Shopping for Food & Window Shop

8th August 2008
The holidays were fast coming to an end and I seeked to do anything fun / meaningful to make the last days of the holidays memorable. So when Linda extended the invite to go jalan-jalan... I thought why not? [grin]

We met at Melbourne central's big big clock. It's normally just a clock but five minutes past every hour, it opens up and play the little tune "waltzing Matilda". Interestingly, I had briefly read a book about Australia in the Hawthorn library that this little tune is played as a victory tune of sorts... I could remembered it wrongly. But Australians do have a soft spot for this song.
Anyway, soon our tummies were rumbling and we made our way to the restaurant "Oriental Spoon"
It's a Korean restuarant... with pretty Asian arts and pottery to see..
Oh might I mention that other else than Linda, Bor and Joanne (yea... there's another Joanne here too, her name's Joanne Siow) I met Tennison (It's a very small world indeed to bump into an ex-TOA-classmate here in Melbourne. He studied in Lim Kok Wing where he met Linda and the rest) his girlfriend Ashley...
and also Vincent (that's the dude pouring more chilli sauce into the stone bowl)
In the stone bowl is a rice dish of sorts... this one is my one without the flood of chilli sauce
It has prawn... yummy~! I miss seafood. [nod nod nod]
After lunch, we made our way to DFO.
Direct Factory Outlet (DFO) is like a place where there's a concentration of branded goods in one place and sells the products cheaper.. Not bad eh? I did spot 2 t-shirts that I was interested in but I didn't buy them. I may come back and buy them later. [shrugs]

I followed Linda around the shops. Linda was hunting for a black jacket. She was interested in 2 different jackets (both priced Aus89 each). One made her look like a little French girl and the other a New Yorker (in my opinion that is).

When Priscilla joined us, we went to the 2 shops again to show her... we repeated this process when Bor joined us shortly after that. In the end, we were in JayJay and Priscilla spots this black jacket priced at Aus39. It's cheap but it certainly doesn't look cheap. Poor Linda was tore between the 3 jackets. But when we asked the price of the jacket and it was marked for Aus29, both Bor and I immediately said "Buy It" [lol]

We had shopped from lunch to dinner... I didn't think that shopping was such hard work. [lol] We ate our dinner at Queen Victoria building since poor Linda's legs were freezing (the silly little girl wore thin trackbottoms). We ate at EC Pot I believe. I ordered Black Bean Beef Noodles and Puh'er Tea.
Oh, Duncan (Bor's friend who joined us midway through shopping) was with us for dinner. [grin] He's a nice and interesting guy. Cheers~!

Get Out of Jail Free Card

Yeah... I realised that I'm running a little backwards with my blogpost... School has started and I'm in the full swing of things. That's why I'm sitting down to write as many posts as I can now and disappear for a while I guess.. [lol]

7th August 2008
Met up with Annie to go on a random city tour. Well... not exactly that random seeing that I pinpointed a section of town to explore;
The silly little girl was happy and eager to get out of the house (it was still the holidays) and our first stop was the Old Melbourne Gaol...
There, we paid Aus14 (student price) to explore the jail (gaol is derived from an older language I think)... We went on a watchhouse experience... It's something like a tour of the jailhouse by a sergeant...
except we were treated like prisoners (role-play) and we were "thrown" into the cell and experience "lights-out". The cell was pitch black except for a small ray of light at the door...
Sitting in the darkness for 2 minutes was bad enough... hate to imagine serving a sentence in jail. Each cell does have one toilet but that's about it...
There were plenty of graffiti on the walls and the benches in the cell... Guess it's the artwork of bored people...
Prisoners are not only cooped up in the cells. The photo above is the Woman's exercise area. There's a men's exercise area but they both look about the same...
The tour lasted about 30 minutes (mostly showing the process and procedures of arresting someone and doing "body checks" {they checked the both of our shoes and using a pen, the sergeant checked in between our fingers to see if we smuggled in drugs})
After the tour, we visited the main building where they were more cell blocks...
This building was the men's section... there was a woman's section but it was demolished when they didn't have that much women prisoners.. I guess the term GIRLS are EVIL don't really ring true... hahahha.
The cells weren't very big (as we can see Annie in one of the cells).
In each cell, there were facts, history and information in regards to the Old Melbourne Gaol. This one shows the study if there's scientific evidence of a "criminal mind". Conclusion... the brain of a criminal is the same of that of an "honest" man.
Here's the armour replica that Ned Kelly wore...
In case, you're interested who Ned Kelly is... wiki is a good place to start. Hahaha~! Arr... The photo above shows the gallows.
Gallows = Instrument of execution consisting of a wooden frame from which condemned persons are executed by hanging.
Yup yup. The gallows used to be outside and the public could witness the hanging... [twitch] I can't begin to imagine being at a public execution. [cries]
There were 3 levels of cell blocks in this building... I suppose the Malaysian Jail visit would be similar to this visit...
From the gloomy jail, we headed to our next destination..
for some Italian lunch at "Melbourne's Little Italy"...
[distracted] Awww.... creative used of advertising for crayons, yes?
Oh right, we had lunch at Lygon St.
There were SOOOOOOOOO many restaurants to choose from. We walked past a few good restaurants while we were looking for an ATM for me to punch out money... No $$$ means no food man.. hahha
In the end, we pretty randomly decided to eat at cafe cavallino. Guess we were hungry by the time we got to this restaurant.. hahaha
I ordered a lasagna. Yum~! Lasagna [smiles a garfield smile]
And also a pizza called the Lygon Special which consisted of pineapple, spicy bacon slice, olives, red capsicum, local mushroom and prawns (the prawns were fresh and sweet)
I enjoyed lunch very much. Teehehe~! We ordered enough with a main dish and a side. [grin]
After eating such a scrumptiously heavy lunch, Annie and I walked for a bit...
We past a little square where they were little kids playing...
The square was named ugly square Argyle Square... What a name isn't it? Hehehe...
Anyway, we made our way to the Carlton Gardens and saw the Royal Exhibition Building.
It's pretty awesome to see this building...
And even the big fountain at the side... Think it's not on to save water and stuff...
Compared to Annie and I, those things were huge~! Seriously. Hahah~!
The weather was pretty cool and looking up at the blue sky can only relax yourself...
Of course, add in some pretty blue flowers (honest, it's blue on its own - not photoshop-ed)
I can even see the little moon way above the building. [grin]
Lovely lovely. Clear day. Too bad it's not really open to the public unless there's an event going on in it...
Next to the Royal Exhibition Building was the Melbourne Museum.
The good news is there will be a Melbourne Food Fest (I think that's the name of the event) going on from the 21st August to the 24 August. Teehehe~! May go if I'm a good girl and finish all my work earlier.
All in all, this outing was nice and slightly slow paced than usual (since my legs were still recovering from the badminton I suppose). Annie was super sweet and walked right with me through the whole trip. Not many people will do that... [love and hearts for her] Cheers~!