White Night Wonders

A few weekends ago, Melbourne hosted an all-night extravaganza in the CBD called White Night. There were musical performances, art exhibitions, light shows, and all sorts of random cool things going on throughout the night. We went downtown to check it out, and it didn't disappoint.









Flinders Street Station was all lit up and looked awesome. There were various bands and performances taking place in front of the steps. Federation Square was busy too; at one point Zack was even learning to hip-hop dance in the middle of it!

This was one of the art sculptures at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was a tower of cascading suds! Throughout the night, as various portions fell and people swatted at the parts they could reach, this "living" sculpture changed, and that was exactly the point. I wonder what it looked like in the morning!

My favorite part was the lighting they did on the fronts of some of the cool buildings. My least favorite part was the crowd. This was White Night's first year, and I don't think Melbourne anticipated how popular it would be. The streets were literally packed with people; it got to the point where you couldn't even get from one side to the other. After a few hours of exploring some of the things going on and fighting the crowds, we walked home, satisfied that we had gotten a good taste of this neat cultural event. I hope (for the sake of those who live here-since I won't much longer) that Melbourne makes White Night a yearly event!

A Day with the the Dills (and Padleys)

Catching up with my mom and dad.

As you probably gathered from earlier posts, my mom, dad, aunt, and uncle came from Michigan through Melbourne on their way to New Zealand at the end of January. We spent a long weekend in Byron Bay, but more about that later. Before leaving for our disastrous "beach" weekend, we had one day (a Thursday) in Melbourne, and we tried to make the most of it.

Uncle Greg and Aunt Kathy enjoying Australia.

I met up with them all at their hotel in Southbank, and we walked across the Yarra River to the CBD to meet up with Zack and enjoy lunch at an outdoor cafe on Degraves Street. We had little cupcakes for dessert and wandered down some of the famous alleys and arcades of Melbourne.

We walked down Bourke Street Mall, browsed the souvenir shops on Swanston Street, had the obligatory stop in front of Flinders Street Station for some pictures, walked through Federation Square, and enjoyed the graffiti on Hosier Lane.

I let them rest at their hotel for a few hours before they were invited over to our house in South Melbourne for dinner. I made them Thai food, using fresh ingredients from the South Melbourne Market and recipes we learned at our cooking class in Chiang Mai. We had tom yum soup, green curry with chicken and rice, and mango sticky rice for dessert. The weather was still beautiful, so we carried our dining room table out to our patio and had a little outdoor party. Emily and Adam were staying at our place during this time, so they made a delicious appetizer and helped dinner run smoothly!

After eating, Zack and I performed a few songs we had prepared on the violin and guitar (my mother's request). I had a few silly gifts for my visitors, which I think my mom and aunt enjoyed a little too much (as seen below!). After the food and laughs, they headed back to their hotel to catch up on sleep.

In the morning, we went to St Ali's for brunch before heading to the airport for our flight to Byron Bay. They got to taste some good Melbourne coffee and enjoy the brunch culture of South Melbourne. More to come about our interesting weekend...

Do I look like my mom or dad?

Pie and Chocolate with the Fam

My mom, dad, aunt, and uncle are back in town after their amazing time in New Zealand. Today I took them to Pie Face for lunch, one of my favorite Australian chain restaurants where you can get sweet and savoury pies of all types. I got my usual chunky steak pie with mashed potatoes and gravy on top. Now, these pies are nowhere near as good as the ones Zack and I found the other day at a place a short walk from our house called Pure Pie (which we highly recommend-it's in Port Melbourne), but Pie Face has several locations in the city and is a great place to take tourists for a quick, easy lunch.

To continue our touristy expedition, we went souvenir shopping, and my Aunt Kathy got some awesome purple Uggs (her favorite color!). Then we headed to Chokolait, a chocolate place I've read about and been wanting to try for awhile now. The picture below is of the mud cake, which was delicious, but the chocolate pavlova was incredible. I'm going to have to go back for another one of those! Tonight we're dining at/on the Tramcar Restaurant, so they'll be a blog entry about that coming soon. Off to get ready...

Elephants in the City

Well, we haven't found all 50 yet, but when Zack or I happen to come across one of these elephants on our travels around town, we snap a phone picture of it. I'm sure I could find a map showing where they all are, but I much prefer coming across them randomly! Here are the ones we've found so far...

There's actually another one to the left of this one, but a lady was sitting on it (even though the signs say don't!).

So, which one's your favorite? I'm partial to #2 and #3 (the one with faces and the jeweled one). Anyway, it's fun to find these around town, and they remind me of our good time in Thailand!

Our Lives Lately

What have we been up to lately? Well, perhaps a few grainy phone pictures can fill you in...

We went to a footy game at the MCG a couple of weeks ago with some friends. The Hawthorn Hawks won, so our friend Nigel was happy. Interestingly, each footy team has a theme song, and most of them are Aussie words sung to the tune of classic American songs. Hawthorn's song is to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy," so I had that in my head all night. St Kilda, since they are the Saints, uses "When the Saints Go Marching In."

We've been trying to eat healthier food lately. Living close to the South Melbourne Market makes this a lot easier, and we go there at least once a week to stock up on fresh produce. We also got a juicer, so we've been throwing all sorts of things in that. It's about the only way you'll get me to eat vegetables! Beetroots are hugely popular here in Australia, and when you make juice from them, it's very very red (as seen above).

And sometimes we've been "bad" and haven't followed our healthy eating plan. For example, on Friday, I didn't get a call for work, and Zack's still sort of on the bench (between projects), so we spent the afternoon in the CBD wandering down Degraves Street. We hung out at a cafe, people-watched, ate some sushi, and splurged on these yummy tiny (salted caramel and raspberry white chocolate flavored) cupcakes.

We've actually been getting some Springtime weather lately (hooray!), so we've been walking to Albert Park on some evenings and on the weekends to throw the frisbee, kick the soccer ball, and/or hit some golf balls at the driving range. Zack is finally making use of the golf clubs he brought from the other side of the world!

So that's a taste of what's been going on in our lives lately. How about yours?

Comedy Fest Fun

We girls enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine from a Margaret River Region winery Zack and I had visited!

On Friday night, we headed to the CBD with two other American couples (Alena/Todd and Emily/Adam). The main event of the evening was going to a show as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, but we met beforehand in the Southbank area for drinks and dinner. The before-show festivities turned out to be a lot more enjoyable, because the comedian (Mark Watson) wasn't actually that funny. Oh well; it was still a fun night out with friends!

A Melbourne Merry Christmas

It really doesn't feel like Christmas. Today it was nearly 90 degrees outside, and while I'm loving the heat, I'm a little bit jealous when I hear that Denver got almost a foot of snow. To try to get myself into the Christmas spirit, I walked around Melbourne's CBD (downtown) yesterday and took pictures of the holiday decorations. Though an Australian Christmas is much tamer and low-key than the American version (sadly), these pictures will give you an idea of how Melbourne celebrates the holiday.

This bridge over the Yarra River has a giant mistletoe contraption hanging in the middle.

Federation Square is full of fake trees. Kids play hide and seek in them.

Stars hang above the street in front of Flinders Street Station.

I don't think you'd see this in a United States downtown display!

No, I didn't wait in line to sit on Santa's lap. I've been a good girl though.

Flinders Street Station from another angle-this looked pretty cool.

Myer's (basically the Australian version of Macy's) has an elaborate window display.
It was jam-packed in front of these, so this is the best shot I could get without waiting in a big line.

Merry Christmas Melbourne indeed.

Zack and I are heading out tomorrow morning to camp for a few days along the Great Ocean Road. We figure it will be nice to get away and just spend some time surfing and relaxing on the beach. It will be sad not being with our families, and I will especially miss the "Christmas House." Schultz Family-eat lots of venison and walleye for me and let me know who wins the euchre tournament! But we will make the best of it; sleeping under the stars on a beach during an Australian summer isn't the worst way to celebrate the holiday after all. Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this blog!

Thrills on the Great Ocean Road Part II

After our first day on the Great Ocean Road, we had traveled from Melbourne down to Torquay and along the coast all the way to Lavers Hill. So after our night at Fauna Australia Wildlife Retreat, we only had a short distance to go to visit the famous Twelve Apostles.

These rock stacks are definitely one of the most photographed things in all of Australia. They are prettier at sunrise or sunset, but that didn't work out with our drive, so these pictures will have to do! There used to be twelve of these (hence the name), but some have since collapsed into the ocean. Here are my mom and dad in front of the Twelve Apostles.

We drove a bit more and stopped at Loch Ard Gorge to enjoy more scenic views and some playtime on the beach.

We took several versions of the picture below. While Cindy was taking one of us (not this version), a wave came up behind us and got us pretty wet!

After lunch in Port Campbell, we drove back to Melbourne the faster way (not along the coast) and did some souvenir shopping in the Federation Square area of the CBD. Cindy and Justin were able to get lots of Christmas shopping done for Cindy's family. We had dinner at Camy's, which is down a little hidden alley near Chinatown and serves up all sorts of dumplings for a very affordable price. We ordered about a hundred dumplings filled with various things and stuffed ourselves silly.


We got back to St Kilda just in time to see the sunset. We walked along the pier and saw a few fairy penguins come in for the night. It was kind of a chilly evening, so we didn't stay too long before meeting up with Zack (he got back from the US that morning) for some dessert on Acland Street. My family's trip to Australia was winding down!