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14 September 2005

We woke up bright and early on Wednesday as I had planned breakfast at the Observatory Café @ Royal Botanic Garden. We took a short chilly walk across Southbank to Flinders Station (yeah�?�we didn�??t know that tram tickets could be purchased on the tram itself�?�grrr�?�) and caught a tram to the Royal Botanic Garden. We got off a stop early along St. Kilda Road and took a 20 minute walk across the park. Even though it was still quite early, we passed by people jogging and walking their dogs�?�what a nice way to spend the morning! The weather was, as usual, chilly, but the sun was out and it felt good to be breathing in the crisp, clean air.

Upon reaching the café, we were faced with our usual dilemma…what to order? There were trays of muffins and cakes, and not to mention all the other items on the menu! In the end, we went for toast and eggs sunny side up�?�hubby had his with bacon and mushrooms, while I had mine with just mushrooms. After paying, we headed to one of the tables outside to enjoy the weather while waiting for the food to be served. I spotted two dogs tied to the chairs outside, one of which was a Jack Russell terrier. The two dogs were so obedient�?�just sitting there, waiting for their owners to finish their brekkie. So absolutely cute that I couldn�??t resist snapping a few photos!

Breakfast arrived and it smelt wonderful. Steaming hot, still! The toast was slightly burnt on a griddle pan, and the mushrooms were so tasty. Hubby had hot chocolate too�?�a perfect balance to the cold weather. Needless to say, we quickly polished off our breakfast before it turned cold! With breakfast done, we took a quick stroll in the herb and vegetable garden behind the Observatory to take some photos. While searching for the way out to St. Kilda�??s road, we made a quick stop at the Shrine of Remembrance to take more photos…the pine trees lined up in a row made such a pretty picture!

Next stop: Bridge Road. On hindsight, I didn�??t quite enjoy the stroll along Bridge Road, mainly because I wasn�??t that interested in buying shoes and clothes (most of the sizes can’t fit me!), so we ended up walking past most of the shops. There were quite a few interesting ones though…I remember one store called Garfunkel that has the loveliest evening dresses. I did try one or two on (pink, of course), but as expected, it didn’t fit. Or probably I didn’t have enough on top to fill the bustier…hehe…=) Hubby was on the lookout for a jacket, so we did go into some men’s clothing stores, but he didn’t find anything suitable. I managed to buy three handbags from Nine West though! I bought one pink…well, fuschia, one, and two smaller ones in the same design, in pink…oops, sorry…fuschia…and turquoise.

By then, my shoes were giving me problems again. I didn’t want to spoil any more of our plans for the day, so we started hunting for a pair of sport shoes to save my poor feet (and considering how much walking we’ll have to do tomorrow on the Great Ocean Road tour, I don’t think I would survive in these boots!). We found a sporting goods store which had lovely light pink (yes, it has to be pink!) sneakers by Sketchers. After trying on two other pairs, I finally decided on the pink and beige Sketchers pair that had Velcro straps. I actually preferred the other pair (Puma) as it had more padding in the inside�?�it made my feet feel so comfy and cocooned, but it also cost a good $40 more�?�so Sketchers it was.

With my feet in my new comfy shoes, we continued our walk along Bridge Road until we reached Richmond Hill Café and Larder, our lunch venue. We were lucky to get a table as the place was totally packed with the lunchtime crowd. There was a small shop located at the right of the main door selling pasta sauces and biscuits which I presume were made by the cooks at Richmond Hill. Cookery items, books and even jazz cds were also up for sale! Further inside was a room filled with cheese�?�what is it called? A cheese cellar?!? Anyways, I got a whiff of the strong smelling cheese went I went near that room, so I didn’t dare to venture inside…hehe…=)

The waitress left us with the menus, and we took some time to go through the long list of breakfast and lunch items. We were still quite full from breakfast, so I decided to order something light: a Catalan style tomato bread, while hubby went the healthy route and had Caesar salad. My tomato bread was simply lots and lots of pureed tomato mixed with a little bit of red capsicum on toast, scattered with strips of proscuitto�?�a satisfying meal for a tomato lover! The Caesar salad looked delightful�?�instead of croutons, they sprinkled some bread/biscotti-like chips on top, and what we initially thought was sour cream turned out to be a poached egg! Yummy! I think one of the waiter got abit suspicious looking at me snapping photos of the food and writing notes in my little notebook…he ambled over and asked what were the photos for. I should’ve been naughty and said that I was doing a review…hehe…maybe we might’ve gotten our dessert free!

Oh yeah…dessert. How could I forget? Best part of the meal! Hubby and I shared the “Chocolate Pot with Orange Shortbread, Chocolate Chip & Orange Créme” dessert. The chocolate was in a small espresso-like cup, and it had some alcohol drizzled on top. The orange créme was slightly sour and it went perfectly well with the bitter-sweet chocolate mousse. The shortbread was buttery and gosh…one spoonful of chocolate mousse coupled with another spoonful of the orange créme on top of the shortbread…wow….! The burst of flavour in your mouth coupled with the slightly rough texture of the orange créme, the smooth mousse and the melt-in-your-mouth shortbread…followed by a slightly burning sensation in your throat as the alco kicks in…*swoon*.

After lunch, we took the tram down to Chapel Street for more shopping. Unfortunately, the weather didn�??t hold out, and it started to drizzle while we were there. Chapel Street had more posh looking shops compared to Bridge Road. Although I had a list of shops that I wanted to visit around that area, I only managed to go into Dinosaur Designs, a shop selling home wares and jewellery made of colorful resin-like material. Extremely expensive though! By 5pm, we were so tired of walking that we decided to take a rest at a nearby food court before proceeding to Misuzu for an early dinner.

A tram from Chapel Street took us back to St. Kilda Road, and another connecting tram along Sturt Street brought us almost to the front doors of Misuzu. Misuzu is apparently a very popular Japanese restaurant that offers good cheap food. It spanned 3 small shops, and the deco differed in each shop. From the window, it looked as if one of the shops was decorated as a lounge/bar, while the other had proper eating tables. Later, we found out that each of the shops had different names! Misuzu was actually one of the shop (not the name of all three!) that serves ‘village style & takeaways’, while Umami serves ‘fine food, regional sakes & wines’, and the last one, called Umami Dining Room is a lounge. Well, confusion aside, we were lucky to get one of the last 2 tables in the restaurant, the rest were either reserved or occupied. From the review that I had read earlier, the three recommended dishes were the miso soup, beef teriyaki and Seavegie Soba Noodles so we ordered just that! I was feeling a little greedy, so I put in an extra order for a plate of dumplings. *stomach rumbles*

Considering how full the restaurant was, we didn�??t have to wait long for our meal. The Gyoza came out first, together with the Miso soup. Hubby said the Miso soup was good. As for the Gyoza, it was generously filled with meat�?�and minced ginger! Lots and lots of ginger. It wasn�??t very spicy (you know how ginger gets abit spicy, especially young ginger), but it was quite a surprise as the ginger usually comes sliced up together with the soy sauce. Nevertheless, it tasted pretty good.

The main course was served soon after. Hubby�??s Beef Teriyaki looked really colorful�?�it�??s not the usual fare that you get in most Malaysian Japanese restaurants where the meat is served separately from the rice. This one was served in a bowl with the rice slightly soaked in the teriyaki sauce and it had capsicums and zucchini (I think) that were fried together with the beef. The sauce tasted slightly different from the usual teriyaki sauce, but it was a good kind of different…slightly sweet and salty and sticky! As for my Seavegie Soba Noodles�?�well, it�??s a vegetarian�??s dream meal. Four types of seaweed in a tuna-seaweed soup. Hearty and hot, it was a perfect meal for a cold night. In addition to the seaweed, there was also bok-choy and zucchini slices in the soup. I could only finished about two-thirds of the contents, but I definitely enjoyed every bite! We also ordered crème caramel to end our meal, however, I left it to hubby to polish of most of it while I picked at the fruits.

As the restaurant was located in the middle of a residential area, we had to wait quite long for a tram. By then, coupled with the slight rain and wind, even my three layers of clothing wasn�??t enough to keep me from shivering! When the tram arrived, we thankfully climbed aboard and headed back to the hotel. Back at Crown, we took a walk outside the promenade to watch the nightly (and hourly, starting from 8pm) display of fire from the eight high columns along the Yarra River banks. It really is a spectacular sight, even more so when you are standing near enough to be blinded by the bright flame of the fire and also feel the heat every time it blazes out from the columns!

On the way back to our room, we got distracted by the display of cakes at Café Greco, and decided to get a slice each. I went for my usual predicatable choice of Black Forest, while hubby chose the Tiramisu cake. While waiting for our orders, I started taking photos of the cakes, and to my surprise, this sour-faced lady at the counter reprimanded me for taking photos! What the�?�? Put up a sign if you don�??t want people taking photos! Hmmpph. Anyways, the cakes ended up looking a whole lot better than it tasted. And I�??m not being biased. Heh.

After a short rest, we proceeded back down to the ground floor to take a peek at the Casino. There were so many people trying their luck at the different card games and gaming machines. There were Baccarat tables, blackjack, roulette, even horse racing and some type of wheel-of-fortune thingy. I had only brought $15 (yes, you read correctly�?�$15. Hey…I plan to spend most of my money shopping, not gaming!) down to the casino with me, but since we didn�??t feel like playing with the gaming machines, and the lowest bet for roulette was $5, we left after taking a walk round the whole casino. Before going back to the room, we stopped awhile at the main entrance to the casino to watch the light show and musical fountain that is shown nightly. It really was a magnificent sight…the whole ceiling was made up of crystal-like strands of light that changed colours and hues according to the music. We were not the only ones admiring the display…there were plenty of people standing or sitting along the steps, all craning their heads to watch. Back at the hotel room, we quickly washed up and got into bed asap for some much needed rest as we needed to be up by 6.30am the next morning to catch the connecting coach at 7.30am for the Great Ocean Road tour. Night, peeps!

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

Want to give these places a try?

Richmond Hill Cafe & Larder
48-50 Bridge Road, Richmond, Melbourne
Tel: 9421 2808

Misuzu
3-7 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park, Melbourne
Tel: 9699 9022

Observatory Cafe
Royal Botanical Gardens, Birdwood Avenue, South Yarra, Melbourne
Tel: 9650 5600

13 September 2005

We landed at Melbourne�??s airport a good half hour earlier thanks to the tailwind. As soon as I stepped out of the plane, I could feel the chilly air seeping through the glass window of the arrival lounge�?�how refreshing! We headed to the immigration (long wait), then baggage collection (very fast), and customs (another long wait). As soon as we immerged to the arrival hall , I headed off the the nearest café to grab a bacon and egg sandwich, after which, we hailed a cab to take us to Crown Towers.

As it was early morning on a weekday, we were caught in the morning rush hour traffic jam for about 15 minutes and ended up taking about 40+ minutes (and $40+!) to reach the hotel. Luckily, our room was already available�?�I was looking forward to taking a short nap before starting to explore the city centre.

A little bit about our room…as we entered the main door into the corridor, we were greeted with a big bathroom on our left, followed by a door leading into…*dances with glee*…a walk-in wardrobe!! The corridor opened up to a squarish room that contained a big king-sized bed with crisp white sheets, a sofa at one corner of the room and a writing desk at the other corner. The floor to ceiling windows overlooked the Yarra river and the Melbourne Exhibition centre, and the bright morning sun was streaming through making our room look all bright and cheery. The furniture in the room consisted of mostly dark brown and light beige wood.

After unpacking, hubby and I crashed onto the bed and got a much needed 2 hour nap. We woke up utterly refreshed…took a quick shower, dressed in warm warm clothes, and off we went to explore the city centre!

As it was already noon, we decided to go for lunch first. We weren’t sure about the tram system yet, so we ended up walking from our hotel all the way to Little Bourke Street. While I originally wanted to try Flower Drum (apparently famous for it’s Peking Duck, one of my favourite dishes), we ended up going to Sharks Fin House for dim sum instead. We were seated on the second floor, which was totally packed with mostly Asian customers. The dim sum was served via pushcarts, and we wasted no time picking out our standard dim-sum fare: Siew Mai, Char Siew Pau, Char Siew Cheong Fun, Har Kow and a bowl of porridge and fried chinese cruellers wrapped in cheong fun. While the food looked pretty good (and the portions were huge), I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the quality of the dim sum. I personally found the cheong fun too thick, while the Char Siew Pau had a weird taste. We ended up not finishing most of the dishes.

After lunch, we took a stroll up Little Bourke Street to the Parliament House. We spotted Hard Rock Café along Bourke Street, and hubby went in to buy a pin (he collects them from HR Café’s in places that we’ve visited). We walked along the Parliament Gardens near the Parliament House, and saw a large group of people gathered at the nearby State Government Offices staging a demonstration. Not wanting to be too pat-kua, we decided to turn into Little Collins Street for some shopping. Within 10 minutes, hubby made his first purchase for the day…a white/green striped shirt from a shop called Satch! We walked further along Little Collins Street, enjoying the weather, turning into small hidden streets and shopping centres that dotted the street. Along the way, I managed to buy a pink wool knee length coat from Collins Two3Four…there was a sale being held on the top floor, and everything was going cheap. They had designer stuff from Marc Jacobs, D&G, etc…I tried on a pink Marc Jacobs long-sleeved t-shirt, but it turned out to be too loose (and it was x-tra small!)…*frown*. While my coat was unbranded, I think it was a pretty good bargain at $99. We also managed to find Haigh’s chocolate shop and Koko Black & Suga (recommended by Pixel and mvo). Suga was already closed by the time we reached there, so we decided to return a few days later to make all our purchases in one go.

For tea time, I had planned to try the pastries at Laurent Pattiserie, a shop along Little Collins Street. We reached the shop one hour before closing time, and most of the pastries were already finished! We ended up ordering a chocolate danish (hubby), and a vanilla sponge with strawberry mousse (me). The interior of the café was very Parisian-like, with wooden chairs and marble tables, a curved staircase to the upper floor. I didn’t like the chocolate danish much, but the strawberry mousse was yummy. The outside was coated with a sugar-like wrapping, while the inside of the cake was light and fluffy with truly melt-in-your-mouth mousse.

By evening, my feet was aching like crazy, and I really felt like I couldn’t take another step. It’s weird, as I usually wear these boots for walking and it never felt that uncomfortable before. This time, it felt as if the sole had been worn down till paper-thin, and I could feel the hard pavement each time I took a step. Awful. Anyways, were already at Flinders Street Station, having walked down Little Collins Street and Elizabeth Street and as we still couldn’t figure out how the tram system worked (and I couldn’t walk much further), we had to forgo our dinner plans at Becco, an Italian restaurant back at Bourke Street. *stupid shoes*

We trudged down Flinders Street all the way to Queensbridge Street back to our hotel. As soon as I reached the room, I pulled off my boots and nursed my aching feet. Since I spoiled our dinner plans *sob*, we decided to just eat in the hotel. Most of the restaurants were full, so we ended up at the food court where I had a hot dog, while hubby had a hot baked potato with a whole lot of topping. Dinner was, of course, totally unsatisfying…what more with today being our first day at Melbourne! *stupid stupid shoes*

By night time, we were totally exhausted, and after uploading the day’s photos to my iBook, we went straight to bed for a good night’s sleep. I think I must’ve fallen asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow…

For more photos, go to Photoblogum!

Want to give these places a try?

Sharks Fin House
131 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9663 1555

Laurent Pattiserie
306 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Tel: 9654 1011

12 September 2005

After two days of hastily buying extra cardigans and tops, another pair of jeans, preparing our itinerary, packing and repacking, we were off!

We left the apartment at 6pm, just in time to catch the connecting train to KLIA at KL Sentral. Unfortunately, since we were one of the last ones to get onto the train, we ended up having to stand for the entire 28 minute journey. Five minutes in, I could feel my high-heeled boots starting to pinch my feet…*ouch*.

Upon reaching KLIA, we checked in, went through the immigration counters and boarded the aero-train to the satellite building in search for dinner. Honestly, KLIA might be big, but it is really really lacking in good shops and good restaurants. We ended up at Delifrance where I had a cold sausage croissant-like pastry and a horribly artificial pineapple pastry, while hubby had a bowl of soup. Unsatisfied (and still hungry), we headed up to Burger King on the 1st floor where we continued our dinner with a packet of french fries (McD�??s are much better!!) and hash browns. After dinner, we browsed around the bookstore for awhile, and after paying for a copy of Louise Bagshawe�??s latest book, Tuesday�??s Child, we went to our gate and waited to board the plane.

As soon as we got on the plane, we realized that we had been assigned seats apart from each other! I got the window seat, while hubby got the aisle seat at the middle section in the same row. The ground staff must’ve mixed up the seating numbers when pre-assigning our seats earlier. Darn! Luckily, the lady who got the seat next to me was willing to exchange (which was a mistake on our part as it wasn�??t a full flight and all the seats next to hubby was empty!!) though she did give us a rather nasty look for putting her through the trouble of taking one step to another seat…*tee hee*.

Since uni days, I’ve always had my little routine when going on long flights. Once I settle down in my seat, I’ll say a quick prayer for a safe journey, check out the movie listings, wait for the headphones and menu. And don’t laugh…but I kinda enjoy the airplane food. Especially the dessert. I know, that’s quite pathetic. But when you’re stuck in a plane flying who-knows how high, there’s only that many things to look forward to…*grin*.

Unfortunately, there were no good in-flight movies during this flight, or rather, I’ve watched most of them, so I tried to go to sleep instead. But the seat was horribly cramped, somehow, the leg room seems to have reduced! Can’t be my legs have grown…! And worst thing was that no menus were given out for dinner choices, so I had no idea what we were going to have for dinner. By the time the food cart reached us, I was ravenous and eager to have a good meal (or as good as you can get on an airplane). But whaddaya know? All the chicken meals were gone! Gone! I was left with a choice of lamb and�?�.lamb. The steward asked me why didn�??t I request for a special diet? I replied that I had booked online and there wasn�??t a choice for red meat vs. white meat under the special diet column. To which he retorted back: �??Next time, choose the seafood meal.�?� What the…? Is it my fault that you don’t have a choice of red vs. white meat? What if I don�??t eat seafood?!? Duh. In the end, he said that he�??ll prepare the vegetarian meal for me. Beggars, choosers and all that…so I said ok. When he brought it over, it was vegetarian, alright. Vege covered in curry sauce (I can’t eat spicy food). Sigh. I forced the only thing that I could eat down my throat…ie. the cold hard bun…and went back to sleep with my tummy growling. Breakfast wasn�??t any much better. Firstly, we only had 2 hours of sleep before breakfast was served, so I was all bleary and grumpy. And secondly, everything was cold. Cold croissant and bun, hard butter. Sigh�?�first class, this ain�??t.

Not a very auspicious start to the beginning of our vacation…

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On the Friday before our Melbourne trip, M invited us for dinner at BTH, a really nondescript restaurant near the Telawi area. Hubby and I were the last ones to arrive…*blush*…so by the time we stepped into the private room that mvo had booked, the two pots containing the stock for our steamboat was merrily boiling away. The room was decorated in a Japanese type of style, ie. you sit on the floor with your legs dangling in the hole below the table. Right on top of the table were miniature lights that flickered like stars…apparently the lights costs more than RM10K…imagine just taking a few bulbs away…hehe…that would’ve more than paid for the dinner.

Thoughts of stealing aside…*grin*…dinner was a multi-course steamboat meal consisting of lots and lots of vegetables and very fresh seafood. The soup was really tasty, especially after boiling the vege and the seafood. I liked the scallops the most as it was really fresh and sweet. Even though the meal was for four, the five of us were stuffed long before we finished putting in all the food to boil! And dessert itself was a three-course meal! We had red bean soup (the guys chose the red dates soup instead), followed by a glutinous rice with brown sugar, followed by konyakku jelly. Groan…stomach felt like bursting after that! The tea was something special…it was served in a see-through tea pot and contained a flower-like bud that would expand in the hot water! First time I’d seen something like that!

After dinner ended, we went to the 2nd floor of the restaurant to have a look at their gallery. After that, we went our seperate ways…with our stomachs groaning under the additional weight, no doubt! =)

Home at last. Left my heart in Melbourne, though…*grin*

I’ve just spent the past few hours unpacking, boiling water, going for a late dinner (or early supper, depending on how you look at it…*smile*), checking emails, transferring 600 over photos to the hard drive and reading all the updated posts on blogs that I normally visit (thanks to Bloglines!). Will definitely be posting up photos and details of our trip soon. Till then, here’s a quick summary:

12 September 2005: I left with $1,XXX in my pocket, total weight of our combined luggages was 45kg, I weighed 40.5kg.

19 September 2005: I returned with $XXX (and it’s not $999), total weight of our combined luggages was 58kg, and I now weigh 42.5kg.

Good trip? In the words of Mr. Big from Sex And The City…abso-f**king-lutely!