January 14, 2020
Melbourne – How to Lose Yourself in 5 Days
In today’s frantic world where everyone and his aunt is in a hurry to get somewhere, or arrive and be noticed, the one constant is a perennial search: for identity, for time, for space, for oneself! But the interesting thing is that before you set out to find yourself, you first need to lose yourself...much like that story of the Zen master who taught that unless you empty your teacup, you’re not ready to receive more knowledge. In just five days, you’ll discover how to put this theory to practice even as you slough away the residual grime of your existence in the company of a city that promises to help visitors to ‘Get Lost’.
And no other city other than this, the ‘Cultural Capital’ of Australia, can offer you so many ways to lose yourself. From the celebrated lane-ways of downtown Melbourne that materialize like the magical Platform 93/4 in the Harry Potter stories (and promise you as many exotic enchantments), to the cantankerous old Trams; from the quaint markets that are literal Aladdin's caves stuffed with hidden treasure to the ubiquitous, yet outstanding Coffee that lubricates the wheels of Melbournians life; from the MCG, the spiritual home of Aussie sport, with its capacity for holding 100000 beer- filled Aussie Rules Football fans, to the quiet seclusion of the designer strips on the St Kilda beachside where you can watch the world pass by over a beer at the legendary Espy (Australian for The Esplanade) followed by a dalliance with sin at what’s claimed to be the world’s most delicious Chocolate Kooglhoupf at Monarch’s (so popular, it’s Fedexed across the world); from feeling Venetian on a gondola ride along the Yarra to feeling positively prehistoric as you serenade a Platypus from a canoe on a remote lake at the Otway National Park.....you’ll begin to understand why Melbourne has been rated the ‘world’s most livable city’ for consecutive years.
But hold your hats...Melbourne is not really a city. It’s a person, charming and fey and full of beans. She’s a happy schizophrenic who takes you on a seamless transition between the real and the imagined, between multiple personalities that co-exist in joyfully chaotic harmony: she offers you an experience that puts contrasting life-defining and life-altering moments into a blender and shakes it up into a surreal cocktail of newer truths.
One sip of this heady ambrosia and we guarantee you’re a goner. You’ll keep coming back, like an addict, for your regular fix of Melbourne”