Melbourne - Aussie Adventure Part 3

We arrived in Melbourne on September 21st, with minimal plans for this leg of the trip.  I had several restaurant recommendations from my new co-worker who had just moved to New York from Melbourne, so we thought we'd try one of those.  Many of them looked a bit pretentious and I was in the travel-tired mode and didn't really want to gussy up so much.  We identified one that was more on the casual side and relatively close to the hotel, so we wandered over there.  Unfortunately, it had over an hour wait to get in, and I was hungry and not really keen on waiting.  So we continued wandering around the downtown area and stumbled upon a place that was probably more our speed anyways: a video-game themed burger joint called 8bit.  We munched on delicious burgers and smothered fries, washing it all down with Nutella shakes.  Our first taste of Melbourne made a great first impression, to say the least! 

We wandered around a bit more, finding lots of graffiti which the locals seemed to appreciate, calling it "art" and taking pictures of it.  One particularly disturbing work featured America's new Idiot-in-Chief Donald Trump in an awkward position with a dumbfounded look on his face. 

We went to a mall in search of a KitKat Chocolatory - we had learned on our trip to Japan that Asia has some amazing KitKat flavors, and we had been finding Japanese KitKats in conveniences stores in Australia, and also some really good Australia KitKats.  Much like the KitKat Chocolatory we had found in Tokyo, the one in Melbourne featured really fancy KitKats and didn't really have the "normal" packs we were looking for.  I bought a couple small packs of fun flavors, and we got to sample a normal Australian KitKat (which is notably much thicker than an American KitKat).  We also played with the KitKat computer that allowed you to customize your KitKats, but didn't actually purchase anything through it. 
Back at the hotel, we decided on booking the brewery tour I had had in mind for our Melbourne excursion - it was a tour of the Carlton & United Brewery which makes Fosters, several local favorites (similar to America's Budweiser).  Then we called it a night, and got some much-needed rest. 

The next morning, we satisfied Jaiman's quest for great donuts at Shortstop Coffee & Donuts.  They had a number of unique flavors, many mimicking tea flavors like Early Grey and Green Tea. 

We were to meet for the brewery tour at 12:30 at Federation Square, a neat little area with museums and foodie places.  So until then, we did a lot more walking around town, first finding a street fair selling all sorts of Australian souvenirs and various other goods.  We found some neat Australian jerserys for cheap, and bought those.  As we walked around, I was struck by a lot of juxtapositions: the flashy, modern new buildings next to old world English-looking pubs and hotels; business-types in suits walking through graffiti-covered streets; and fancy English names for things alongside sillier-sounding Australia slang.  I even took this great picture of a business-type getting his shoes shined in one of the most decorated graffiti alley we saw - it was an alley in which, based on the behavior of the dozens of people walking through it, you'd think we were in the Guggenheim.  People were stopping and pausing in front of every four-foot expanse of graffiti as if pondering and appreciating the artist work, and taking pictures of just about every angle possible.  I honestly wasn't sure what to make of it.  For lunch, we found a seriously legit Japanese ramen place - greeted with the traditional Japanese greeting as we entered.  The bowls were ginormous and delicious, and we were full and happy by the end of our stay at Shujinko Russel.

We made our way to the Federation Square area with plenty of time still before the tour pickup.  Seeing an interesting-looking exhibition, we wandered into the little museum.  It was all about swimming pools, talking about the symbolism of bringing the community together and learning how to share.  My favorite quote in the exhibition was from Paul Kelly: "As you move through life, it seems to be like a series of steps into deeper and deeper water.  What comes along in life are the things that we don't know.  The things that everyone goes through but are not known until you do it yourself.  The loss of a parent, the birth of a child, the beginning of love, or the end of love.  All those things.  You don't know them until they happen to you.  It's all deep water when you get there."  After going through the exhibit, we perused the book store and I found a lot of interesting-looking books. 

Finally, it was time to load onto the Carlton Brewhouse bus and head over to the brewery.  It was incredibly interesting to see how a massive brewery like this one operates; before this trip I had only toured small craft breweries.  I think it's neat when tours include a chance to taste the raw ingredients, and I've tasted the grains and burnt grains before.  A first-time for me was being encouraged to try the hops - not the raw hops of course, I knew that wasn't a good thing to do.  Instead, they passed around the raw hops to smell, and then passed around the pelletized hops and encouraged us to take the tiniest of bites of a pellet.  Skeptical, I wanted to give it a try, and sure enough, the bitter hop flavor enveloped my mouth instantly.  It was definitely too much, but hey, they had water to wash out the awful flavor, and beer would soon follow.  And follow it did - after we checked out the mesmerizing bottling operations, we were guided back to the main tasting room where we were treated to several samples of the freshly-made local beer.  We learned that this brewery also was responsible for making the local version of import beers such as Stella Artois, so naturally, I had to try it to see if it tasted the same.  We got some wings to go with our beer samples, and the wings were pretty darn good too.  My favorite beer was the Wild Yak, and I would later try other Yak beers because of my experience at the brewery, but Wild Yak remained my favorite.  All in all, a great tour experience I would highly recommend to beer lovers!  We had a few minutes in the gift shop before the shuttle left, and Jaiman found an awesome Yak shirt there. 

It was admittedly a bit early for dinner, but we did want to try Taxi Kitchen on my colleague's recommendation, so we dilly-dallied around Federation Square for a bit, finding a strange little room tucked away in a corner of an otherwise open public area - it was meant to be like a little family room, and was decorated with slightly retro furniture and homely décor, with a small book case and various places to sit and read or recharge.  We took a break here, charging up our phones and enjoying the little piece of serenity in the middle of a bustling city.  Then we made our way over to Taxi Kitchen.  I guess it was still far too fancy for us - we immediately felt judged by the host, who asked if we had seen the menu online, implying that this wasn't our kind of place.  Whatever dude, just seat us.  We got high-top seats overlooking a busy part of the city and just ordered one plate to share between us.  While watching the city, we saw a few people with Free Hugs shirts hugging willing passersby, and other similarly entertaining people watching.  The food was, as predicted, weird, and also not very filling, so we moved on quickly. 

Jaiman had been eyeing some sushi places that had the sushi already made and sitting in the window, visible from the street - and the rolls were HUGE!  He opted to get some of those for dinner, and I opted to try some wings from the place near our hotel.  I had noticed that the "footy" championship was this weekend, so we got our eats to go and unwound in the hotel room watching "footy" and eating our respective dinners.  As a foodie's haven, Melbourne did not disappoint! 

The following day, we went to another mall and toured around the city a bit more before catching a taxi to the airport and heading on to our next destination - Cairns! 

Capsule Hotel - Brilliant or Terrifying?

A lot of people said I was crazy when I told them I'd be staying in a capsule hotel as part of my life list achieving trip to Japan. Now that I've done it, I can authoritatively say that it is awesome, and incredibly practical, and not weird or scary at all. Where else can you walk around with no shoes, in your pjs, and have draft beer served to you for less than $2 a glass? Add to that the fact that you can do your laundry in this place and have a reasonably priced meal (my meal was 600 yen, which is less than $6) served to you while watching TV, charging your phone and/or working on your laptop. And when you're done lounging around, you tuck yourself into your very own cozy little bed. 

Consider this: if you're staying in a hotel with friends or several adult family members, you're sharing one bathroom and maybe sharing beds. You fight over the few plugs, and maybe someone wants to watch TV while someone else wants quiet to read. Not to call anyone out or anything, but my sister has to fall asleep with the TV on, but that's too much stimulation for me so I usually have to wait until she's asleep so I can turn it off, or for the sleep timer to kill it (unless I'm completely exhausted, in which case I could fall asleep at a rock concert). I think capsule hotels are ideal for this type of travel, because there are dozens of (really high tech) toilets and showers to share, you have a general hang out place to eat, unwind and recharge, and your own private space for watching TV or reading or whatever else.

I think capsules are only weird because they are novel; the idea of sleeping in something like a drawer conjures notions of coffins and dead bodies at the morgue. But not once did I feel like I was in a tight enclosure or suffocating or anything like that. I didn't panic when I woke up, and I didn't smack into a wall or bang my head on the ceiling. Even though the pjs provided didn't fit, I felt perfectly sized for the capsule; if anything, I felt I had more room than needed (at least in width).

One of the few drawbacks I see are that you don't have a permanent place to lay your things out. Even if you are staying multiple nights, your capsule assignment changes everyday. In retrospect, that's not necessarily a bad thing; it forces you to pack lightly and stay organized. But still, I know I like to spread out when I travel, so I consider it a drawback.

I did think it was a little odd that the hallway lights were never turned off or even dimmed, and the curtain in the capsule helped significantly, but did not make the capsule completely dark.  Maybe that's by design, I can't say for sure, but if you need absolute dark to sleep, you may have trouble in a capsule.

For those who are taller than me, a capsule may be a little cramped. When I was laying down stretched out, my feet could graze the dividing curtain. I generally sleep in my side with my legs bent, so it wasn't a problem for me. But I would definitely caution anyone taller than 5' 8", especially if you sleep on your back.

The only major drawback I see is that there is no space to cuddle up with a significant other. The chairs in the lounge are all individual seats, and even if you could squeeze into a cuddly position, it wouldn't feel appropriate. I imagine a world where capsule hotels are the norm, and in that world, there would be specialized floors, like double-wide capsules on coed floors, and that would solve the problem instantly.

All in all, I think if I were traveling with a group of friends, and capsule hotels were an option, I would strongly advocate for them over traditional hotels. They are super practical, very inexpensive, and I am absolutely in love with the casual lounge concept. I can honestly say I didn't really want to leave, and I would recommend a stay at my capsule hotel to anyone who is not afraid of challenging the norm.

If I've persuaded you to try out capsule hotels, please note that most capsule hotels are for men only.  The one I found that had just one floor for women is called Shinjuku Kuyakushomae Capsule Hotel.  Perhaps because there is just one floor for women, it seemed to sell out in advance, so be sure to book early if you are a woman.  The hotel had free cancellation on Travelocity, so it doesn't hurt to book it that way even if you're not perfectly clear on your travel plans, as long as you cancel with two days notice if your plans don't work out. 

2019 Update: Comparing and Contrasting Capsule Hotels




Here are some additional pictures from the capsule hotel!