Day 8 technically began while I was awake, an hour after boarding my flight from Bangalore to Singapore. This will beget a five hour layover in Singapore (sadly from 6am - 11am - not really giving me any chance to do anything), and then a flight from Singapore to Melbourne. This ironically is quite similar to how I went to Melbourne the first time in 2013, that too was a flight first from India to Singapore and then to Melbourne. That time, I came from Mumbai, and also had nearly a day layover in Singapore (it was a double redeye booking). If anything, the flights were better scheduled and sequenced this time.
I've flown Singapore Airlines a lot, but after spoiling myself in business class the last two times (return flights from my 2022 Korea and 2023 Japan trips), and the three prior in Premium Economy (all iterations of EWR-SIN), I had to slum myself back to economy. Luckily, few economy experiences are better than Singapore's finely tuned perfection. Also helped that I got the "poor man's business class" with the seat next to me empty on both legs. Couple that with the fact they give a super comfortable blanket, and a seat that reclines ridiculously far for economy, and I had about as good an experience as I could have hoped for.
The first flight is 4.5 hrs, which means by the time they finish meal service and put the lights out, only about 2.5 hrs were left. This wasn't really an issue - I wasn't too sleepy anyway, and the food was good (a nice lamb biryani main, paired with a really nice wine). The movie selection was nice, though decided to check out Gone Girl for the first time in a while. Anyway, I enjoyed my brief sleep, before I enjoyed a real (partial) sleep.
Changi Airport is many things, all of them great, but one of their underrated aspects is how quiet it is and how empty it feels despite how continually busy it is. I got to the KrisFlyer Gold Lounge, tucked away in a corner, put my face-mask on and went to sleep for a solid 2.5 hours more. When I woke up, the lounge was no more busy than it was when I went to sleep, but now with the sun out there was a great view of the various Singapore widebodies below. From the lounge, I took a quick trip through the Butterfly Garden, a peruse through the duty free, and before I knew it I was boarding my flight to Melbourne.
The prior time I flew to Melbourne, it was on the A380, and I scored an upstairs seat as one of Singapore's configurations had upstairs economy. This time, it was on a B777-300ER, which was showing a bit of wear (at least compared to the far newers A350-1000 that I flew on the BLR-SIN route), but again, the food was excellent (beef rendang nasi lemak), the wine even better, the movies good (watched The Last Duel for the first time), and coupling in a bit of sleep, before i knew it we were landing in Melbourne - the flight taking a quick 6:45 (which is odd, since I swear the flight was closer to 7:30 - 8hrs in 2013...).
In 2013, I was accosted by immigration, being asked more prying questions ("How did you pay for your ticket?") than ever before. This time, I sailed through without worry, and met my Aunt and cousin about 40 minutes after deplaning in the beautiful, crisp Melbourne winter weather. A quick dinner and a few drinks at their house, with those two, my Uncle and other cousin, and it seemed I went from one sleep to the next, settling in at 1am before the start of, to some degree, the real vacation.
Day 9 - The Wine of it All
When I came to Melbourne in 2013, I did most of the touristy things. Grant it, there isn't endless touristy stuff to do in Melbourne. It is a great city to live (cost of living for locals aside). It often ranks super high in list of best cities to live. It doesn't rank so high in best cities to visit. But that doesn't mean there is no tourism, but the main things I did last time. Including a day in the Yarra Valley visiting a few wineries. Well, it seems the difference between visiting Melbourne and living in Melbourne is this time we went to the Mornington Peninsula to the Southeast of teh city, to the Red Hill wine region. This is the area the locals come.
The day started first with a quick trip to my cousin Lisa's new place, which is a lovely three-bedroom in the Carnegie suburb of Melbourne. From there, we headed towards the Peninsula, and the brilliant views of Melbourne's and Victoria's landscape started in earnest. the rolling hills, the lush greenery, the picture perfect bleu sky (which apparently has been a rarity in recent weeks). It all combined to something beautiful.
The first winery we went to was Montalto where we did a full tasting (8 pours, though will say Australia is a bit light on the tasting pours). They were all quite good, including for me especially a Shiraz and a Pinot Grigio. The landscape was immaculate, made better by it moonlighting as a sculpture garden as well. The land was gorgeous. But as their menu was a bit normy - see: charcuterie, sliders, brick-oven pizzas (which admittedly did look good), we went to another winery with a far more eclectic menu. If anything, it was more a restaurant that happened to have a beautiful winery around.
The RareHare winery is relatively new (<10 years) but garnered a lot of praise for both the beautifully manicured grounds, but also the food. The menu reads like a great small plates style spot, and ate like it too. From one of teh better soft shell crab disehs I've ever had, to a really nice tune tartare, to a really interesting malaysian-style deep fried barramundi wing (oddly named a "barra wing" which I thought meant some interesting chicken wings preparation). The food was divine. The grounds were great. Overall, the time in the Red Hill area was well worth the trip, the last bit of fortune being a nice drive up the coast back towards Melbourne past a series of lovely little towns.
The other highlight of the day was sport - Melbourne's other love, where I took in a footy game. It is the last week of the AFL Regular Season, and my cousin's favorite team, Essendon, is having a rough year (which has been their norm for a while now). Their opponent as well. The game meant nothing in that sense, and for that reason the MCG was only half full (meaning 50k attendance instead of 100k), but still I loved it. First off, I just really like the game - the strategy, the action, with it being this great combination of soccer and NFL. There was less hitting than I remember, but part of that might be due to Essendon chasing their better opponents around often and not catching them on their way to a fairly easy loss.
Despite the outcome, the vibes were great. At halftime, we went to the MCG Members area to check out of a couple of the inside bars, which were well attended. The atmosphere is just great, as is the little bits of history littered aroudn the stadium in various plaques, statues, paintings, etc., of the legends gone by (more cricket focus than AFL, admittedly). I took a tour of the MCG on my prior trip, but this was my first time actually getting a game in the stadium, and it was a treat. A perfect way to end a first full day in Australia.
