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Melbourne.
The airport's not too far from the city, I think the four of us paid something like $50-60 total for a cab to St Kilda, the area where our hotel was located.
St Kilda itself is a great area to stay. It apparently used to have a bit of a rep as the Red Light district but now it's more of a laid-back Boho kind of a place. There's several strips worth of great bar/cafes, various eateries (including one kick-ass Russian joint, mmm borscht), and quirky little shops. I saw a couple of vegetarian restaurants too so no worries on that front.
It's on the seafront so there's a beach (which wasn't too packed when we went). Luna Park's an old school roller-coster park with a giant scary clown face for an entrance. Seriously, it looks like the Joker's trying to eat a street. The Esplanade Hotel on Ackland street does loads of live music (annoyingly I left the day before Juliette and the Licks were due to play).
It's about 40 minutes from St Kilda into the city centre by tram but the trams are very cheap (cabs aren't that expensive if you're in a hurry).
Melbourne's not a particularly hectic city. Everything seems to move at a slower pace than places like London or Sydney. It's nice to go for a wander along the banks of the Yarra river either up to the Botanical Gardens (something nearly every city in the country does really well). Federation Square's got some...interesting architecture and is not a bad place to arrange to meet people. There's also a lot of street art (sculpture of three weird, skinny men in business suits queing up at an actual traffic crossing for example).
I'm quite into my museums and galleries so took some time to have a mooch around the Victoria State Library which generally has a few exhibits running (one on the development of books throughout human civilisation started with a Sumerian cuniform tablet and ended with graphic novels, go geeks!).
I'm also a bit of a morbid fracker so did the Old Gaol as well. Phrenology, death masks, and general nastiness.
The big immigrant population in the city means there's a massive amount of different eateries to choose from. But for me the Greek restauarants were awesome.
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