museum for a little while longer.

After we saw the stuff we were most interested in at the museum, we walked across the street to the Queen Victoria Gardens. We'd been really busy and immersed in the city since we arrived in Melbourne, so it was really nice to sit and relax at the park. We then walked to the Royal Botanic Gardens, an 87 acre park established in 1846. Since Australia uses the metric system, the park's area would be expressed as 36 hectares. We stopped to rest on the grass for a while and then continued walking through, stopped again near the pond, and leisurely explored the park for a while. After about an hour and a half relaxing at the park, we got a call from Adam (conveniently, the day after we arrived, he was issued a cell phone from work so he could leave us his personal phone and keep his work phone since our phones didn't work there) and decided to meet him at Federation Square.

Federation Square on Vimeo.

Once we met Adam at Federation Square, we hopped on a tram to go to dinner. We went to Yeah Maan, a Jamaican restaurant that Adam and Sofia had been to before. We started with the fries, which were pretty similar to regular french fries, but a little denser. They were pretty good. Lesley got some fish with fries and salad and Adam and I got the Jamaican Jerk chicken. It was a good dinner. Afterward, we walked to the train and headed back for the day.