Day 3 in Melbourne was chill-out day. I just really wanted to spend time with mags and the kids – and seeing that her mom & sis were around as well, she had the day off to entertain the tourists. The kids were home from daycare, as little Jovan had to go for a maternal health visit. Mags dropped off me, bacon, Joel & sis off at a nearby mall whilst she brought Jovan & mom to the clinic.

Joel on his horsey after we failed to con him into believing that it was broken. Sara did try – however, some harrassed mom plopped her child on the horsey and popped in a $2 coin….at which point we ought to give Joel credit that he noticed that and started insisting on going on horsey again. heehhe.

After that incident the adults decided that we needed coffee to keep up with him – but Joel kept trying to run back to Mr. Horsey. So me in a moment of genius got him a container of colorful sprinkles, some coloring pencils and a printout. Ha! That kept him entertained for at least 30 mins. We did have a very interesting moment of him scuppering up his own booger before we manage to get a tissue out – which me and Sara just looked at each other and started laughing .

We headed to a local chinese restaurant to have lunch after Mags picked us up. I apparently did not get the name, not to mention only managed one measly picture. Seeing that it was a tuesday afternoon, it was jampacked! The dim sum was suprisingly large – there was one prawn dumpling thingy that contained four massive king prawns in ONE dumpling! GULP.

After lunch, the kids were tired and wanting an afternoon nap – together with sara (apparently pregnant women sleeps alot ). So we were left with a choice of either going for an afternoon nap or making it into the city. We (me & bacon) decided that we should be headed towards St. Kilda, the urban beach near Melbourne city center for something a little different – it was a super sunny day and I won’t be able to sleep (a wuss with the heat now!) .

My first beach in nearly a year!! Unlike the last time we were in Melbourne, this time around we can actually walk in the beach without feeling chilly – the weather in Feburary is much definately better. It was still extremely windy, but bearable. The beach was clean-ish, but the water was not really swimmable as there were loads of jellyfishes that washed up onshore. Hmm. Still – to have access to a beach so close to the city – I would KILL to be near a beach where you can actually whip your clothes off. Bliss.

St Kilda is also home to many shops – one of my favourite being Grill’d , fresh low-fat healthy burgers ‘made with love’ . This chain reminds me of my love of In-N-Out burgers (if you’ve never had one, you REALLY do not know what you’re missing out!), but more expensive. Seeing that we were still both stuffed from lunch, we ordered the Mighty Melbourne Burger to share – consisting of 100% lean burger, crispy bacon, cheese, free range egg, beetroot, salad, herbed mayo and relish. Yum Yum Good..

As bacon would testify….

So the yummy…

Closer look at the cross section of the burger…

It’s most definately not cheap, burger & chips plus one pot of herbed mayo dip cost AU17. BUT it was worth it for a treat, so juicy, delish and tasty. We had a slow and lazy walk to the other side of St Kilda, and caught the tram back to the City to grab a pint with bens before we headed home. You can tell how tired I was – I did not even take pictures of the bar. Sigh. Suffice to say, it was a very lovely bar where we were sat out in th balcony overlooking Melbourne’s rush hour traffic. Ahh…rush hour traffic – I can just feel the smog and I LOVE IT. A city girl through and through…living in the country confuses and slightly scares me. It may seem nice, but it’s really not for me. I really miss the rush and energy of a bustling metropolitan, the feeling that the city never sleeps..

Mags picked us up from the station with a tear-streaked Joel in the car….crying cause the grandma and aunt had took Jovan to the park without him. Aww. As we drove off from the station, I spotted a familiar sign and screamed STOPPP! I was under the impression that it was the Cheesecake Factory – the famed cheesecake shop overlooking Union Square in San Francisco. It wasn’t until we had purchased the cakes that I realise that it was an imitation!! Fail….this was called the Cheesecake Shop, not the Cheesecake Factory!!

We let Joel pick a cake, and he chose the most colorful cake of them all, cheesecake with a tropical fruit topping. The lovely puffiness of the Lemon Meringue cheesecake was too much to resist, so we got half of that as well. Mm mm good. I’m glad we got both of it …. it was not bad at all….when I realised it wasn’t the Cheesecake Factory I was expecting the worse. Apparently the Cheesecake Shop is also operating in the UK in random locations, so check it out if you do come across it.

Dessert done (by this time it was 7) it was time to start thinking of dinner. Yeah. You’d think that we’d just been released from a concentration camp and was food-deprived. After long discussions with a variety of suggestions (from Assam Laksa to chinese restaurant) we eventually decided on the Pancake Factory – only for me to realise upon arrival that it was the exact same restaurant that my brother took me when I was there in 2006. How odd! So we went next door instead to La Porchetta.

One half of us

The other half with the kids – still can’t believe that we all squeezed into one car!!

Because we were all so stuffed to the gills with cheesecake, we ordered two steaks, a pizza and a prawn dish to be shared. Service wise it was abit strange – even though I requested for a rare, the waitress brought me a well-done and just kinda expected me to eat it. Well, NO. I’m paying for it and I asked for rare – it’s her bloody fault that it came out wrong isn’t it? Bleah. So I sent it back even though she was staring daggers at me.

The tomato pizza with sundried tomatoes and regular sliced. Yummy.

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The massive porterhouse steak smothered with lovely mushroom sauce. The rare tasted miles better, and I loved the sauce. The side salad was lovely with a drizzle of balsamic dressing. See, when they do actually deliver what I asked for it was lovely!

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On my way out, I snapped a picture of the restaurant – as I do, naturally….

If you look closer, you would see that everyone seemed to be looking for something – Joel dropped his lollipop in the hedge and all the adults were scrambling around trying to rescue his lolly from the hedge! Hilarious – Bens actually had to climb INTO the hedge to get to the lollipop in the dark

It was my last night in Melbourne, so we just headed home and popped the TVB serials into the dvd player – at this point, even bacon was engrossed (it had english subtitles) and it was so funny that we had flown half way across the globe to watch a chinese serial with two other people who flew in from Malaysia – . But this is what any good Chinese family do – so we manage to finish the whole serial eventually that night. At about 2am!!!

Joel & Jovan….damn technological, not even 4 and he’s already downloading stuff on mommy’s iPhone and shaking it all around. Can’t beat me in wii boxing though..hur hur hur…this godmother is so competitive that she insist on beating a 3.5 year old in virtual boxing. Hopeless. Although that got a giggle from didi…which was funny.

St. Kilda. What’s that up in the sky??? Oh. BLUE SKIES. Novelty. Cloudless blue skies – even more so!

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Contacts

Mamuska Cheesecake Shop

Grill’d

La Porchetta

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