Melbourne: Luna Park, Gardens, Winter Night Market

Sometimes you have to face the idea that the guidebooks can steer you wrong sometimes, or at least lead you to go somewhere that turns out to be kind of a waste. That was our day to Luna Park. Part of what was upsetting was the waste of money. So Melbourne has one of the world’s largest tram systems. All of the trams in the central city area are free to ride. But outside of that, you are supposed to pay. Being dutiful tourists, we went to the hassle of buying Melbourne miki transport cards ($6 each) and loading them with the fare to go about half an hour south to the suburb of St Kilda ($7.80 each roundtrip). We had been skeptical about how they actually regulate anyone tapping on/off because the tram driver is sealed off behind a door and doesn’t interact with passengers, but figured it might be different once you get outside the city center. Nope. There seems to be no system of enforcement, at least on the line we were on. Several other people got on and off without tapping on/off. (I have since heard that there are periodically armed enforcement guards that go through and check, but it was still frustrating to go through all of that hassle for one short trip, and I don't like having to pay so much for a transport card that you're not going to use again.)

Then we got down there only to realize that since it was winter and during the week, Luna Park was closed. So we walked down this long pier and read about the history of the building, called a kiosk, that had burned down recently and had a fundraising campaign to restore it. It was a beautiful sunny day out. 

Next we walked a bit to visit the Polish bakery whose desserts the guidebook raved about (Monarch Cake Shop) and which has been around since 1934. We walked several blocks down the ‘up and coming’ neighborhood of St Kilda and past a couple other bakeries to arrive at this one. Unfortunately, the woman behind the counter wasn’t very friendly, the pastry slices cost $7.50, and they weren’t anything outstanding. The unique feature for their signature dessert, called chocolate kooglhoupf, seemed to be that chocolate was swirled inside of it, which is probably difficult to achieve. We were hassled by some of the staggering locals as we sat at a table outside and made our way back to the tram to go back to the city.

chocolate kooglhoupf

chocolate kooglhoupf mid-eating

We visited the Shrine of Remembrance (built like the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) commemorating those lost in battle.

one of the statues around the shrine

 

We walked through the Queen Victoria Gardens (though not much was in bloom due to the season). There was a field of swamp hens (pukeko here in New Zealand) in the gardens that I enjoyed. Then we went to another neighborhood to try out this gelato place that also receives rave reviews and that we missed the chance to visit while in Brisbane last year: Gelato Messina. It was trying so hard to be hipster and only accepted cash. To be fair, it was good gelato, and the unique flavors we tried ('Just a Pinch' - salted malt gelato smashed with pretzel clusters and 'NYG' - baked cheesecake gelato) were cool, but it was not worth going all of this way on the trams to get there.

lorikeets

 

swamp hens (pukeko)

the director list appears to be being taken over by bush

Gelato Messina's special flavors

Thankfully, the final event of the day was the Queen Victoria Market: Winter Night Market, and this was a cool experience. There were lots of food stalls and people with music and entertainment. I got a bowl of spaghetti with a four cheese cream sauce that was being scooped out of a giant parmigiano reggiano rind, so it had lots of cheese chunks in it. We also found $40 cash on the ground, so that somewhat made up for the transport deal!

Hutt Valley and Ferry Back to Picton

On the drive from Napier to the ferry terminal in Wellington, we enountered a sign for a model railroad and cheese shop. We took the exit and traveled down a road to someone's family farm. A lady came out of the house and gave us some samples of Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese, which turned out to be award-winners at some London cheese event and were also served to Prince William and Kate and their little boy, George, when they were in New Zealand. We bought a $20 block of the full cream cheddar which was very tasty and were on our way.

In the Hutt Valley, we stopped at some Lord of the Rings sites, including the first one that has been marked -- Rivendell. They left a smaller-scale stone arch to commemorate the time spent filming there. We stood on the spot Legolas had gotten his promo photos for the movies. It was well worn!

Rivendell was set up here.

Fords of Isen

Where Gandalf and Saruman were walking in the Gardens of Isengard

After passing so many dairies which almost all have signs for CookieTime cookies, I finally looked up their company history online and discovered that the founder essentially pirated the Nestle Toll House cookie recipe from his time spent in the U.S. and marketed it to New Zealanders. This explains why one of my students asked me how I got my chocolate chip cookies to taste just like the CookieTime ones!! It's a little upsetting that people think these are a uniquely New Zealand cookie. The guy just cut the chocolate pieces into large chunks so they're "chocolate chunk". (It is hard to find actual chocolate chips here also.)

not my picture - I have yet to try one of these

The ferry was a bit rockier this time, but it made better time and arrived over half an hour early. We checked into Picton's Villa Backpackers Lodge hostel, which as promised online served us warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's hard to beat that kind of hospitality.

Last look at Wellington before boarding the ferry

Happy New Year 2015

Happy 2015! I hope to explore lots of New Zealand this year.

The package from my family arrived with a much-welcomed array of goods. There was a veritable bounty of shelf medications like allergy medicine, cold/flu liquid tablets, motion sickness pills, and pain relief pills which would have been a fortune here or not available. This would have been enough on its own, but there were also some Christmas gifts and food from home which we enjoyed.

We also received our IRD numbers from the government so they can take out taxes. Yay. If there's anything to be excited about here, it is that one of my favorite numbers is the last two digits.

I made a goal of finishing all six Dune books before the year ended, and so I wrapped up the sixth book on December 30th, just in time. Reading them all together in a short time period meant that I could notice changes in style, character development, themes, and other things which was nice. Now comes the harder part of synthesizing all of my observations into the PhD proposal. Basically, I have to outline what my argument will be and what each chapter of the paper will focus on. I also have to provide a literature review, meaning an analysis of what has been written about the topic so far and what I think I will do to improve upon current research.

I also just finished 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) yesterday. It was not what I was expecting and seems a bit out-dated now that we have so much more information about our solar system than we did then. There were virtually no women in it, and it got really weird at the end. I continue to be surprised by how different the short classics are from Dune. The lack of world-building is so apparent, and the intent and goals of the writers seem to be very different.

We had a nice New Year's Eve with a live music concert in the central park sponsored by the city council. There were country, rock/funk, and Celtic bands who provided good music and energy to ring in the new year. There is an interesting tradition of having the "archwizard of Canterbury" cast a spell for the new year. He seems to be an equivalent to our old Father Time. There was also a sweet fireworks show right above our heads - the closest I've ever been to fireworks. Debris was even raining down on our heads!

D's jalapeno plant on the porch finally has some peppers ripening red. It has been fun to watch them grow and hopefully they are worth the wait.

We took a day trip to Akaroa, which is about 90 minutes south of Christchurch. It was a nice drive and a cute town, although it was overrun by tourists from the docked Princess Cruises ship. It was quite hot out, so we had a packed lunch in the shade and checked out the farmer's and craft markets. We also visited the Barrys Bay Cheese factory which still makes cheese the old-fashioned way. We watched workers spiking big cheese rounds with long metal sticks which will leave air holes and create the blue veins in blue cheese. D bought some 6-year aged cheddar cheese and garlic cheese. Both are good, and the aged cheddar is super intense!

strange "field" of trees on a bare hillside