Jae Min: This is pretty nice!

My first impressions of Melbourne?

B I G
ARTSY
🚋 TRAMS 🚋

It truly was an eye-opening experience. From the first steps into the university I knew that this exchange would be a wild ride. Of course, with the occasional lockdowns, we really had to make the most of each day of freedom! Every other day I made sure to visit some of Melbourne’s esteemed monuments, landmarks, and national parks.

First thing’s first though, gotta get settled in.
K-Mart and Woolies (short for Woolworths, which looks suspiciously like Countdown…) were a regular trip I found myself going to in the first few days! Who knew there were so many things to buy when you settle in to a new place! Everything from a kettle to clothes-hangers we had to buy!! [Luckily I bought my own rice cooker though 🙈]

We were granted a 5-km radius circle around our home where we were allowed to exercise and buy groceries during the lockdown, so we made the most of it! Luckily we lived pretty close to the CBD, which in itself is very close to a lot of national landmarks, and houses many interesting places.

The Queen Victoria Market was like your typical farmers market, but like 15x the size. Pretty cheap too – if you find the right vendors 😉 The food here is pretty good! Though, I have yet to truly come across something that I wish we had back in Aotearoa.

What I really like about Melbourne is that there are such interesting artworks and details in every nook and cranny, corner and roundabout! Everything from different paintings and sculptures really make the city pop, and makes even a standard walk down the road a unique and photo-worthy experience.

I had a couple of walks through the Melbourne Uni campus and honestly it’s so big! I have had to take multiple trips and it felt like I was only scratching the surface of what there really is to see here.
I’m pretty sure there’s a word limit for this blog, but a picture is worth a thousand words! So here are some pictures from my journey thus far 😉