Melbourne Revisited ... 11 years on

{4 September 2012, 11:15 am, Malaysian time, about 4 hours on the plane from Melbourne to KL; half way through the journey. The landscape below still looks desolate.}

The last time we visited Melbourne was in 2001 when we (all five of us) spent about a month at my sister's house in Vermont South. We rented a van and drove to Canberra, Sydney and saw the Blue Mountains. And then took the Great Ocean road for 2 or 3 days, enjoying the crayfish with instant ramen.

Huey asked me what we would like to see or do? Eat and relax, I said. Also visit the Victoria Market, walk around the city centre. And maybe visit the rehabilitated port (the Docklands). I said I saw on a documentary the port is now a happening place. It's seems that that was lie. Everyone we asked agreed that the place is still in the dumps.

“Eat? That I can do”, said Huey. What do you want to eat? Vietnamese Pho. Cocktail bun. Crayfish. Maybe some Chinese noodles. Whatever is nice.

We arrived early Saturday morning from Auckland. Had to line up for inspection by the little dog, sniffing all our bags for contraband. If you bring in food and wood products and prohibited stuff, you must declare it. Or thrash it. They even provide bins for you to throw stuff away. If you don't declare and get caught, the fine can be several hundred to thousands of dollars. Actually, the process is not so painfully slow. First, at the immigration (Border Protection, they are called now) the officer asks what you are declaring. “Chocolates from the Auckland Airport”, we said. Hhmm, he says and makes some marks of the immigration and customs declaration forms.

Then you might get intercepted at the luggage area and get asked the same question. You give the same reply. They don't say anything. Just put more marks on the cards. Then you queue up and give the customs officer your cards. Nothing to declare? This way, she points. If you say yes, then you join and special line. They line up about 6 to 8 people, trolleys and bags properly arranged in a line, people next to their bags. Then little snoopy sniffs from back of line to front of line, turns around and sniffs to the back again on the other side. If he likes your stuff he keeps sniffing it. The handler will pull him away. If snoopy is very insistent and keeps going back to your bag or box, oops, you're in trouble. You go to another line and another officer asks you to open your bags or boxes and digs inside to find contraband. Otherwise, it's actually quite fast. The dog didn't even like our chocolates.

Poor Huey waited a long time because of the long queue at the immigration. We decided to go to her house first and meet up with Vivian and Teng for lunch at Glen Waverly. After walking one round, we decided on the hand-made noodles and dumplings. I remember my sister Gek Hoon taking us to the BBQ shop at this place 11 years ago to buy some roast meat. I thought it was char siew but Huey says her mom will never buy char siew there. Her mom would make them herself! The shop is still doing a roaring business. Eating is big business in Melbourne. You have the more humble shops and the fine-dining restaurants run by celebrity chefs. Bookings are essential. We went to one called 400 Gradi for pizza baked in wood-fired oven. It was damn good. But we arrived half an hour early and it was too cold to walk around so Huey suggested we warm up in a pub. Great idea. But none of them wanted to drink. So Teng said he would buy me a beer. I said I would have a VB (that's Victoria Bitters) for old time's sake. But Teng said they try to avoid VB as far as possible. Why? It's not very nice. It tastes aweful. So, he recommended a Bees Nees (something like), inspired by honey. “Disaster averted”, Huey broadcasted on facebook. There's some urban legend related to Bees Nees but I can't figure that out yet.

What else did we eat? We had delicious Pho of course. You can have small, medium or large. Large, my friends, is damn big. Surprisingly cheap. Two small bowls and four medium for less than $50. It's all in the soup. And of course the meat. They slice the beef (you can have chicken) in very thin slices and pour hot soup over it. So the meat is still a little red when you eat. There's some green leaves which is very fragrant (Huey told me the name but memory is not so good). There's the bean sprout (they give you a huge plate). Slices of lemon to squeeze on the soup (not on the bean sprout, which was what I wanted to). Ah, and the must have chilly (freshly cut or paste or both). The really good soup tastes good but don't give you a tang in the mouth. If your mouth feels dry and funny after the meal, you know what they must have added. MSG. Yes it's ban in Australia, but who's checking. This one didn't give me that funny feeling in the mouth but I know one which does in Adelaide near the market.

We have this fascination with cocktail bun, brought over from our days in Seattle where we used to buy every time we visited Chinatown. We saw it in Melbourne the first time in 2001. Actually, we discovered it by accident and introduced them to the locals (meaning my sister and family). I found them in Adelaide too. It's an ordinary bun which has creamy milky coconut feelings. Vivian had it three times and bought some for her plane ride back on Sunday night. Huey texted me last night while we were along Russell Street and asked whether wanted more. I said yes (of course). And we had it at the airport for breakfast this morning, with another three in the bag.

Cocktail bun

We had delicious soup, salad and a vegetarian roll at the cafe in CERES in Brunswick for lunch yesterday. All vegetarian lunch. All organic. And I think zero emissions? CERES is a centre which promotes sustainable living, sitting on top of an old rubbish dump. They have community farming here but it is mainly a place to teach school kids (big groups there) and anyone interested on how to green our lives. There's an NGO run by volunteers which rents a space there and accepts donations of old bikes. For a small donation (like $10 or $20) you can adopt one of those bikes and they will teach you how to fix it up to working condition. Yes, you have to put in the effort. They won't do it for you. Not even for a fee.

.. oh, we had gourmet dogs bythe Yarra River ... very nice

 The last meal was dinner last night at a Chinese restaurant (Nam Ling?) opposite the cocktail bun shop (Maxim's). Steamed fresh oysters, scallops, lobster on wantan noodles (superlicious), stirred fried greens and fried chicken ribs (we argued about whether it was chicken ribs or thigh). I made a token attempt to pay for dinner, claiming to be the oldest. My wife was concerned that the bill might have been a little to much for my nephew (Keng Yih, who's technical still a student) who paid for dinner. Huey assured us he's well endowed.

That settles the eating part. The relax part was just as easy. Except for poor Huey who got sick

 because of the weather.

On the first evening, we climbed the 1000 steps of Dandenong Mountain. Worked up an appetite for gourmet pizza at Lygon Street operated by a celebrity chef (400 Gradi). The taste of wood-fired oven pizza was excellent. But they have a technique for telling customers to please leave when you are done eating because lots of people are waiting. Service was surprisingly fast. And the lady who intercepts you when you arrive walks with an air about her, in a nice way, not haughty ... but proud, in a nice way.

Sunday, we had brunch of Pho. I decided to walk to Victoria Market. The weather was lovely and sunny. My wife decided to join me. The others went in the cars, so that we don't have walk back to pick them up. And it was a very long walk. Like 30 to 40 minutes. But we got side-tracked by a bunch of Malaysian students who showed us the longer way. We were just walking along and a group of 2 girls and 3 boys were behind us, going “lah, lah, lah”. I turned around and asked “Are you Malaysians?”. Yes, of course they were. One of them from Penang Chung Ling High School.

The last time I was in Melbourne I did go on walks in the city on my own because the kids didn't want to get out of the house. In fact, they said the highlight of their trip to Australia was their aunty's house. This was part I had not seen and it was a pleasant walk. I love the naked trees with their intricate branches framing the landscape.

Naked in Melbourne

 I did another walk yesterday after the visit to CERES. I took the tram 112 to the Southern Cross Station in the city centre and then walked along the promenade outside the Crown Casino all the way to the Botanical Garden. The promenade is lively, just like the rest of the city centre. People walking, cycling, sitting, taking photos, drinking coffee and just intercepting tourists like me to ask puzzling questions in university-sponsored surveys. In this case, it was about my views on Aboriginal Tourism. I gave some answers which probably screwed up their findings. I obliged to participate to see if they do a better questionnaire. The answer? NO. But I like the use of iPad to directly input the responses to an online database.

I didn't get to visit the Botanical Gardens the last time, even though I was here for several weekends. It's along the Yarra River and quite a walk from St Kilda Road (which joins Swanston Road). No running. No cycling. No skateboarding. The garden is very big so I managed to walk a small portion very quickly. It was late and the sign at the gate says “close at sunset”. I was afraid I would be locked inside - when the hell is sunset?. The garden is lovely, well maintained but does not make any effort to plant lots of spring flowers. There's a eucalyptus tree which is older than the garden (pre-1846) and they are desperately trying various methods to regrow the bark which was severely damaged. I wish the guys back home spent more time trying to save old trees rather than chopping them at the slightest signs of decay or damage. The garden is an oasis of calm with many birds chirping away.

There several gardens next to the Botanical Gardens and around this huge green area is a running track made of compact gravel (but untarred) very popular with runners and joggers. Together with the cycling craze, it would seem Melbournians are fitness freaks. I saw a trainer with two trainees in the park doing what Huey told me are “boot camps”. They make you run around with dead weights in your hands and do all sorts of exercises.

Cycling is big. This seems to be the part which is true in the documentary about Melbourne. There are bicycle tracks running around the city but they are not separated from the traffic. Cyclists, pedestrians, vehicles and trams have to live with each other on the streets of Melbourne. It's quite fun sitting on the cold metal benches along Swanston Street watching the trams, cyclists and pedestrians create chaos. Parts of Swanston Street is dedicated to trams and cyclist only (and horse-drawn carriages). When the tram stops and the doors open, all cyclists following behind must stop, even if they are near the front or in the middle of the tram. The passengers would then swarm out of the tram while others waiting at the side of the road merge in. And you see the cyclist a little bewildered in the crowd of people swirling around them.

Battery is giving me the 10% warning. Only 20 minutes of battery life remaining. It's a good time to stop. This has been a flying visit. It's been fun. Next stop Tokyo, again, end of this year.

More photos of Melbourne on facebook.

p.s. the airports seemed to have clamped down on over weight carry-on luggage. Maximum is one carry-on (not including the laptop/notebook bag) not exceeding 7 kilograms (but they will allow up 7.5 or even close to 8, depending on the guy at the entrance to the immigration hall). The AirAsia counter in Melbourne was damn fussy and asked us to repack our bags. In Auckland Airport, they weigh all our carry-on before entering the immigration area.