Day 2: Part 2 Downtown Melbourne

Posted for June 29
I walked the city area for about 5 hours finding my way to the Port area which is filled with restaraunts, a Shopping Mall, and thier AFL Stadium The main downtown area is similar to any other metropolitan down town area. Filled with people moving like ants -shopping, working, and hanging out.

As I walked though downtown I came accross an alley way with people doing Graffiti. I spoke to a guy who was supervising and got a little info. The city allocates funds to Graffiti projects. Specific area are maintained and assigned to the real graffiti artists. Melbourne defines can art in two differnt interpretations:



Graffiti (unaccepted by the government)- unorganized can works with no thought in to a piece - aka Tagging
Street Art (accepted by the government) - Pieces such as the one shown in the picture

After exploring the downtown area, I found a spot that served ramen. I ate and headed back to the hostel.

Yarra Valley

If you're looking for something to do, you can never go wrong with a Wine Tasting Tour. This will be my 3rd international wine tasting tour. Go figure, you'll probably get a little tipsy (or sh*t face if you're a light weight); and any time you you get a bunch of intoxicated people together, you'll meet people. That's exactly what happened. I ended meeting a couple folks from my hostel. They were both down to earth. They seemed like really good friends who've known each other for years, but it turns out, they met in Thailand earlier this year. The gentleman - Luke - is from the UK who's been traveling for 8 months now. He decided to quit his job and just go. The gal - Mal - is from Sydney who came down here to Melbourne to hang out.
The tour covered 4 wineries and a huge lunch at a botique winery. The wines that we went through were good. Not the best, but good enough. The region where Australia produces a higher quality of wine comes from another region - the Barrossa Valley which is located 8 hours from Melbourne and and hour away from Adelaine. The four wineries we visited were:

De Bortoli - Family owned and one of the largest exporters of wine in Australia
Train Trak - A botique winery that caters their wines to restaraunts
Yering Station - The oldest and first Winery in Victoria
Domaine Chandon - I thought they were only located in Napa

In my opinion, of the four, Domaine Chandon had the better wine. I purchased 2 bottles of their Shiraz which is only made in Australia. Accoring to the wine host at the winery, the Shiraz is not exported. I also found thier Rose to be quite tastey.
When i got back to the hostel, I had dinner with the 2 folks that i had met on the tour. We ate a place called Clay Pot. The food was good. We shared a mixture of tapas and 2 different clay pot dishes.


Tapas:
Sting ray, octopus, calamari, string beans, eggplant, portabello mushroom, and a tomatoe mixture.
Clay Pot dishes:
Morracan Clay pot - Seafood ebmeddded on top of seasoned cuscus topped with finely grounded mint.
Cajun - A gumbo seafood mixture layed ontop thick rice

The Morracan Clay pot was my favorite. After dinner we headed back to the hostel. I had a beer then called it a night.

Australia: Day 2

I went to bed early last night due to Jet lag, 17 hours ahead. I crashed at 8pm. I got up at 8 and headed to Down Town Melbourne. First stop: The Victorian Market.

It’s not as dope as the market in Barcelona, but it’s good enough. And at that, It’s probably the second best market that I’ve seen. It’s a Market that sells fresh Produce: Meat, Sea Food, Chicken, Fruit, Vegetables and clothes and souvenirs. Not having breakfast yet, I headed straight for the food section and had a pastry called Burek stuffed with meat. I expected beef, but it tasted like lamb. None the less, It was Freaking Good. Made fresh. After that I headed to the fish area. I walked around a bit and saw Australian oysters. The light bulb in my head lit up instantly. After seeing everything the market had to offer, I picked up 6 oysters, then headed to the meat area and picked up 3 dollars worth of Serrano Prosciutto from Spain. Then a bottle of Wine and bread. Instant Breakfast but not breakfast food. Freaking AWESOME!!!

With the weather being cold and light rain, I picked up a couple Japanese type bomber hats. Super warm and comfy.

After the market, I walked the city. The market is just 5 min away from the main down town area.

Sunny Warm Weekend

When the weather is great in Downtown San Francisco, there is nothing better to do that enjoy the weather with wine, cheese, and good friends at the park and beach. Aquatic Park and Bakers beach. I've got to keep reminding my self to apply sun screen, because after both events this weekend, I got a sunburn on top of a sunburn.

Gangsta Tear Drop

So on my way home from work today I had a gangsta tear drop roll down both of my cheeks as I sipped on an orange/cream flavored icy drink. Adams song came on the radio and thought of a good friend of mine who passed away. She was huge Blink 182 fan.
When you lose someone close to you, it's difficult to move on but when you finally do, you will never forget and will always remember the good times.