Day 50 - Wednesday 24 Feb

When we first came to Melbourne, Trevor drove us through the city centre. I spotted the gateways adorning and welcoming one and all to Chinatown.

Today we would spend our time in town and have a late lunch in Chinatown. Where else would you expect to get a decent chinky?

The tallest building in Melbourne is the Eureka Building nowadays.

If you look at the link it will tell you about this 88th floor view of Melbourne and much more.

We went here today.

The lift zoomed us up the 88 floors in under 40 seconds, coming to rest with a satisfied woooosh.

It’s scary enough looking out through the windows at the city and environs sprawling out a thousand odd feet below.

The whole visitor experience is run with military like precision.

There are people to show you into the lifts.

There are people to take you from the lift to the viewing area about ten metres away.
And there are people to get you into the cube.
Well other people at any rate.
Not us.
We all chickened out.

The world looked thoroughly small from our lookout floor way above.
The thought of just a glass floor between us and a sickening thud a thousand feet immediately below put us off a bit.
Not to worry though, it was another great experience.
My God, the things I put Margaret through….

All this exploring and bricking it made us a little hungry. It really was too late for lunch and too early for dinner. We decided to head over to Chinatown anyway.

On our way over we called into Myer.

Margaret had seen a dress she liked about three or four weeks ago and still hadn’t forgotten it. Dam.

After traipsing around this very large store we came upon it.

It was a nice wee dress on the hanger, but when M tried it on she proclaimed to be like a beg of shite.

Out again into the sunshine, and a gentle stroll up to find somewhere nice to eat.

We began to despair, because the good looking places with good looking menus were all closed for the afternoon.

We walked on, and our eyes were caught by the sight of a wee Chinese female teenager, sheltering from the sun under her Grannies umbrella.
She stood outside the restaurant touting for trade.

We decided to give it a try. Yes it was trying. The owner was even more belligerent than I can be at Boucher. When he was taking our order, he seemed to be saying hurry up frig you. Under his breath and also in Mandarin.

Wontons and Spring rolls for starters, good job we ate them when we did because a split second more of cooking would have rendered them totally inedible. Instead of just barely edible.

M had beef in black bean sauce, and a happy bunny she was too. I had Duck in Soy like sauce, it too was delicious. Nicola had chicken in some sort of sauce. Maybe sauce is a bad choice of word. Hers looked like poached strips of chicken served in a by-product off a sperm bank.

Not a happy bunny.

Of all the places in the entire world, where you would expect to eat genuinely nice Chinese food I thought this would do the job.

Maybe it was genuine.

Maybe the beautiful food we had in David’s, a Chinese near Nicolas’ was genuine.
I know which we’d all go back to.

Chinatown in Melbourne has to be worth a punt. Our experience would not put me off. But, I’d never go back to eat outside normal restaurant hours. That’s the secret.