Time flies by so quick! Steph came and went back already... 2 weeks flew by just like that! I was at the boyfriend's for the last 5 days and before I felt like I've settled in comfortably, it was already time for me to head home and head back to uni for my classes.
Not that I didn't have any classes last week but just because Steph was around, I was busy planning certain day outs with her and it is easier if I stayed at the boyfriend's. Because transportation back to Clayton doesn't have any limitations. Buses run till as late as 1214am where as buses back to where I live at aunty D's place only run till 9pm. Which means I can't do any late dinners in the city..if I stay at aunty D's.
Anywayyyyyyy I am at the boyfriend's every weekend regardless of whether I am going out or not. I just want to see him and spend time with him lah.. :P At every posssiiible time given :) HEHEH
Wokays this post will solely be about the day outs and foooods I had with Steph :) It is her first time to the Land Down Under! I have been waiting and waiting for her to make a trip here till my neck grew abit longer I think. It would have been even more awesome if Yao Yun were still here but.. I'll take what I can get! After years of planning the girlfriend finally came for a visit!! <3
Steph would be my oldest friend amongst this big bunch that I have around me! I've known her since kindergarten and only realised in Form 1 that I've actually been in the same class with her when I was six. With picture prove of my kindy birthday celebration and dance recital that has her in them! We were such cute kids then andddddd we still are HAHA!
In total I managed to squeeze in 4 days of meetups out of her 2 weeks stay! :D
Day 1, Last last Thursday,
Met her up @ Victoria Market and brought her to buy the famous Spanish Churros! It's cheap and it is my favourite goto place for churros!! She didn't know where it was but fear not...! I came to her rescue just in time :) HAHA!
When I got there she had already walked around the whole place for souvenirs hunting and also tried the famous bratwurst stall and she absolutely loved the bratwurst because it is seriously pretty good.. and she also tried the jam donuts which in my opinion, neh not that good, not worth queueing so long for. Churros was better and she agreed with me :))))) Of course! haha!
After omnomnom-ing on the 7 sticks of churros that I bought for them, we went for lunch! I took them to Menya for Gyu Tan Don! I gave her a choice between gyu tan(ox tongue) or Rose Garden's spicy chicken ribs and she decided on having gyu tan because it was something new to her. Anyways these two shops were side by side sooo either way works :) And I was craving for either one of it sooo I am happy anyhows! :D
Stephanieeeeeeee!!! <3
And the glorious super duper yummy Gyu Tan Don from Menya! :D
After lunch, I took them.. them being steph, her brother and her cousin, to Carlton Gardens! Ever since I posted the pictures of Carlton Garden during my random city photo walk at the end of autumn right before my semester one exams, she said "take me there when I am in Melbourne!"
So I did! :)
But the view wasn't as nice as it was during autumn. In winter, the trees are bare and it makes the picture less beautiful according to her haha!
But the fountain is still as magical looking as it was before, in my opinion. Me loveeee the fountain and the colour of the sky and the cotton candy clouds in this picture!
<3
A real Blue Whale skeleton right as you enter the museum.
Replicas of dinosaur skeletons.
The scale lied in some way. There is no way I am 70 kilos please...!! HAHA!
The really pretty blue-y metallicy pearly butterflies that they had at the insect/reptile/spider area.
Apart from the butterflies, the whole "creepy crawlies" area totally TOTALLY freaked me out!! There were live spiders of all sorts and they looked freaking scary!!!! The reptile area gave me the creep and goosebumps and I felt itchy all over just looking at everything there! Me and any sort of creepy crawlies are totally not on the same page. Never will be!
Explored the rest of the museum but I didn't take anymore pictures. I was more of just looking at stuff that most of the time didn't really interest me but it was a nice experience heading to the Melbourne Museum for the first time :)
We were done with the museum at about 5pm and since steph had plans for dinner in the city with her friends, I headed back to the boyfriend's.
Spent the rest of the night chilling and hanging with the boyfriend as per usual :)
Day 2, Last last Friday,
It was shopping day!!
I met up with her and her brother at Southern Cross station and we had lunch @ Grill'd. The outlet in the station itself.
Mine.
And hers. Which has the whole lot in it! She has heard so much about it and finally she tried it for herself and yesss they are truly healthy burgers! :D
After filling ourselves up fully, we adjourned to DFO South Wharf for shopping!! Spent the next 3 to 4 hours in there indulging ourselves in shops after shops, pieces after pieces purchased :P HAHA! We did what girls do best la basically hehee :D
And came out with all of these!
Steph said "I have never shop so much in one place before!" and yes they were good buys! CHEAAAAAP GOOD BUYS! We aren't the kind of people who shops for item that costs more than $15 per piece, we are people who goes through racks that says $5 and under and lookout for sign that says "Nothing above $20" or "Take a further ...% off" kind of people :)))) And she was super duper happy that day!
When she's happy, I am happy because technically I was the "little devil" that made her pay for most things because I kept saying "It's cheap and it's nice! GET IT!!!" HAHAH!
And a nice picture of us with the Yarra River and the Southbank view at the back :) So pretty! And no, I don't mean us, but generally meant the picture haha!
After all of that shopping and walking, we parted ways at Southern Cross and hopped on a train to head back to our respective places. Yeap, the day out in the city was just for shopping! :D
No meetups over the weekend because she was up in the Gold Coast having tonnes of fun with the theme parks and the hotter weather :)
Day 3, Last Wednesday,
A whole day out with Stephanieeee! First, we scheduled for a brunch with Cherly because I think they both haven't met in some time. And brunch was @ Oscar Copper in Prahran.
Their menu. But thanks to my macro-ish lens, I don't think you can get much read out of it haha! But main thing was, whatever we ordered are still readable haha!
My Soy Chai Latte with Honey. Surprisingly it was really really niceeeee compared to the usual ones that I've tried!
I ordered the Oscar's Benedict on potato rosti, smashed avo, poached eggs and tangy hollandaise with house cured salmon. It was nice and different with the touch of potato rosti instead of english muffins for benedicts but I have had better somewhere along the years in the Melbourne food scene. But don't get me wrong, they were nice!
Steph ordered the Oscar's Benedict as well but with berkshire bacon.
Cherly had their breakfast bruschetta of two poached eggs with smashed avocado, spicy tomato salsa and salted ricotta with chorizos.
After brunch, we girls just went window shopping on Chapel Street since this brunch spot is just a small street away from Chapel Street which is the Higher End Shopping Precinct.
The three of us used to go to whatever tuitions together!
Of course there has to be a shot of me and Stephanie!
We had enough of the high end clothes that we could only see but not buy and it was starting to rain heavy drizzles so we stopped by a take away cake shop that is kind of famous right now and took away some cakes. With a plan that we will eat them either at Cherly's or in Chadstone because there wasn't anything else to see at chapel street already.
And finally decided to drop by Chadstone and have a look see and also to eat our desserts at their food court area. hehehe!
The desserts were from Burch and Purchese @ South Yarra.
Cherly ordered their Caramel, Hazelnut and Chocolate Choux which is a similar texture to an eclair.
Me and steph shared this and it was sooooo good!! It was more sour than sweet but me loveeeee sour stuffs! And it is all about the raspberries! LOVEEE!
After the desserts and the walking at chaddy, we all went back to Cherly's to hang awhile. More like just lazing around and waiting out on the wet weather to pass through before heading out for dinner with another bunch.
Then, for dinner, Jia Shen drove Steph, Teck Wei and me to the city! Yeap, went back down to the city for dinner @ Lygon Street because steph wanted to have Freddos Gelato.
And because we got stuck in traffic and having trouble to find a parking spot, by the time we actually got there, we were already starving like crazyyyy.. So.. we just went into our usual restaurant which serves their food pretty fast and sort of at a reasonable price but they aren't anything fancy. It isn't like super nice but just nice. If you get what I mean.
And so, we settled for Cafe Notturno :)
Chicken and Mushroom Risotto.
Fettucine Carbonara.
The Lot Pizza.
The Saturn gourmet pizza. This is yums! We will order this EVERYTIME we eat at Notturno!
And of course, me and Steph again! Well... she is the VIP whaaaaaat :D
After dinner, we were suppose to go to Freddos for gelato but..... they were still close from the winter break that they take every year. They were suppose to reopen mid August and that night was a 14th but nope.. still not open yet. Poor steph... Didn't get to eat the awesome possum roche gelato.. ):
So instead, we took her to Koko Black :)
She and Jia Shen ordered their Hot Chocolate.
And I ordered their Baby Iced Chocolate :) I always love Koko Black's baby iced chocolate! So yums and the size is always just nice for me!
Us crazy and talkative people! Us three I mean because the boyfie doesn't count as he was totally drained from the sleepless night before. We three have been the crazy talkative bunch since high school tuitions!! And all we talk about is crap! But soooooo fun!! To relive the taste of how we used to be in high school :) As you can tell, jia shen is still as funny looking as before. HAHA! And these two hasn't seen each other in 2 years and the could still click off just like that! The good old times relived :D
Then about 10 something, Jia Shen fetched me and the boyfie back to Clayton and Steph back to Glen and then he headed back to where he stayed which takes him 45 minutes and he has to pass by the city. So nice of him to go back and forth like that! :D Yeap... he has been trying to tell me how nice he is but I just refuse to label him as he is because it just isn't as fun anymore if I do HAHAH!
Day 4, Last Friday, my last day spent with Steph in Melbourne,
We met up around 1030am at Flinders Street Station because we were going to catch the Hollywood Costumes exhibition @ ACMI on Federation Square.
It was $15.50 for the concession ticket :) But no photography was allowed inside but I still sneakily took pictures of two costumes. Basically to name some, they had the costumes of Superman, Spiderman, Cat Woman, Batman, Daniel Craig's James Bond Tuxedo, Captain Jack Sparrow, Rocky, Harry Potter, the Addams Family, from Brokeback Mountain and from a lot movies that were really old and that I've never watched or even heard of them before.
These were my sneaky shots. The black dress Audrey Hepburn wore along with the necklace and the cigarette pipe thingy in Breakfast at Tiffany's(but you can't really see it) and the ever well known Marilyn Monroe dress that was conveniently blown by a fan and she tried to hold them down and ever since then, the picture and that pose and the dress has became an icon. The sexy bombshell iconic pose and dress and picture.
It was quite interesting but there were so many people as it being it's second last day of the exhibition. But it was worth going tho! :D So glad she was here and I could tag along because usually even if I wanted to go for these kind of exhibitions, it would be hard for me to find someone that is willing to go along.
After the exhibition, we went walking around the ACMI a while before leaving off to Docklands/Harbourtown for more shopping!
Since we won't be going to the real Hollywood sign in LA anytime soon, this temporary one shall have to do!
And the classic tourist shot!
Then off we hopped onto the Free City Circle Tram to Harbourtown :)
Steph did more shopping there despite being slightly low on cash already since it was her second last day here but me being a very "good little devil friend" kept talking her into buying things! She bought so much but only spent $40! Dresses were as low as $3 $5!! How to not ask her to buy lah you tell me?!?!!! :DDD
After finally done with shopping, we had lunch @ Groove Train in Harbourtown itself.
Wood fired Capricio Pizza which was so so so yums!! There were just simple and nice toppings :) I love wood fired pizzas compared to the normal oven baked ones!
And a classic ol' Chicken Parmagiana just cause they haven't try it before.
Groove Train has a $12 lunch menu every weekdays from 12-4pm and I find it to be super damn worth it! At least for the pizza it is worth it! Because the pizza is wood fired and wood fired pizzas aren't usually cheap plus this particular pizza is so good!! The portion is reasonably large and it tastes good and it's cheap!! I always go for their lunches whenever I am around one of their restaurant during lunch hour on a weekday :) where as the parma was just so so. It was small and wasn't that great. But the pizza is a MUST TRY!!
So yeap.., we ordered two dishes and shared amongst the three of us.
After lunch, we hopped back onto a tram and headed back into the CBD because we were going for desserts! Which explains why we didn't eat much for our late lunch because we knew we were going for cakes and also early dinner later on.
I took them to Le Petit Gateau!
Steph ordered their Hot Milk Chocolate with their famous chocolate passionfruit brownie ganache cake to share with her brother.
Where as I ordered their Hot Dark Chocolate and their Crispy Lemon Tart. The lemon tart was so good! It was my first time trying it and everything about it was so nice! The pastry was just nice on the hardness and it was flaky and the lemon curd was tangy and just the way I like my soury desserts!! :D
I was happyyyyyy because I love this little cafe!! :D But too bad they only open on weekdays so I can't pop by much to eat their cakes..
Then, after dessert, we walked over to Crown to just look around since they haven't been there. And basically just to walk around Southbank because it is an absolutely lovely walk and it my favourite part of the city!
First we went exploring in Crown and went to their Galactic Circus to have a short look. Then Rodney left us because he had dinner plans with his friends so me and Steph decided to have a nice walk on Southbank, to take pictures while we walked back to Flinders Street because she was meeting her friend there as they were heading to dinner. And I also had dinner plans with teck wei.
*The lovely walk along Southbank*
For some reason, I think it looked like an aurora but during daytime :) So pretty!!
♥♥
The shot of the carriage that she insisted I took. But by the time I tried running to it to take a picture, it was already riding away. Good enough la eh? :P
So pretty! I absolutely love this view of the Northbank from this side! And the colours of the sky just made it even more prettier!
Me love this picha! :DDDDD
When the sky slowly started turning dark. The colours are just absolutely gorgeous!!!
Flinders Street Station taken from the other side.
The "Melbourne Eiffel Tower" aka the Arts Centre and the Eureka Tower.
Federation Square.
I am so happy that I finally am able to capture the view during sunset as I walked along Southbank! So pretty and gorgeous and I absolutely LOVED IT!!
But this also means that my post is already at it's end because after walking back to Flinders Street Station, I just chilled with steph for an hour while sitting at Fed Square till it was time for her to meet up with her friends. And that was it! Had to bid her goodbye with big tight hugs.. ):
It was saddddd that her holiday here is over and that the next time I'll be seeing her will be in a couple of months time but at the same time, I am happy to even have her here in Melbourne with me despite how short the trip felt like. At least she was here!!!
So glad that I managed to show her Melbourne in a way that I see it, live it, and love it! Hopefully we will have more holiday trips together in the future!
I'll always love her <3
That's all for now! Food expeditions since I got back shall have to wait till the next post :) Which will likely be in a week from now heheheh :D
Lots of love,
Shereena.
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