Day 18: Friday, February 22, 2002
Shopping in Melbourne

Today we explored Melbourne and spent gobs of money. They say it's the shopping city, and I guess it's true. We walked to the tram, stopping for a quick breakfast along the way. I got a croissant but the woman burned it when she toasted it, so it wasn't that great. Walendo was perfectly happy with his sandwich. Then we went to a newsagency where they sell all-day tram tickets for $4.40. (For some reason, you can't buy those on the tram, only the one trip and two-hour tickets.)

Helpful sales people at Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books

Walendo wanted to go to some antique book stores to see if he could find a book for his mom and for Peter, who both collect books. He'd checked in the phone book and found a few on High Street in an area called Prahran, so we asked the news agent how far down it was. He said it was down a bunch of stops, so we waited for the tram to take us there. The tram took a while, and while we waited we chatted with an old woman who told us about places she'd been. She couldn't hear that well, so we mostly listened to her. She'd travelled a bunch, but said her travel days were over, which is sad. Eventually the tram came and we found one of the book stores, Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books. The women there were very helpful and "real" (no fake sales job from them, which is refreshing). They recommended some angling books (Peter collects them), but weren't able to come up with any Australian dog stories (for Walendo's mom). They also told us that the other book shop had closed, but they gave us the address of someone who might have one who didn't have a retail shop.

Ellen & Walendo at used bookstore

That seemed like more involved than we were up for, so we just took the name, and left it at that. Walendo chatted with the woman about selling on the Web. She said they'd been doing it for a while, but explained why it wasn't necessarily that lucrative. The site that lists them originally charged a monthly fee, but then they started wanting a commission on sales. She said that was like asking a publisher to make a flyer listing their books and then being told they want a cut on sales. That was an interesting way of looking at it. Anyway, they wrapped up our books in cardboard, giving us the option to ship it home, which was nice.

We walked along the town for a few blocks just to check it out before picking up the tram again. (Later we read that Prahran had some very high end shops, but I guess we weren't in that part of town, though we cross a street that looked busy from the tram, so maybe that was the central area.) Walendo decided it made sense to ship the books home rather than schlepping them, so we stopped at a post office we'd seen and he sent them home. Within an hour or so, he'd found the books and shipped them home, a pretty successful outing.

Queen Victoria Market food stalls

Next we headed back into the central area. We had a few stops in mind, and figured we'd check out whatever we saw in between. First stop was to go the Queen Victoria Markets, which sounded right up our alley. We'd read there were a bunch of stalls selling anything and everything, and it was even better than that. First we came across the food area, where there were dozens of stalls selling cheeses, meats, sweets, bread and so on. Then there was a fruits and vegetables section, and a seafood area. We bought ourselves a little bit of this and that and sat out and ate our picnic lunch. Just up a ways there were some street musicians, some playing South American music and one old man who looked Aboriginal who was playing his guitar while standing against a colorful mural. It was a good scene.

Street musician at Queen Victoria Market

Next we moved on to the serious stuff. There was a covered arcade that had rows and rows of stuff, more than even we had stamina for! We both had stuff we wanted to get, and of course, other ideas came to us as we walked along. Right away I got a wallet, which I wanted to get. It was at a stall that had an annoying recording going saying how cheap the prices were and that you should bargain. I found one I kind of liked for AU$29 (US$15), but I wasn't going to pay that much. I asked for $20 and the pretty woman said she needed to get the "boss," who was an older guy. He said $25, I said no, $20, and he came down to $22. So I got it, which was silly. I hadn't really considered all the features I wanted, I'd just bought it because I'd gotten caught up in the bargaining. What a dope. (Still, it was only $11 in the end.) Meantime, Walendo found the type of belts he likes for AU$20 (US$10) apiece, a real bargain, and they looked like good quality, so he bought two. Those were a good deal.

Queen Victoria Market

We split up and used our FRS radios to communicate, which are perfect for this type of thing. Later I found some more wallets and realized I needed a change purse and the one I got didn't have one. Doh! I tried going back to return it, but guess what? They wouldn't give me my money back. They would exchange it, but none had the features I wanted. A dumb mistake. Later I found some stalls that had those gorgeous wool sweaters I love so much. They weren't cheap, but still reasonable (US$80). They didn't have my size in the pattern I liked best, but they showed me one in my size that I did like so I got it. Again, later on I found a booth that had a gorgeous pattern in my size, so I ended up getting that one too.

Annoying leather store at Queen Victoria Market

(Again, I tried returning the first one — figuring I had a shot since I'd paid with a credit card and it's not like these are dirt cheap, but again no luck. But that's okay, I really love these sweaters and I'm sure I'll be glad I have both of them.) Meantime, Walendo bought a lightweight shirt and a rain shell for kayaking. And we got a t-shirt for Russ (appropriately juvenile), and we got a shower gift for Jamie & Nicole, some stuffed Australian animals and a t-shirt. (We'd found out about the baby shower in email so we figured it'd be great to pick up gifts here because they'd be unusual — and cheap to boot! What a deal.) After a while, we felt like we'd seen most of what there was and Walendo wanted to sit somewhere and rest, so we managed to tear ourselves from the place. If we lived here, though, we'd be there all the time to buy groceries and whenever we needed inexpensive goods.

View of Melbourne from Rialto Towers

We sat at a nearby bench and reorganized all our loot and rested a bit. Then we took a tram down to Collins Street where the Rialto Towers are. You can take an elevator to the an observation tower at the top for a mere AU$10. First they show you a cheesy 20-minute film that shows you lots of scenes of Melbourne and Victoria. They didn't label any of the things and there was only a music sound track, so sometimes we weren't sure what we were seeing, which seemed a little silly. Still, we recognized a lot of it, and we'd been to see about half the stuff outside Melbourne or had chosen not to go. (After seeing the film, I'm more glad we didn't stop in Ballarat, it looked really fake.) Then we went up to the top, which allows you to walk around the outer rim of the building and get great views from every angle. They did a nice job of helping you interpret what you saw by having pictures with labels every few yards (I should say meters) around the circle. We were able to spot where our hotel was located, and we got a better sense of the city. It was a nice little detour but I wouldn't have called it a "must" as the guide book had said.

We came back down and continued along Collins Street, which seems to be the most posh street. Places are named "The Towers on Collins" and such, which gives you an idea that Collins is a good address. It mostly looked like a busy street to us, which a mix of old historic buildings and lots of modern ones and shops selling ordinary stuff for outrageous prices. If this is what they mean by Melbourne being a good shopping town, it's not what we mean. We'll take Queen Victoria Market any day.

Our shopping loot from Queen Victoria Market

It was around 5:30 by that time, so we decided to go back to the hotel to drop off all the crap we'd bought and then to come back for dinner and possibly a movie. Having the all-day tram pass is great. You can just hop on one any time you like and not worry about getting out change every time. Initially, we'd been putting our card in the machine every time we got on the tram, but eventually I noticed that few people did that. The machine said "validation" on it, so we realized that you only need to do it once on your first trip of the day and then you keep your ticket with you. If they check, you can show you've got a ticket. So basically the system relies on people being honest, which is cool. When we got back to the room, we realized we probably needed to package up another box of stuff and mail it home. It was going to be too much to schlep all this stuff to New Zealand and then home. (It's not like we're not going to pick up more stuff in NZ.)

Walendo eating his Taco Bills taco

After a bit of a rest, we grabbed a tram back to the city center and headed toward Chinatown so Walendo could get the cheap Chinese he'd been wanting and I figured I'd pick up something. But along the way, we came across a Taco Bills, which we'd eaten at in Warrnambool and Walendo had had the best seafood burrito he'd ever eaten. He'd been raving about it for days and kept wanting to go back there, so I figured he'd be psyched, but he was hesitant. I hadn't realized just how much of a draw cheap Chinese is for him! But we did decided to eat there, since it would make it easier for us both to find something, and he got the seafood burrito again. He said it was good, but didn't seem as amazed this time. Oh well. My beef burrito was okay, not as good as the chicken one I'd gotten last time. But the people were very nice, so we were perfectly happy with the choice. I got a "death by chocolate" dessert that was only okay — I'm not so sure they're worth getting anymore. Often they're not that good and they charge a lot. I'm probably just as happy with a chocolate ice cream cone. Walendo got a banana fritter, which he liked.

After dinner, we made our way to the movie theater, where we went to see "Ocean's Eleven." We weren't expecting it to be great, but we both found it surprisingly enjoyable. It's one of those elaborate heist movies and there were tons of holes in the scam, but it had a fun, don't-take-it-too-seriously attitude that made it okay. We liked the dynamic between Cloony and Pitt, and the cast seemed to be having fun with it. By the time the movie was over, it was nearly midnight, so we grabbed a tram and headed back to the hotel. It had been a long, eventful, and satisfying day.

Previous   (Grampians to Melbourne)

Next   (Exploring Melbourne)