sooyindotcom

17 September 2005

Today was hubby’s shopping day! My original plan was to go for another excursion to Mornington Peninsula, but less excursions meant more shopping money so we scrapped the idea! =) We spent the whole day exploring the shopping streets at the city centre, starting off at Collins Street and ending back up at Little Collins Street. Thank god for my Sketchers!

We also went to Suga, a shop famous for rock candy (you know those really really hard ones that have cute little fruit pics in the middle..?)! Just in time to see them make the rock candy, too! This time, they were making a peppermint candy with brown stripes for their sister company, Koko Black. While waiting for them to start, we were literally acting like kids in a candy store….but with our own money to spend! We bought $90 worth of candies and lollipops for friends and colleagues back home…the paper bag was so heavy that I was afraid it would tear and spill all our candies onto the pavement.

The rock candy making demo…well, it wasn’t really a demo since they were really making it, but nevermind…was fascinating! It’s amazing how they shaped the letters with strips of sugar, and how a short fat log of sugar could be pulled into long thin cylindrical strips! When they first poured the peppermint flavoured sugar on the table, the smell of peppermint filled the whole store…at first it smelt refreshing and nice, but in a few minutes, the smell became overpowering and it felt as if your nostrils have been cleared all the way up into your brain! Quite painful to inhale, actually! Luckily, the smell dissipated pretty soon, else our brains might have turned to mush from inhaling too much of the stinging pepperminty smell! Halfway through the demo, we walked to Koko Black (just a few doors down) to buy some chocolates. The loose chocolates were pretty expensive…the cheapest one I saw were $1 per piece! That’s almost RM3!!. I bought 5 pieces, one with hazelnuts, one with Earl Grey tea, two orange strips, and one orange segment that was half-dipped into chocolate. The orange segment was my absolute favourite…I wish I’d bought more! Chocolate shopping done, we went back to Suga…just in time to see them stretch the candy into thin strips. We managed to get a taste too! Very nice!

The smell of sugar and chocolate had gotten our appetites all revved up…so we left Suga and took a quick walk to Little Bourke Street. Hubby had a hankering for Vietnamese food…but we couldn’t seem to find any Vietnamese restaurants there! Along the way, we ducked into Maxim to buy some char siew buns, egg tarts and sponge cakes to eat later. As with Melbourne weather, the sky started looking all gloomy…and before we knew it…it was raining! We gave up our plans for Vietnamese noodles and quickly entered a Chinese restaurant that hubby had seen earlier. I didn’t like most of the stuff on the menu, but luckily, they had one of my perennial favourite, sweet and sour pork…which turned out to be sweet and sour batter with a little piece of pork thrown in to justify the name of the dish. Hmmppph.

Not surprisingly, the sun was shining brightly again after lunch, so we made our way back to Little Collins Street where hubby started his shopping spree. Actually, he spent most of his time in David Jones, while I just slumped on a nearby chair and played Jawbreaker on my phone…hehe…=) We also managed to visit the GPO Shopping Centre…how very very posh! By the time we, or rather, he, finished, it was nearing 5pm and most of the shops were starting to close. Hubby wanted to buy a PSP DVD that he saw in a game shop so we quickly walked down to Elizabeth Street where I left him browsing around while I went into a shop selling tea at the opposite junction. I spent quite some time there, smelling the tea leaves, looking at the lovely teapots and accessories. Finally, I decided to buy three different types of tea leaves…a Lemongrass and Ginger tea for my mum, a rooibos tea called Red, Green and Dreamy for hubby, and a honey tea (I absolutely love honey!) predicatably called Honey Honey for myself. The Lemongrass/Ginger tea had a really strong ginger smell, which I thought my mum would like since she likes ginger tea. The Red, Green and Dreamy is actually a green rooibos tea that has a fruity scent…it smelled so good…I hope it taste just as good when we brew it. Green rooibos tea has a high level of antioxidants and no caffeine…so it’s a really good tea to drink anytime of the day. My Honey Honey of course smelled of delicious sweet honey….=) I also picked up two mesh tea balls (to prevent the tea leaves from floating all over the tea pot), and two proper tea spoons. Oh yeah…the shop is called T2. Heh.

After we both made our respective purchases, we took a brisk walk back to the hotel and dumped all the shopping bags in the room and stuffed the char siew buns into our hungry mouths before proceeding to the Mont Blanc shop in Crown’s. Hubby was searching for a key chain and one of the ones in the Mont Blanc shop had caught his eye and he finally decided to buy it. We wandered into Prada after that…and guess what? They had loads and loads of key chains! Really nice ones too! The salesperson was really friendly, taking out the key chains from the display to let me play around with them. While we were chatting with him, we found out that he’s actually a Malaysian! He has spent seven years in Australia though…but misses the nasi kandar in M’sia. =)

We left the shop when it was about to close, and spent some time along the promenade where hubby tried taking some photos of the water droplets from the fountain. That done, we caught the tram to go for dinner at Thy Thy 1 which as situated along Victoria Street. Unfortunately, the tram that we had planned to take did not run on weekends…argh! Out came the map and the tram routes as we frantically tried to find a new route before the sky became too dark for us to read the maps. We were approached by three Melburnians, asking if we were lost, and if we needed any help. That’s the difference about these places…M’sians would’ve given you a stare and walked right past. We finally managed to find another tram that took us all the way to Victoria Parade, and almost right in front of Thy Thy 1! Unfortunately, all the trouble we took to reach there was for naught. No, the restaurant was open. It’s just that the food wasn’t all that good! It was really very disappointing, actually. Maybe I’ve become so accustomed to the Vietnamese restaurants in M’sia, that I’m just not used a different taste. Or maybe it just wasn’t nice…? Also, the weather was so cold that I was feeling rather sleepy and abit disorientated, and the noisy atmosphere of the restaurant didn’t help one bit. I was so glad when we finished dinner because that meant that I could get back to the hotel!

We were planning to watch Red Eye at the cinema in Crown the same night, but the timing wasn’t right, so we ended up walking back to our room. I took some time photo-documenting all our purchases for the day before showering and getting ready for bed. Tomorrow’s our St. Kilda beach trip…hopefully we can make some good last minute buys! =))

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

Want to give these places a try?

Thy Thy 1
142 Victoria Street, Richmond, Melbourne
Tel: 9429 1104

Suga
Shop 20, Royal Arcade, 335 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9663 5654
www.suga.com.au

Koko Black
Shop 4 Royal Arcade, 335 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9639 8911
www.kokoblack.com