Melbourne getaway

Greetings from Australia! Coming into the Brisbane winters, there aren’t a lot of rainy days but luckily there’s always Melbourne winters! I was fortunate to be down at Melbourne recently on an overcast and slightly dreary weekend. Perfect for shopping. 

We made our way to the Chadstone Shopping Centre located at Malvern East, Victoria; one of the biggest shopping centres in Australia to peruse the local goods. 

First stop: the Aldi Australia Special Buys section for a pair of $17 gumboots (to be featured in another post). We then marvelled our way through the rest of the shopping centre, feeling like we were in a futuristic city completely cut off from earth. We passed by the Legoland Discovery Centre, Zara, Uniqlo and stopped by at the newly renovated Apple Store, complete with it’s own mini forest. Chadstone Shopping Centre is a full day, so be prepared ladies. 

Sadly, I purchased nothing further as I had a 7kg limit to my flight home.

The next day we headed to the South Melbourne Market located at the corner of Coventry and Cecil Streets, South Melbourne, to satisfy my deep love of markets. We found pastries galore including things I had never seen before like laksa croissants and pandan croissants. 

South Melbourne Market is great place to go eat some breakfast (proceed to the Food Hall), to buy fresh produce and to just check out random knick-knacks The South Melbourne Market is open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the best way to get there from the city is to catch the tram (via tram line 1 from Stop 10 at Bourke Street Mall/Swanston Street, towards Melbourne Beach). 

(For those interested getting around in Melbourne and exploring further places, I’ll do a blog post dedicated to this later.)

Shortly after we headed back to Melbourne CBD (on the same tram line), to walk around Melbourne Central where I had been awaiting eagerly for the renowned lobster ramen. That’s right, lobster ramen. To be found at Unabara Lobster & Oyster Bar. You will never be short of great food in Melbourne. 

As to whether I’d recommend it to others, I would say that I much preferred the complimentary dessert (which comes free when you review the restaurant on Zomata and write 140 characters). 

Hoping those in balmy, warmer weathers are nicely refreshed and those who are stuck in cooler weathers (like me) are snuggled up. 

Love from J.