Melbourne, Round 2: The Sights

Back to Melbourne I went for a follow-up visit to my trip in April.  David & Elcid were heading down for the weekend for a wedding, a co-worker would be there along with a good friend of hers that I’ve adopted as my own, and I really was itching to see more of the sights in Melbourne, so it seemed like the perfect time.  The first time Melbourne was tacked onto the end of a trip.  Tired and worn out, I did more relaxing than sightseeing.  I was determined not to let that happen again.  I put my tourist cap on (figuratively) and off I went!

I popped by the Jewish Museum of Australia to see how it compared with Sydney’s.  It had a generic display on Jewish religion, but had a nice section on the history of Jews in Australia.  There was also a special exhibition on Yiddish language down under.

The little old Jewish ladies at the museum took a liking to me real fast – wanting to know more and more about my background and why I came to Australia.  One of them took me on a tour of the St. Kilda Synagogue which was across the street from the museum.  But then their true colours came out as they got me to make a few purchases from their gift shop.  Sneaky old yentas!  I may or may not have purchased a kippah with a kangaroo and boomerang on it…

Next up for the political science nerd was a tour of Victoria’s Parliament:

The tour took us into Victoria’s House of Representatives:

Interestingly (if you’re a nerd like me), the Parliament of Victoria served as the Federal Parliament way back when Australia was a young, fledgling nation.  That really wasn’t that long ago…

I wandered around some parklands and stumbled upon a random JFK Memorial:

There was no other explanation as to why a random JFK Memorial was in a random park on the opposite side of the Earth, but I like that there’s a little bit of a connection to the USA.  Then I found the Dolphin Fountain:

And Olympic Park – home of the 1956 Summer Olympics:

But most of the time I was just checking out the architecture.  Some of the buildings in Melbourne are just cool looking, like these new skyscrapers below.  The one on the left is the second tallest residential tower in the Southern Hemisphere, and the fourth tallest in the world.

Then there are the crazy looking buildings:

That appears to look like slime on top.  And no, it was not Nickelodeon Studios.  Random.  And this colourful one below has little windmill-type things on top to help generate electricity.

Even the scaffolding on the buildings looks different!

And while I was looking up at all the buildings, I never forgot to look down every once in a while.  They like to give friendly reminders…

Note:  I merely walked by the baths inadvertently.  I did not go in.  I would never go in.  Bleh.

When all that walking around got me tired, I decided it would be good to slow down and take in the nice city views along the Yarra River:

Hey – what’s that thing in the foreground?

Is that a double-headed human lizard horse with winged intestines?!?!?

The public art is crazier than the architecture.  So strange.  I really like this place.