sooyindotcom

19 September 2005

It was inevitable…going home. This is the part I hate the most about vacations…leaving! For the first time in the past six days, I had to drag myself out of bed. I wasn’t looking forward to going home one bit (well, ok…to be honest, I was looking forward to BEING home, but not the journey to get there), and I knew the rest of the day would just be really draggy and sian.

After we finished packing the rest of our stuff, we went downstairs to Cafe Greco (the one with the no-photos-please woman) for breakfast. Our last bacon and eggs (again!). We both ordered the poached eggs in Hollandaise sauce with bacon and toast…my my, I don’t know if it’s the knowledge that it’s the last time we’ll probably have pork bacon in a restaurant…hehe…or that we probably won’t get to enjoy such a lovely breakfast in such lovely weather for a long long time…but brekkie was great. I could go on and on raving about the Hollandaise sauce…it was light yet creamy, a little salty…*swoon*. It went perfectly well with the toast.

We had about an hour to spare before checking out, but with nowhere else to go, we ended up back in our room where I actually fell back asleep! Somehow, a full tummy and cold weather does that to you…=) Even though hubby had called for the bell-boy, it took so long for him to arrive that in the end, we decided to lug our suitcases down ourselves. Hubby went to check us out, after which, we got into a cab and headed to the airport. *sniff*

We had originally planned to check-in two of our luggages, and carry my blue Lojel suitcase (full of Suga lollies and Koko Black chocs and my precious iBook) as well as my Elle duffel bag as hand luggages. We actually exceeded the weight limit of 20kg per person…luckily the guy didn’t say anything…we were keeping our fingers crossed! Just as I thought we were scot-free, he asked if we were hand-carrying the rest, to which we replied in the affirmative.

“Well, if you could just pop the blue one on the scales for me, please?” (That’s another thing that I like about gwailos…they are unfailingly polite. Our local officers would’ve just said “Angkat. Angkat tu biru punya. Cepat. Letak sini.” - translation: “Bring. Bring that blue one. Quick. Put here.” And I’m not kidding.)

I looked at hubby. Hubby looked at me. Hubby lifted the blue suitcase onto the scale…and it read 10kg. Oops.

“I’m afraid you will have to check that in. The maximum we can allow is 7kg”.

Darn. I knew I should’ve split the weight evenly between the duffel bag (which was really light) and this one.

“But we have rock candy in there…won’t it break? Those are gifts…(open eyes as big as possible and try to inject Bambi-just-lost-his-mother look)…”

…which only resulted in a ‘Fragile’ sticker being slapped onto my luggage. Oh well. I took my precious laptop out of the bag first, and the nice man found me a canvas bag to carry it around. Luckily we could still carry the Elle bag onto the plane…it contained two pairs of heart-shaped tea cups!

We decided to go through the immigration counters into the boarding area straightaway and search for a place to eat there. BIG HUGE MISTAKE. There was literally nothing to eat in there! Nada! Zilch! Well, ok, there was a Starbucks. And a juice counter. And some really sad and sorry-looking sandwiches. Other than that…a book shop, duty free, and hmmm….yup. That was about it. We ended up having beef pie (hubby) and BLT sandwich (me) at Starbucks, afterwhich we hopped over to the juice bar to get some smoothies. I also bought a blueberry muffin and a fruit salad to eat on the plane…just-in-frickin’-case the steward tells me that I should’ve requested for a white-meat-only meal again…=) Oh yeah…hubby and his carry-on bags got searched for bombs or something…it’s apparently some random thingy and he got picked so I had to wait while they used this detector thingy to scan through his Tumi and my Elle duffel bag.

We had about one hour to go before we could board the plane, so I whipped out my iBook and started drafting the entries to my Melbourne ’series’ (thanks, Audi TT for coming up with that!) while hubby tried hard to finish another chapter of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. Oh…didn’t I mention it? He brought the whole hardcover book all the way to Melbourne and tried reading a chapter every night before sleep and after playing with his PSP. I think he’s at chapter…three? *snickers*

Unlike our flight to Melbourne, this one was a full flight…complete with screaming and kicking children. We were really lucky…we were seated along the middle section, and the seat right next to me was empty! Probably the only empty one in our cabin! I happily put my juice, muffin, fruit salad and compy down on half of the seat (leaving the other half for the girl sitting on the other side). The in-flight entertainment on this plane was horrible though…not only were the shows similar to the ones available on our earlier flight, we weren’t even given a choice to choose the show that we wanted! So backdated lar, this plane. I ended up typing away for a good hour until my iBook battery ran out, after which I tried to sleep.

Food wise, we were served sweet and sour fish for lunch, ice cream for tea and chicken tikka sandwich for dinner. The main meals didn’t taste too good, but as usual, dessert was yummy! I also had my packed food, so I was quite content. The muffin was especially good…huge blueberries! My only complaint (other than the in-flight movies) was that the kid seated behind me kept on kicking my chair every few minutes because he/she has probably never sat in a plane where people reclined their seats before. Call me childish, I just reclined the seat even more. Ok, I’m childish. Actually, it was the parent (the father, didn’t see their mother) that I was more fedup with…teach your kids some manners!

We arrived at KLIA at about 8.30pm and spent some time at the duty free shops. I was searching for some Reese Peanut Butter cookies for someone (you know who you are!), but they didn’t have any. Hubby bought two bottles of alco…JD and Chivas…he seems to be collecting them cause the last time we were at duty free after returning from Singapore, he bought Baileys and Sheridan.

After collecting our luggages, we tried to tip-toe through customs without being noticed. But apparently, the system has changed. All the bags (at least I think everyone had to do it) had to go through the X-ray machine. In retrospect, it’s better they do that than pick someone out at random and open the bags. Well, short story shorter still, we got through customs! Phew! Wasn’t planning on explaining why we had so much rock candy in our bags…heheh…=)

We caught the KLIA express back to Sentral, and took a cab from there back to our apartment. Seeing the lights from the apartment looming up as the cab climbed the small hill, I felt quite happy to be home, even though I was cursing about the weather every five minutes. The apartment smelled a little stale from the lack of fresh air. Hubby lugged our suitcases in while I opened all the windows and taps to let the water run for awhile. After unpacking (which was surprisingly fast), we went out for a quick bite at the nearby mamak. Came back, tidied around the house for awhile, checked my emails, read some people’s blog posts…and at nearly 2am M’sian time (4am in Melbourne!), we fell blissfully onto the bed and snored ourselves into dreamland.

And there you have it…our 6D/6N Melbourne trip! =)

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

And if you are interested, click here to open and save the itinerary I prepared (more like cut, copy and paste!) for our trip in PDF format (It might take abit of time since it’s 2.8MB - I tried zipping it but it doesn’t seem to make much diff to the file size). Don’t have Adobe Acrobat? Download it here. Forgive me for spelling mistakes and all…I prepared this after three days of intensive research at the following websites:

• The official travel and accommodation site for Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• CitySearch.com.au Australia - Your guide to the city of Melbourne (this is a really REALLY good site! I got most of the reviews and maps for the restaurants from this site.)
• Lonely Planet Destination Guide
• FoodGod
• Gray Line Sightseeing Tours
• Crown Towers

Oh yeah, if you have the Insight Pocket Guide Map for Melbourne, the letters beside the restaurant info in the itinerary corresponds to the grids on the map, eg. G6 or S10, etc.

And lots and lots of thanks to M for her four Melbourne guides, Luxe travel guide and a long email on where to go and eat, and to Sui Lin for sending me an email with a list of cool bars and places + a lovely map even though she doesn’t even know me at all…=))

18 September 2005

Our last full day in Melbourne dawned nice and sunny! I bugged hubby to get out of bed while I was excitedly running around getting changed.

“Wake up lerrr…”
(mumbles)
“Quick quick…sun is out!”
(swats me like I’m a mozzie)
“Grrr…..(starts jumping up and down on the bed)…wake up wake up!”

Finally, hubby got up and started getting ready. In the meantime, I was running to the window every five minutes to check if the sun was still shining. Hey…this is Melbourne ok? Land of four seasons.

Since the weather was so nice, we decided to take some photos at the promenade first before catching the tram. I was super-hyper that morning, jumping around bugging hubby to take photos of me, me, me! And since it wasn’t that cold, I finally managed to test my photo-skills on the musical fountain…not easy! With the water going up and down, it’s incredibly hard to focus, so you have to switch to manual-focus mode and, well, manually focus at a spot you think the water will appear.

We took tram #55 to the Domain Road interchange along St. Kilda Road, and waited about 20 minutes for tram #16 to arrive to take us all the way to Fitzroy Street. I had read that many people go to St. Kilda beach on weekends, and the guidebook was proven right when the tram arrived…it was jam packed with people! Not wanting to wait another 20 minutes, hubby and I squeezed into the second last carriage and spent the whole journey with our hands gripping the handrail above. Well, hubby gripped the handrail. I was a tad too short so I gripped his jacket instead…=)

We got off at the Esplanade and took a short walk past Luna Park and Acland Street to our breakfast/brunch venue at Blessingham Street. We were supposed to have brekkie at Cafe Brewhaha, but the menu didn’t seem to have anything remotely interesting on it (the review recommended their breakfast parfait - muesli, yogurt and poached fruit - but I can’t imagine hubby eating that…), so we decided to search for some place else…which turned out to be another cafe called Jackie O, located at the intersection of Barkly Street and Acland Street. We obviously hit jackpot…every item on the breakfast menu looked enticing! Hubby finally decided on the Deluxe Brekkie, while I went for the French Toast with Poached Pear, Almonds and Honey. Our orders arrived together…and I straightaway felt like trading mine with hubby’s! Oh, don’t get me wrong….mine was delicious…but hubby’s had sausages, hash browns, spinach, poached eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms! It looked so appetizing! I tried abit of the spinach and mushrooms, and it was cooked to perfection. The spinach wasn’t too soggy, while the mushrooms had a slightly burnt taste. Best of all, none of it tasted greasy or oily. As for mine…the toast was generously drizzled with honey and the almonds provided a nice crunchy texture. It was perfect when eaten with the poached pear.

After brunch, we walked back down Acland Street. My head was constantly swivelling from right to left…there were so many cafes and cute little shops! Too bad we were too full to eat…the cakes looked so yummy! We entered some of the shops that sold cute and quirky stuff, and we bought a stuffed purple cow from a shop called Home Deco, two deck of cards on Melbourne’s secret dining and shopping areas/shops (abit too late…but who knows? We might come back again!) from another store, and a watermelon shaped purse from Rogues, a shop selling the cutest Paul Frank stuff! I was on the verge of getting a pink squarish bag that had the famous monkey face on the front, but the ones they had were all abit smudged…=(

I also managed to go to Klein’s Perfumery (was so happy when I saw this shop as I forgot to search for it when we were at Brunswick Street…)! The shop is a bundle of good smells with the scent and fragrance from the numerous perfumes, body products, etc. wafting through the air. I bought two barley filled cloth bags that are supposed to be heated in the oven and placed over aching muscles…and those were scented too!

When we reached Luna Park, we took a detour down Cavelle Street to the beach to take some photos. I got a nice shot of the pier and an adorable boy chasing birds on the beach. By then, the sun was out in full force, and it was really really hot! We went back up Cavelle Street and walked along the esplanade, looking at the different shops at the Sunday bazaar. I was so tempted to buy lots and lots of stuff…but I was running out of money and still had a few souveniers to go…hehe…=) We ended up buying two paintings by an artist named Karen Mason, two photos by photographer Mark Laricchia (one of the 12 Apostles, the other of Ayer Rock), and lots of purses that only costs between $8 to $14! By the time we reached the end of the bazaar, I was hot, tired…and hungry!

We made our way up Fitzroy Street to the Gourmet Burger Company. I read that they serve really good burgers and ice cold milkshakes and thought hubby would like it…and in the spirit of being at a beach and all, burgers and milkshakes seemed like a logical choice…=) There weren’t many tables in the shop though…half of the inside was taken up by the counter and grill, while the other half had high tables with bar stools. We managed to get a seat outside though, on the enormous picnic table that faced the street. As for what we ordered…there were 17 different types of burgers on their menu…but as soon as hubby saw the Gourmet BBQ burger (170g char grilled lean beef, smoked bacon, bbq sauce, salad, relish and aioli), he made up his mind and went for that! I chose to try one of the burgers recommended in the review, the Portabella Mushroom burger (Whole Portabello mushroom, marinated red capsicum, salad and basil pesto)…but I asked the waiter to leave out the capsicum (hate ‘em!).

Our burgers arrived a short 10 minutes later, together with a tall silver glass containing our banana milkshake. Snap snap photos…and then we dug in! Hubby’s burger looked really good…and even though I’ve steered clear of beef burgers since the hoo-hah over the mad cow disease, I took a small bite to try…it really tasted fantastic (and that’s saying alot cause I don’t like BBQ sauce either!). I loved my burger…the portabello mushroom was thick and had that lovely flavour that mushrooms have. They were very generous with the basil pesto, and that added an extra zing to the burger. The milkshake was abit too milky for my liking, but I drank it anyways as it was so nice and cold!

On our way back to the hotel, we took a detour to the Royal Botanical Gardens again. There were lots and lots of people there…family with kids, couples, tourists…and most of the Aussies were lying on the grass and basking in the warm sun! We walked for about 30 minutes and took some photos (mostly of yours truly…hehe…) before leaving at about 5.15pm to catch the tram. Back at the hotel, we finally managed to catch a movie (Red Eye) at the cinema! I found the movie a tad slow at the beginning…and the storyline wasn’t that interesting either. Personally felt that it was a waste of money…but hubby insisted that it’s the experience of trying out their cinemas that counts…hmmmm….=) By the time the show ended, I was hungry again…but didn’t know what to eat. Didn’t feel like waiting and sitting for ages in some of the more expensive restaurants, so in the end, we bought a little food from here and there (KFC, choc-banana smoothies from Boost, food court for sweet & sour pork and noodles) and went back up to our room to eat. I think I enjoyed that meal alot more than if we had gone to one of the restaurants…!

After dinner, it was time to pack…my job, my headache! I emptied our two big luggages, pulled out a spare one that I had sneaked into my luggage, and started refolding and reorganizing everything. I think it took me about one hour to finally get everything back into the bags, and luckily we were able to close it without bursting the zips!

Can’t believe it’s our last day…the one week went by so fast! So…do you think we managed to bypass customs at KLIA with our bursting bags?

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

Want to give these places a try?
Gourmet Burger Company
3/12 Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda, Melbourne
Tel: 8598 9200

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

16 September 2005

We spent the morning at Queen Victoria Market. Personally, I felt that there wasn’t much to see there…just lots of vege, fruits, clothes, the typical souvenier items like koala bears and kangaroos…=) I did have a good time taking some photos though, as the colours of the fruits and vege were so bright and striking! Before leaving, I gave in and bought a box of strawberries…big, huge, red and sweet! Yum!

From QVM, we took a tram down to Lygon Street for lunch at Brunetti. My goodness…you should’ve seen the amount of cakes they have there. It was absolutely mouth-watering! Brunetti spans three shops, with two of the shops selling cakes, cookies and chocolates, while the third shop sells hot food such as lasagna, panini sandwiches, pastries etc. There was a huge crowd at the hot food area and it was all quite disorganized with people just waiting for the waitresses to notice them. We finally managed to catch the attention of one of the waitresses and made our order of bruschetta and ham sandwich. Unfortunately, I made a mistake with the bruschetta…I didn’t know there were two types so when the waitress asked me which type I wanted, I replied ‘vegetarian’. Hmm. Apparently, vegetarian bruschetta consists of zuchinni and some other weird smelling vege that I would never touch with a 10-foot pole. Even hubby, who usually eats anything, took one bite and set it back down on the plate…hehe. We ended up splitting the sandwich instead.

The review for Brunetti recommended the superb hot chocolate, which was the main reason why I chose this as our lunch venue as hubby loves hot chocolate. And boy…the review was right! The Italian hot chocolate (there are two types…the good one is probably the Italian hot chocolate, not the normal one…) was so thick that it flowed down your throat like melted chocolate. I am not a hot chocolate fan as I find that most cafes make it with too much milk causing it to be nauseatingly sweet, but I could’ve finished one glass of this by myself! If you left a piece of dark chocolate in your mouth till it melted, then swallowed the whole mouthful, that’ll be close to how this hot chocolate tasted like!

As for dessert…well, I took a good 10 minutes walking up and down the display selecting my choice. After all, I could only eat one, so I didn’t want to make a mistake…=) I ended up going back to my all-time favourite…the Black Forest, while hubby chose the mini tiramisu. While the cakes did taste good, I had probably set my expectations too high (yeah…after that hot chocolate, who wouldn’t?) and expected a little slice of heaven…=) The Black Forest was made up of a chocolate sponge cake with liquered cherries inside…I was quite disappointed to find that there were very little cherries in the cake as that is usually the best part of eating a Black Forest cake, for me. All in all, the hot chocolate was still the star of the meal!

After lunch, we took a walk down to the University of Melbourne and explored the area. We managed to find the Department of Engineering…hehe…hubby was taking photos along the way, and I was feeling so pei-seh that if anyone asked, I would’ve said that I’m a student there and this is my boyfriend who came to visit me from M’sia…=) The uni campus is really nice…brings back good memories of Warwick. What wouldn’t I give to be back in university again…!

Well, enough reminiscing. That time has come and gone.

We had planned to go to Brunswick Street next, but to our dismay, we, or rather I *blush*, misread the tram route, so the stop that we wanted was quite a long walk down. Well, a little exercise never killed anyone, right? Right?!? =) Actually, I was glad that we took that walk as we went past a row of really pretty houses with very nice steel-work on the fences and balconies. We also passed by Carlton Gardens, and since we had time to spare, we took a walk through the park and managed to get some lovely photos too…

When we left Carlton Gardens, we noticed alot of office folks gathered along one end of the park. Turned out to be a fire drill…what a great excuse to get out of the office on a nice sunny day! Who knows…maybe someone accidentally-on-purpose set off the alarm? *winks*

Finally, we caught the tram and made our way to Brunswick Street. First stop: Crumpler. Actually, Crumpler was located on Smith Street…it looked near when we looked at the map…but it’s actually a really really long walk from Brunswick! Crumpler sells really nice bags, and I was searching for one for my laptop, and another for my camera. The shop has a really amusing way of displaying the bags…you know those plasticky chairs, the ones with a slightly curved bottom? Well, they removed the legs from those chairs and nailed the chair to the wall in rows, and placed the bags on the seat of the chair. Cute! We tested a few of their camera bags, and finally chose the one that could fit both the camera body with the lens attached, as well as an additional lens. There were about seven different sizes of camera bags, going from small to big, and the one we chose was the fourth one (nicknamed ‘The Four Million Dollar Home’…). The bag is water resistant and has an external pocket, an internal mesh pocket and two internal side pockets. It’s padded and has a Velcro flap as well as a clip…so if you’re taking the camera in and out of the bag all the time, having the Velcro flap is really convenient instead of a zip, like hubby’s bag. I choose the light blue colour with a bright orange internal padding…I originally wanted the red one, but when hubby said he won’t carry a bright red bag…well, blue it was! I didn’t manage to buy one for my laptop though…I did see a couple of bags with nice designs, but not in any particular colour that I liked. Oh…and I found out that they do custom designs for some of the bags! It’s really lovely…you get to choose which size of bag you want, the base colour and the design on the front of the bag. They had a book showing the different designs that people have requested for…and I saw this lovely pink and rose coloured one that I just had to have! Unfortunately, custom design takes about a week and of course, the bags cost alot more…oh well. I did manage to speak to the guy who was working on one of the designs, and he showed me some of the ones that he did when he had free time…very nice! Well, maybe next time!

We couldn’t face the long walk back to Brunswick Street, so we decided to take a tram back instead. The first shop that I went into on Brunswick was a stationery shop called Zetta Florence. They stock journals and archival materials, as well as paper, some stationery, cards, etc. The shop has a lovely ambience…the lighting’s a little dim, and the scent from the candle that they burned lightly filled the store with a flowery type of smell. I took a long long time looking through their journals, and finally made a purchase of a pastel green leather journal that had a leather tie-around.

We managed to go to almost all the shops listed on the Luxe Travel Guide, including Kleen, which had lovely and quirky house deco stuff. I also stumbled across a shop named Wilkins and Kent that sold the flower tea that we drank at BTH!! What a surprise! I also found a pair of really nice tea cups at another store…when you fill it up with water (preferably tea or some liquid that has colour), a heart shape would appear due to the design of the cup! By the time I purchased the tea cups and waited for the shop owner to wrap it all up in bubble wrap, it was already getting quite cloudy. We managed to make it to Charmaine’s Ice Cream parlour just in the nick of time though…we took one step through the door and it began raining cats and dogs!

Charmaine’s ice cream was another recommended place to go…apparently, it serves really really good ice-cream. There were quite alot of flavours available, but I predictably went for chocolate and French vanilla. Hubby, however, decided to try the recommended one, ie. the chocolate chilli ice cream. I waited for him to have a taste before asking…
“Hot or not?”
“Not really. Cannot taste the chilli.”
(pause)
“Oh…got chilli aftertaste. Not very hot.”
“Gimme gimme….”
And he was right…it tastes exactly like chocolate. Then when the ice-cream melts and goes down your throat, that’s when the slightly spicy chilli taste kicks in.
“Not very spicy le”
“That’s because you didn’t eat the chilli….”
(evil glare)

As for my plain ol’ chocolate and French vanilla…well, it tasted really good! Very thick. And for a vanilla ice-cream non-fan (it’s such a boring flavour and it usually tastes like Dettol), I found myself really liking this one…very creamy, very…urmm….French. Sexy…if ice-cream could be described as such.

The rain had stopped when we emerged from Charmaine’s, and we took a tram back to Crown’s. We had originally wanted to go for Vietnamese food for dinner, but once you’re back in the warm confines of the hotel room, it’s really really hard to go back out in the cold again! We decided to try Silk, the Chinese restaurant in the hotel instead. Apparently, it’s pretty famous for the Peking duck as well, so I eagerly agreed.

The restaurant was quite full, but we managed to get a table as hubby had called to make a reservation when we came back to the hotel earlier. After perusing the menu, we ordered the Peking duck, in addition to a four-meat appetizer platter, spinach with three types of mushrooms and honey pork. The Peking duck was really weird. In Malaysia, the whole duck is cooked and the skin is removed, and made into oh, maybe 20 pancakes. In this restaurant (or maybe all the Chinese restaurants serving Peking duck in Melbourne??), the dish is firstly sold by pancakes, with a minimum order of four…and the weirdest thing was that the duck meat was also folded into the pancake. Eh?? I really wonder which is the right way of serving it. But imagine if all of Melbourne’s Chinese restaurants serves Peking duck this way…what would an Australian tourist think when he/she visits Malaysia and orders Peking duck and finds the duck meat missing? Hmm….

Anyways, the dish wasn’t all that great. The pancakes were too thick. Quite disappointing, actually. The rest of the dishes were good though…just that the portion was, as usual, huge. I ended up just eating the dishes and leaving my rice untouched. While I didn’t like the four-meat platter very much as I could only eat one our of the four, I totally loved the spinach…the gravy was superb. The honey pork had just the right touch of sweetness, and the pork was really tender.

Full as we were, we still ordered a mango pudding to share. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as nice as I expected. And to digress a little…mango puddings never seem to turn out nice in Chinese restaurants. I first ate mango pudding when my ex-boyfriend’s mom made them. And that has still been the best one since. Or maybe the memory of it has made it taste better than every other one that I’ve tried since then…hehe…=) Anyways, we were served four complimentary slices of mooncake with our dessert…hubby managed to eat one. I just kept on groaning and rubbing my bursting tummy….=)

We waddled back to our room…and that was it. End of day 4. Two more full days left…*wails*. Oh…and the strawberries that I bought in the morning had turned into mush thanks to yours truly swinging the plastic bag up and down from Carlton Gardens all the way to Brunswick and back to the hotel. And I was so looking forward to having some…

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

Want to give these places a try?

Brunetti
194-204 Faraday Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9347 2801

Charmaine’s
370 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Tel: 9417 5379

Zetta Florence
197 Brunswick Stret, Fitzroy
Tel: 9417 6211
www.zettaflorence.com.au

Wilkins and Kent
230 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Tel: 9419 5251
www.wilkinsandkent.com

Kleen Design Store
296 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Tel: 9415 9490

15 September 2005

Yawn! Hate waking up so early in the morning. Especially when the weather is chilly! We went down to the lobby to board the coach transfer, and after the coach driver picked up a few other passengers at various hotels, we were taken to Swanston Street to board the actual coach taking us to the Great Ocean Road tour. There were only about 25 passengers joining the tour, so we had plenty of empty seats in the coach.

First stop was at Torquay for coffee and breakfast @ Tapas Café. We ordered one plate of bacon, poached eggs, tomato and toasted muffin to shareâ?¦itâ??s amazing how great a simple breakfast can taste! The weather was extremely windy, I was wearing a long sleeved top, coupled with a thick jacket and a padded vest, and I still felt cold!

After breakfast, we continued on past Uruquay, Bells Beach and had a bit of a kangaroo sighting excursion at Anglesea Golf Course. We experienced intermittent showers along the way, but we were lucky that the sun was shining brightly during most of our stops. Hubby made sure we sat at the left side of the bus, so we got views of the ocean throughout the whole journey. From my vantage point, we seemed to be travelling right at the edge of the cliffs…quite nerve-wrecking considering how fast the driver seemed to be going! The ocean was quite calm, with little froths of foam and tiny waves, though the parts neared to the cliffs had sharp jagged rocks along certain areas. The journey was very scenic as we also passed through forests (spotted a few koalas!) and picnic areas with little streams. Very picturesque!

Lunch was at Apollo Bay @ Georges Food Court. Hubby ordered roast chicken with fries, while I went for a chicken burger. As usual, we forgot that the food was Australian sizedâ?¦shouldâ??ve just shared one plate. My burger was so huge that I only managed to finish about half!

After lunch, we continued our journey to the 12 Apostles, and reached there about one hour after leaving Apollo Bay. It was already quite windy as we took a long walk to the viewing deck but when we reached the viewing deck which was right at the edge of the cliff, we were buffeted by extremely strong windsâ?¦itâ??s the kind that really makes it a struggle to take even one step! If I was holding an umbrella, I probably would’ve floated merrily away like Mary Poppins! It was hard to pose for photos as well, as the wind was blowing my hair into my face. The wind was cold till the point where my head started to hurt and my cheeks and ears were rapidly turning pink! While we tried taking some photos of the 12 Apostles, we couldn’t get really good shots as the direction of the sun was behind the rock stacks, making it appear really dark in the photos. It was such a pity, as we were looking forward to taking some really good photos at this stop.

From the 12 Apostles, we proceeded on to Loch Ard Gorge where the guide told us about the shipwreck story of the iron clipper, Loch Ard, which crashed into the cliffs in 1878, killing 52 people onboard. Only two people survived…a crewman named Tom Pearce, and a passenger, Eva Carmichael. Even now, with the sun shining so brightly, the waves below already look rather frightening…so it isn’t hard to imagine how a storm could quickly turn the sea into a monster!

From Loch Ard Gorge, we proceed to London Bridge and finally, a quick last photo-stop where we got a good view of the limestone cliffs before proceeding to Port Campbell to pick up a passenger that had stayed overnight there. At the last photo-stop, I managed to take a photo of a rainbow emerging, or ending (depending on how you see it!) in the sea…was so happy…=) The journey back took two and a half hours…luckily, we managed to sleep most of the way, so that helped to pass the time!

By the time we reached the hotel, it was too late (and too cold) to venture out for dinner, so we decided to try one of the restaurants in the hotel. We ended up queuing in front of Waterfront Seafood Restaurant, which was totally packed. While waiting, I played with a little baby boy whose parents were seated on the table right next to the queue. He was in his pram…and oh-so-adorableâ?¦he grabbed my finger, and proceeded to laugh and gurgle and wave his hand all around. I got a little kiss on my hand too…what a gentleman! Though at one point, my finger almost ended up in his mouth as a substitute dummy…

After a 20 minute wait, we finally got shown to our table. By then, we had already studied the menu thoroughly and knew what we wanted: a seafood sampler, mussels in white wine, garlic and parsley, seafood chowder and garlic king prawns with pilaf rice. Considering the amount of people in the restaurant, the food arrived rather fast! Hubby’s seafood sampler was enormous…it had sushi, sashimi, tiger prawns, soft shell crab, California rolls all on one huge plate. The mussels were really fresh, and the white wine garlic sauce was simply wonderful. It tasted extremely good with the mussels, even better on it’s own, and divine when it was soaked up in the French loaf slices provided.

By the time we finished the above two dishes, we were already more than half-full. I ate so much mussels that I’ll probably steer clear of them for a couple of months! The seafood chowder and king prawns came soon after the waiter cleared our table. My main course looked and smelled so good! The garlic was actually fried and sprinkled on top of the king prawns, which were drenched in a coconut based gravy. I couldn’t eat much of the pilaf rice, but I certainly finished the prawns…all ten of ‘em! It was cooked just right, with still abit of crunch in them and again, so very fresh!

And as usual, we were so full that we had to forgo dessert…=(

Exhausted from the day’s trip, and so full from the dinner, we spent what was left of the night lazing about in the room watching telly before turning in for a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow…Queen Victoria Market and Brunswick Street!

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!