[Another picture taken from http://www.tulipfestival.com.au/]

With so many rave reviews regarding the 53-year old event, and beautiful photographs to boot, I thought this festival would be worth checking out.

When it came to the flowers, it did not disappoint:

[One of the flowering beds]

[Hmmm, never knew a tulip would look like this inside]

[My uncle, whom I currently live with in Melbourne =)]

[Blue hyacinths]

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With regards to how the event was managed, it was a different story....

First off, the public transports.

It was an hour train ride from Melbourne Central to Lilydale. From the Lilydale station, one has to catch a shuttle bus (specially for the Tesselar Tulip Festival itself), which in turn took another 15 minutes or so. The trouble was, there were 100-odd people waiting for the public transport by the time Min, Uncle Hong and I got there....and guess what, only ONE bus comes every 30-minutes!! Imagine the ruckus ensued when not everyone could get into that vehicle. ><"

When we finally reached the tulip farm:

We saw TWO TERRIBLY LONG LINES at the entrance, much to our shock and horror. "Great, now we have to queue up for our tickets..." Despite the massive turnout, it was (thankfully) quick, and a good 10 minutes later, we got in.

And, when we had to have lunch:

Being the foodie that I am, I WAS MOST DISAPPOINTED. The theme of the day was "Dutch", and so a wide range of Dutch food was sold....which included: Poffertjes (mini Dutch pancakes with icing sugar), Oliebollen (traditional doughnuts), beef croquettes and Frikandellan (minced-meat hotdogs). So why was I most displeased by the variety of food available, you might ask. The reason was....

I COULDN'T EVEN TRY ANY OF THEM, AS THE QUEUES WERE SO FREAKISHLY LONG!!!! T_T

(and there was not much time for me to line up, as we planned to board the shuttle bus at 2.30pm)

I WANT THOSE PROFFERTJES!!! *wails*

Labels: Travel