I’m currently sitting in the Melbourne Airport waiting for my flight home to Sydney, after a quick trip to BurnCity.
Tag: Melbourne
The remainder of my time in Melbourne has been pleasant.
Sunday morning after leaving church I met up with an old friend Dimos AKA Archon, whom I know from break-dancing. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant, both opting for the spaghetti carbonara, then just wandered back to Southern Cross Station catching up as we walked.
In the afternoon I got a call from Mr Turner who also happened to be in Melbourne with Thea on holidays. They were keen for a catch-up over a meal, so we’d arranged to do something on Monday. That evening I was making my way out to Balaclava to meet Veigli and Clare for dinner and trivia at a pub, when I saw Matt and Thea wandering the streets. I gave them a call and found out they were on their way to The Local Taphouse. They invited me to join them, but I refused, having already made plans with Veigli. When I met up with Veigli it turned out to be at The Local Taphouse, and 5 minutes later, who should happen to show up but The Turners. They ended up joining us for dinner, which was very very slow to get out, a few tasty beverages and some minor celebrity spotting. After dinner, we jumped in the car and went for some gelato. I opted for some blood orange and chocolate indulgence in the hope of a jaffa flavour, an old favourite of mine. The blood orange was definitely a tasty finish to the combination as well as cleaning my palette. After that it was time to bid farewell to Veigli and Clare as we caught the tram back to town.
Monday morning I woke late, and wandered up to Little Bourke Street to meet The Turners for Yum Cha. We wandered up the street a little before we could find a decent looking venue. We ate a variety of dumplings: Ha Gou, Siu Mei, Spring Rolls, Gou Choi Gou and Pork Buns. After lunch, Thea wandered off herself whilst Matt and I went in search of some laneway pubs. We didn’t end up finding any, but instead we ended up sipping lattes at Brother Baba Budan and looking at cameras and lenses.
In the evening after a swim and a spa I got my photo gear together to go out to shoot some sights of the Melbourne CBD. After wandering for a good hour and a bit with my D50 and gorillapod I was exhausted, cold and a little damp. Here’s a couple of my favourite shots, the rest are in my Flickr:
My final Melbourne experience was St Ali before jumping on the Skybus back to the airport and flying to Sydney and wrestling with the new Cityrail timetable via the Northern Line through Macquarie Park.
I am by no means a coffee connoisseur, you’d have to look to Guthers or Rusty for that, and to their roasting business: threebeansroasters, but this morning I got along to St Ali for breakfast after having a few recommendations….
It was a little difficult to find the place…. The concierge at my hotel had no idea about the place, having not even heard about it. Mr Turner had told me to take the 112 tram down to South Melbourne and get off at some street and it was a quick stroll from there. So I managed to jump on the 112 and catch it along Clarendon St. As it stopped just before York St I had a feeling that I should have gotten off there; by the time the tram stopped next I regretted not getting off at York St. I wandered about for a little before stumbling down Yarra Pl to St Ali, a well hidden gem.
Once inside, the friendly staff greeted me and told me to sit wherever, offering me a menu and a coffee to start; I opted for a latte whilst I decided what to eat. The non-standard menu has plenty of interesting combinations of foods, and a fairly broad build your own breakfast option. I ended up choosing the buttercup pancakes with yogurt, pear slices with sesame seeds and maple syrup. The three pancakes were very filling, I struggled to make my way through them… The taste was also quite interesting…
During my meal I was trying to decide on what coffee to finish off with…. I’d heard about a syphon coffee before and decided that I would give it a go… They were offering a Kenyan Fine Estate on the blackboard, with characteristic flavours of white peach and honey. When the syphon came out, it was steaming and looked like a cup of tea, I gave it some time to cool down, which brings out the flavours, so I’m told, and sipped on it. I think I caught some hints of white peach through the slightly bitter taste as I slowly drank it down.
I enjoyed my time at St Ali, the staff were warm, the coffees were tasty and the food was interesting. Definitely recommend it to anyone who’s in Melbourne.
This morning I wandered down to the James Squire brewery in amongst the Docklands waterfront of Melbourne. It wasn’t because I was thirsty for a brew, rather I was thirsty for The Word of God. I’d heard about this church from Rune, a girl I had met at Semi-Permanent in Sydney back in April, and then again here in Melbourne. She’d told me it was a great community church that was rich in it’s teaching.
When I arrived there wasn’t much of an indication that a church was conducting a service there. When I’d worked out how to get in I was met with a room starting to fill with people…. After meeting a few people the service began.
Compared to my normal service at St Pauls there were a few discrepancies:
- The songs sung were very praise based i.e. how we praise God, and less about Jesus’ sacrifice and the nature of God.
- The Bible reading was a video. The words used in the voiceover were different to the NRSV Bibles placed on seats, which we weren’t encouraged to open until the sermon began.
- There was a fair amount of public recognition of congregation members for their work. There wasn’t any recognition of God in these things.
It was interesting to see how things are at different churches and in different diocese. It also made me see how privileged we are at St Pauls and as Sydney Anglicans to hear the Word preached faithfully, in context, and in light of Jesus. It also showed me how great our ministers James and Mike are in their attitude to newcomers; making the effort to sit and talk to them.