The Days of a Silly and Ordinary Girl! :D

Puffing Billy is Australia's preserved steam railway and has been operating since the early 1900s. As one of Melbourne's major tourist attractions in the present, this century-old steam train was first constructed to open up remote areas in Victoria, running from Belgrave to Gembrook, crossing over the timber Monbulk Creek Trestle Bridge and making its way through the lush rainforest of the Dandenong ranges. 

First of all, we chose to ride on the second car after the locomotive, as we thought maybe we'd get better views and the car wouldn't have much 'turbulence'. However,  we realised later that it probably wasn't the best idea after all. We didn't realise it at first but on our return trip back to Belgrave, we noticed that there were bits of either coal or burnt wood on our laps. (Steam engines work by burning coal or wood to heat a boiler that is partially filled with water. - azcentral) And either the smoke or the pieces of coal/wood blacken some parts of our faces too, *imagine the faces of mechanics or blacksmiths after working in the workshop, but a lot less black for us. I don't know whether it would be the same or not if you're sitting in the cars far behind the locomotive. Yet I still think it's wiser to avoid the front cars if possible.

Secondly, the steam train was a good 'first-time' experience for me. That being said, I had some fun, and I did enjoy my ride to some point, especially when we're passing through the nature, also the slight nervous feeling when we're moving through the timber bridge. It was fun enough. But I don't think I would want to ride it for the second time. We enjoyed the first hour, we stood up and we marveled at the lush surrounding along the way, but for the remaining two hours, we literally just sat down and chit-chatted. BUT, it might be a whole different experience for families. We had seen some families with children on the ride, and the kids loved it so much. 

Back in the town centre, we had our dinner at a Chinchin, a famous Thai/Asian fusion restaurant in the CBD area which is just one block away from our hotel. There's a queue in front of it, and we had to wait for around 30 minutes to be seated in the bar, I don't know how much longer we should wait if we insisted on waiting for a table, cause there were so much crowd! 

Unfortunately, as the lighting in the restaurant was very very dim, no pictures of the dishes that I took would do them any justice. I tried to tone up the brightness but meh, they didn't look appetizing at all. So I chose not to upload any. You should have a try of the foods yourself, and you'll know what I mean. :P