Melbourne Trip: Brighton Beach & St Kilda

11th July 2014
This was my day as I had done most of the planning. We headed to Brighton Beach to do the coastal walk to St Kilda.

Breakfast at Manchester Press.





On the train, it was quite overcast however when we got off the skies were starting to clear up. It was a pretty boring walk. Also a long easy walk at at around 10 km and it was so windy!











By the time we arrived at St Kilda we were starving and headed to Lentil as Anything. The place was packed so we ended up being seated at the very back next to their lentils....

Lentil as Anything is a series of pay what you can, not for profit vegetarian restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. The restaurants wholly rely on the generosity of their patrons, volunteers and suppliers to operate, receiving no government or church funding. Patrons are asked to "pay what they feel" the meal, service and beverages are worth by contributing an amount of their choice into a box at the counter.

On our way to Luna Park, we passed by some very tasty cake and pastry stores. I picked up a cherry crumble which tasted very funny; it tasted like the artificial cherry flavour in cough medicines.






 
I wanted to stop by Luxbite before we headed back to the CBD. The desserts from Luxbite weren't that sweet! I really liked the Lolly Bag Cake. The green tea cheesecake bothered me since I am not a fan of buttercream (however it isn't stated in the description...) and I'm not a big fan of macarons, but Endless Love was too pretty to not get!






(L - R) Endless Love, Lollybag Cake, Green Tea Cheesecake

For the last night, we switched hotels to one further north in the CBD as it was quite a lot cheaper than staying at the Victoria Hotel. We also got upgraded! 

View from the room. Right next to the QVM.

Melbourne Trip: QVM & Eureka Tower

Image Heavy!

10th July 2014
 On our way to Queen Victoria Markets, we stopped at Larder Section for breakfast.


Chai Latte. I have yet to find a chai latter which is amazing.


Berlin Breakfast ... not sure why it is Berlin.

My old friend told me that I should avoid the Queen Victoria Markets as it is even tackier than Paddy's Market in Sydney. But I actually really enjoyed it! The souvenirs were meh but I was very interested in the food and their fresh produce. There was also a van making fresh jam filled donuts which was amazing.






More exploring of Melbourne.


La Trobe Reading Room

We had been eating a lot of crap during our trip so we decided to head to a juice bar; Tropicana Juice Bar.




South American Delight (juice). It tasted like a Calipo which was very odd.







We headed up to the Eureka Tower however it was quite overcast.
















I find that Melbourne is very flat.

For the day of our actual anniversary, A. treated me to dinner at San Telmo , an Argentinian restaurant.












The food was quite nice! Although the waiter wasn't very friendly. Sure, we didn't fit in with the demographic but the guy was a little short with us, and cold. Very impressed with my camera (I use a p&s) in the extremely dim lighting. Since we were still a little hungry (but we I didn't want to pay $20+ for a dessert), we headed to La Petite Creperie for our crepes!

Melbourne Trip: Scienceworks and Wicked

9th July 2014
We knew that it would be a gloomy day today so we decided to head over to Scienceworks, similar to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.




Block Arcade


But first, breakfast at Laurents.






It was school holidays and when we arrived, there were around 80 people in line. There were so many kids and most were under the age of 10. Awkward. Finally we got in (for free since we could get concession tickets) and it was packed inside.



One of the key reasons for visiting Scienceworks was for the Lightning Room which I thought would be amazing. In reality, it was average and not really worth the $5 ticket pp.




We headed back to Melbourne CBD and had dinner at Kokoro Ramen which we had discovered the previous day.







A. ordered extra ramen for $1 thinking that it would be a little bit more. Rather, the amount of ramen that I received was 3/4 of the amount that was in the bowl itself. Whoops. Ramen overload.







I've been obsessed with Wicked ever since I went to Japan back in 2007 and there was a performance at Universal Studios by the cast of Wicked. I was delighted when it was running at Capitol Theatre back in 2009 however at around $100+ a ticket, it was a little expensive considering I earnt less than that a week from my job. Fast forward 5 years, I decided it was worth the money. Hence for our anniversary, I purchased tickets to see the musical. I was originally um-ing and ah-ing over the location of seats, however I was quite happy with what I picked in the end. We sat in the stalls in Row F and almost right in the middle of the row (two seats off)!

Wicked was amazing as I imagined it to be. However, I was a little disappointed with the performance of the actress who played Galinda/Glinda. Perhaps she was sick (as she played the same role back in the 2008/2009 run) but her voice was quite unstable and generally weak. Nonetheless it was still an amazing experience!



It has been quite hard to write up my travel posts. On a personal note, I've been feeling quite down lately which is alleviated only when the sun is out. Post holiday blues? Mid year blues? Quarter life crisis? No idea which one it is.