17 Jan 2010 Australian Open Tennis
We are in the Qantas CLUB FLIGHT DELAYED 45 MINS . No PROBLEM, ONLY A RELAXING DAY PLANNED FOR TODAY RAIN IN MELBOURNE HAS STOPPED PLAY ON ALL OUTSIDE COURTS. ( SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS, THEY ARE LOCKED ONMYONLY PHONE AND I DONTDON’T KNOW HOW TO TURN THEM OFF. ANY IPHONE GURU’S OUT THERE?)
18 Jan 2010 Melbourne for the Australian Open Tennis
After a very casual morning we eventually left home around 10am to go to the airport.
Got to the airport checked in and then found out our flight was delayed by about 3/4hr, so we had to suffer a little longer in the Qantas Club.
Flight was very uneventful, and we arrived in Melbourne about 2pm eastern time. Took ages for our luggage to come out, then grabbed a cab to the city and our accommodation in the Punt Hill Manhattan Apartments in Flinders Lane.
Check-in was a breeze and went to our room on the 7th Floor. We have an oblique view of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Rod Laver Arena, the rest of our view is pretty average backs of buildings.
After settling in we went out to get some supplies. On the way back Deb took me to the Sofitel on Collins St and up to the 35th floor to have a look at the view from the toilets, ceiling to floor windows with great views of Melbourne. At this point I should remind EVERYONE to make sure you pay attention to the drawing on the door to the toilets. Yes, there I was taking photos of the view from the window, luckily not interrupted by anyone. When I came out Deb showed me the sign on the door. I didn’t realise men in Melbourne wore dresses!! Takes all kinds I guess.
After we dropped our supplies back in our room, we went out to get the free City Circle Tram for a look around town. It was now that Melbourne decided to show us that it really does have 4 seasons in a day. It poured rain for about 5 mins, got pretty cold, then the wind picked up and it dried out and the sun actually popped out for a while. We eventually found a Tram stop hopped on the next tram to come by and took our seats.
It was then that we noticed that there was some sort of “Shoot” going on in the front of the tram. There was a tall very leggy model in a tight skimpy dress having many many pics taken of her. Some pics were just her in the tram and then some with a bag and then some with an “Elmo” doll. It was all a bit strange. I guess there must have been about 6 to 8 people in the photography crew.
They all got off at Flinders St Train Station, and we got off a couple of stops later. As we walked along we saw another grocery shop and made the most of it and finished getting our supplies for the week. We then took all the supplies back to our apartment before going back out to the Melbourne Press Club for dinner, or we thought we were.
Seems you have to book to eat in Melbourne, so we made a booking for Wednesday and set out to find our alternative restaurant, Dhaka, a highly rated Indian eatery. This was when the rain started again. Now, we didn’t have the address of the restaurant, but all was good, Deb said it was sort of a few streets in and around “this sort of area”. After we had gone a way, and had a bit of a look , asked some people and had been walking in the rain for a while without any success, I eventually got my phone out and “googled” the restaurant. It was in a very different part of town than we had been looking, so we compromised, and went to an Irish Pub for tea. I had a Chicken Parma and Deb had Fish and Chips and mushy peas (yum), all washed down with a Sav Blanc and a Coopers. We enjoy quirky pub eating, atmosphere is always great, food can be “interesting” and the company is always excellent.
After tea, we headed back to the apartment for a bit of tennis on the TV and a glass of Kahlua on ice. Its a hard life.
Comments
CAKEE Photos in toilets
Glad to see that taking a camera into the womens toilets didnt land you in any trouble 🙂
Looking forward to hearing about the Press Club.
Aiko is loving me being home all day! she couldnt know what was going on! what
is this lady doing lying around?? normally she’s in-out-in-out rush rush
rush……..
19 Jan 2010 Melbourne for Australian Open Tennis
We had a very lazy start to the day. We eventually left to go out and explore at around 10:30am.
Our aim was for Melbourne Zoo ( we joined Adelaide Zoo – for the Pandas and we are baby sitting Ella and Ethan much more this year – so we have free entry). On the way we walked through town to William St to get the 55 tram. It was really interesting. We discovered some of the famous Melbourne Alley/Laneway Graffiti Art ( many of the art works had tags on them, which spoilt them, but they were still very good ) and we were able to see up close many of the old building within Melbourne city. We have learnt on our travels to look up as you walk around the streets of a city, it’s amazing what treasures and unusual sights you see. Melbourne was no different, with many street level shops hiding beneath the beautiful facades of buildings of many years ago.
The Zoo was an easy tram ride, about 20 mins, and entry was a breeze with our Adelaide Zoo Member Passes, we managed to avoid the queues of peoples wanting to get in. Melbourne Zoo had an Asiatic Elephant born on 16 January. It weighed in at 110kg and the mother was in labour for about 3 days. After giving birth, the mother accidently trod on the baby, so they are watching the baby very closely to make sure all is well with it. They hope the baby will be out on display in a few weeks.
The zoo itself is very green and the enclosures the animals are kept in, in the main, are very good and offer the animals good space and habitat to live in. They have just opened a new seal and penguin display. It was very good, you could see the seal and penguins swimming underwater through glass walls and they also had an area of surging water and swim outs for the seals.
Our first call was to the giraffes, Debs favourite. We got there just in time to hear the end of a talk by one of the zoo keepers. While we were up and around the elephant area, we saw the head elephant keeper interviewed for TV. We stood behind the camera and listened to the interview and found out some amazing things about the birth and condition of the new baby elephant.
We had a bit of lunch there and then got the tram back into town and then back to our apartment to put our feet up and relax a bit before the tennis tonight.
The tennis draw to night for Rod Laver Arena is Lleyton Hewitt V’s Ricardo Hocevar ( a qualifier ranked 192) and Alica Molik V’s Julie Coin (Fra), so we have some good tennis to see. Our plan is to also have a walk around the outside courts while we are here to see other matches and maybe see some of the highly ranked players practicing.
After a cheese platter for an early tea, we headed off over to Rod Laver Arena at 5:40 and got there about 5 to 6, a nice easy walk.
We spent the next 50 minutes or so walking around the back courts and watching bits and pieces of games on a variety of courts, just to get into the feel of the event.
Today was the biggest day crowd ever to attend the Australian Open Tennis, with more than 45000 people through the gates.
We had great seats , 3 from the front and between the service line and the base line on the northern end of the court on the opposite side to the umpire. About 12 seats around from the players box for both the Hewitt and Molik “teams”.
The Hewitt match was great, although the scores don’t indicate it at 6-1, 6-2, 6-3. Hewitt seems to be on his A game. Alica Molik let her game get away from her, she had a chance to win it in 2 sets , but finished losing in 3 sets to Coin from France.
The crowd was amazing, “The Fanatics” were great to have in the stadium. They got the crowd going and the umpires and players all enjoyed their antics. They managed to get the SLOWEST Mexican Wave in history to make its way twice around the Arena, it was so funny!! Between that and jokes about Tiger Woods and Susan Boyle amongst others, they were great entertainment and a bonus to the Open experience.
Play for the night eventually finished at about 11:45 and we were back in our apartment by mid-night.
Great games tomorrow for us, we have Svetlana Kuznetsova, Kim Clijsters and Rafael Nadal. (try them all on spell checker!!)
Bring it on
20 Jan 2010 Melbourne and the Australian Open Tennis
A slow start to the day for us this morning after a late night last night. Our expectations for the tennis today are very high after last night and the line-up for today’s play.
We left our apartment at 10:30 and were at the Arena and seated by 10:50.
The first match was between 2 Russian grunters, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova! Svetlana Kuznetsova won both the tennis and grunting easily in 2 sets 6-2 6-2. We were most impressed with her double grunt, one before and one after hitting the ball!
Kim Clijsters was way too good for her Thai opponent, Tamarine Tanasugarn, winning 6-3 6-3.
Rafael Nadal had an easy match against Lukas Lacko, winning 6-2 6-2 6-2.
Our seats were about 10 seats up from courtside, and right on the Melbourne end service line.
After the first match it started to get really hot, especially when the cloud burnt off. Deb moved to the shaded area just around from us. She sat in the “Press” area. It wasn’t long before she noticed she was the only one applauding, so she quickly made like one of the locals. I moved around to be with her after the Rafa game started, got too hot for me. After a while a security guy asked us for our Press passes, so we reluctantly moved, but as luck had it he did us a favour and we found much better seats closer to the action. We were given the tip to move seats if we got too hot from friends we met in Morocco, and we are so glad we did, thanks Jo.
The best of the crowd interjections for the day were:
“Hey Rafa, fix ya wedgy!”, and he did LOL
“Rafa, will you marry me”, to which he gave a thumbs up, and a roar from the crowd
But the best of the day was
“Hey Rafa, will you have my baby” to which he gave a thumbs up and a big smile, and got a big cheer from the crowd.
On the way back to our apartment we both commented on the lack of atmosphere today. We figured it was mainly due to the lack of presence of “The Fanatics”. They add so much to the overall experience. And I guess 3 walk-overs and no Australians involved added to it a bit as well.
We are having a bit of a cool down this afternoon before dinner at the Melbourne Press Club, its head chef, is George from Master Chef. So it should be interesting.
We ate in the bar rather than the restaurant proper. (Probably 1/3 of the cost) It’s very narrow with a bar on one side and tables on the other. Very busy when we were there, and as a consequence pretty loud, but manageable.
We started with Stuffed Zucchini Flower and a Fried Haloumi with Peppered Figs, we both agreed the Zucchini won, so tasty. Then for mains I had an Open Lamb Souvlaki and Deb had Calamari, both were very yummy. Mains were a draw, if a Greek couldn’t cook these two meals to perfection there was going to be something very wrong.
After dinner we retired back to the apartment to watch the tennis, go figure huh!!
We explore more of Melbourne tomorrow day and then Rod Laver Arena tomorrow night. The matches are Roger Federer V’s Victor Hanescu and then Karolina Sprem V’s Casey Dellacqua (Aust).
It should be another good night.
21 Jan 2010 Melbourne and the Australian Open Tennis
We have tennis tonight so this morning we spent a bit of time walking around Melbourne taking in a few sites and doing the sort of thing we do when we are in an overseas city.
First thing was to go and have a look at St Patricks Cathedral. The church is out behind parliament House and is Gothic in design and was built in the mid 1800’s from what we could see. It has some very well kept gardens surrounding and the exterior shows the signs of years of grime build-up from the city air. Inside it has a vast ceiling and a very open feel and isn’t overly ornate. It has been said that this is a place of quiet refuge in the city, a place where you can sit and reflect away from the bustle and noise, and that is exactly what we found. A beautiful old church, not overly ornate, but with some really interesting features, like carved angels looking down on you from the ceiling, a series of horns poking out between the organ pipes and a beautiful stained glass window on the northern wing.
From there we walked down past the Windsor Hotel, a grand old world style hotel, past Parliament House and then down Bourke St. There are so many old buildings (maybe just the facades, but at least some of the history is being maintained) within Melbourne. We walked as far as Elizabeth St, calling into a Scots Church, (very Scottish in its own way), and then we sat in the “Mingary”(Gaelic for “quiet Place”) a quiet refuge in the middle of the city set up as a place for reflection. Good thought but we didn’t feel it. After there we walked a bit more and then through the arcades of “The Block” and its intricately designed mosaic floors, took photos for you Von. We then walked to St Pauls Cathedral. Its a very different building to St Patricks. The inside is very busy, with a patchwork of black and white stonework, very dark wood and lots of dedication plaques. As we always do, in both St Patricks and St Pauls, we lit candles for all our family and friends, keeping you all in our thoughts and putting good karma out there for you all.
We then went over the road to Flinders St Station, a magnificent looking building from the outside that looses all character once you walk inside, a bit disappointing really! We then crossed the road to Federation Square. An interesting public space, that is used by many locals to sit chat drink and eat. The buildings surrounding the Square are all more like sculptures than buildings. From there it is a short walk down to the Yarra where we saw many rowing boats out on the water, from single sculls to eights, it was good to see so much activity on the water.
We followed the river for a while and then walked back to our apartment along Batman Ave. We grabbed some lunch from The Press Club and then went back to get a few things ready for our departure tomorrow.
Our evening session today was delayed a bit due to the Djokovic V’s Chiudielli, Samantha Stosur V’s Kristina Barrois and Lleyton Hewitt’s game against Donald Young finishing late. But it was good results for Australia as Lleyton and Samantha both won and are through to the 3rd round.
Our first match for the night was Roger Federer V’s Victor Hanescu. Federer was doing it very easy until the 3rd set when there was a surprise guest to Rod Laver arena. Prince William entered the arena to a thunderous applause and cheering. It seemed to lift the Romanian. Although the scores don’t indicate it, 6 – 2 in the 3rd, he made Federer fight for every game, taking many of them to deuce. We had seats up FF row up top and it was pretty warm, so at the first opportunity during the Karolina Sprem V’s Casey Dellacqua (Aust) match, at Deb’s insistence, we moved over to the good seats down below the press area. We finished up in row B seats 260 and 261, just up and across an aisle from Gary Lyon (of the AFL Footy Show fame). In front of us were two of the most hilariously drunk young guys we have seen for a long time. Deb, myself and Gary Lyon were in stitches of laughter with their antics. At one point they both brushed their teeth, tooth paste and all, but they had to share the tooth brush. Even the press photographers on court seemed more interested in the antics of these two than the match, about half of the cameras were focused on these guys at one point. Eventually they were asked to leave by security, they couldn’t understand why they were asked to move, but did so quietly anyway.
A little way into the Dellacqua game the Prince returned and watched the game until half way through the 2nd set, when he and half the VIP section got up and left.
Anyway, Casey Dellaqua eventually won her game 7-6 and 7-6. It was a great game, very tense to the end, Spren seemed to be fighting off cramps for the last 3 games or so of the match.
All up our Australian Open experience has been amazing. The tennis has been exceptional, either in the fight in the matches or in the skill of the players. The top players really are class acts compared to the others. And TV really doesn’t do the game justice, the speed and agility of the players doesn’t come through as it should. Anyway, I am sure we will be back for more in the future.
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