Just Hanging Around Melbourne

23rd December, Sunday.

We took the bus down (or up?) to Melbourne city centre and hung around like tourists. 

Unfortunately I think we had chosen the wrong day to do so as it was extremely hot! 

Thank goodness I had my RM3 floppy hat with me, but I left my fan at home. Bugger.

Still full from breakfast, we each bought a soft serve ice-cream cone at McDonald's ... just because of gluttony. And hey, it's only 30 cents - definitely value for money, if you asked us. :)

Picture on left: We gate-crashed a children's queue leading to Santa's Grotto.

Besides supermarkets, I love popping into bookstores, especially those selling secondhand ones.

Books and loads of books...

Just for browsing in awe, sorry.

I think books in Australia are quite pricey, to be honest. At least in the UK when there's a bargain for say, £1.99 to £3.99, it can be quite cheap!

I'm referring to my chick lit, by the way. :D

Some magazine once said that to meet the man of the same interests, you have to hang around
at your favourite places in order to be 'seen'. ;P

We had lunch at a Vietnamese Restaurant called 'Mekong' which I had dined in 6 years ago when I last visited Melbourne. It was good then but this time, it wasn't!

The soup for the beef pho was definitely laced with a hint of MSG and we weren't too impressed. Bummer.

As usual, I ordered the vermicelli bowl but with pork chops!

What was lacking was peanuts, as are the ones served here in Malaysia.

We soon found ourselves wandering into Melbourne Central, dying of thirst. I was almost wooed into Cupcake Central by its Tiffany blue decor (somewhat) and decided we needed a cuppa and rest our old tired legs.

Not sure what the cafe is called but it looked impressive enough. :)

After dilly-dallying around too much, we recalled we wanted to check out Queen Victoria Market as well but by the time we arrived there at about 3pm, the stalls were slowly shutting down.

One particular fruit stall was selling cherries for AUS$5 per kg, which I thought was surprisingly cheap, after seeing supermarkets selling them for AUS$9.99 per kg!

We bought 500gm, which we finished devouring come evening time.

Our time management is quite bad, I must say.

We rushed to Smith Street to check out some sports outlet stores but some were not even open on Sunday!

Can you spot 'Run Happy'?

One of the outdoor adventure stores were selling some trail shoes at a pretty decent price and gosh, we could only admire the Salomon, Merrell, Montrail, etc ... but didn't dare buy.

Hopping into the New Balance outlet, I bought myself a pair of calf compression tights for AUS$25 which I really hope will work!

Soon, almost every single store was closed and we headed back to the city for dinner.

I was hoping for some gelato at Lygon Street but that shop was too far from where we had our dinner!


Picture on left: Me outside Papa Gino's, which had rave reviews on Google.

It seemed promising as the place was packed with customers. And this was only 7pm!

We ordered the Papa Gino pizza special as well as the pasta vongole.

We were quite disappointed with the pizza. It looked like they had unceremoniously chucked broiled shrimps onto it, together with a few pepperoni slices.

I just couldn't fathom the broiled shrimps as I felt they didn't blend well with the mushroom and capsicum.

It wasn't cheesy enough, too.

The vongole was large in portion but in fact, with so much spaghetti in this dish, you could not taste much of the sauce.

It was only when half the spaghetti remained and we stirred the sauce and noodles together could we then taste it.

24th December, Monday.

We went to Westfield's this time to walk around for things to buy and get lunch.

At the food court, we ordered the katsu curry and Kay's chicken from Hanaichi. At AUS$7.90, portion was decent. Taste wise, too!

We went around scouting for reasonable priced wrapping paper to wrap up some gifts for the Ho family and boy, was it hard!

We didn't want fancy schmancy wrapping paper! We wanted the good ol' reliable ones!

I think we did a horrible job wrapping up the gifts in our room as quietly as we could. *giggle*

We had bought WC a 1L beer mug and with its handle sticking out, we had to wrap it up carefully!

Went somewhere in Nunawading and I bought some pieces of fabric - thinking of making my
own bandanna! Sadly, they aren't big enough!

Was standing outside Wang's Lucky Bar, waiting for our takeaway food.

If you're craving for a Chinese meal in Box Hill, don't forget to try Wang's Lucky Bar. The sweet and spicy chicken (served with rice) was a bomb!

I had secret cravings for it a few days ago but didn't dare voice it out. Everyone kept saying that as I'm overseas and out of Malaysia, I should be enjoying Western food.

Hah.

And somehow two days ago, I was thinking about Madam Kwan's Nasi Bojari...

25th December, Tuesday.

Christmas dinner was an interesting affair. My in-laws' friends took us to their friend's place for dinner and boy, was there a LOT of food!

I wish I had taken pictures of it but I was doing my best to be friendly and mingle. Our hosts' daughter-in-law was nice enough to chat with me, introducing her husband and sisters later on.

I was with both her sisters on the same team for Taboo whilst she, Mimi, teamed up with her husband, Andrew and sister's boyfriend, Graham.

My team won, by the way. :D

26th December, Wednesday.

We met up with my uncle for lunch on Boxing Day where he took us to a Petaling Street restaurant at Glen Waverly.

He must have been craving for Malaysian food as he ordered the Assam Laksa, Ais Kacang, Teh Tarik, Cendol and Red Bean drink (for me)!

Pork trotters in a Prawn Mee - based soup was just weird!

Such gluttony!
The hubby had the fish head noodles.

After dinner at home that night, the hubby took me out for a loooooooong walk, which I really wasn't expecting it to take that long!

He wanted to show me Ruffey Lake Park and thought we could enjoy the sunset. :P

By the time we arrived home, it was slightly past 10pm and well, I was ready to konk out in bed!

Our 4D3N road trip to the Grampians National Park and Great Ocean Road began the next day. Can't wait to tell you all about it! :)