Don't Make Eye Contact!

Once we passed all the car places we headed towards the Footscray Market. It not a market per se but rather numerous stores in about a 3 block by 3 block radius, rather large and LOTs of stores from groceries to hardware and clothing. It's predominantly made up of Vietnamese owned stores and there's a rather large population of Vietnamese people there obviously but it's a bit of a melting pot in there area too.

Sadly, it's also a bit of a scary area. Anthony and I went during the day today and for the first 2 blocks or so, it was okay but we turned a corner and it got really shady. Lots of groups of guys just loitering. We even happened upon a guy with two bottles of beer in his back pocket stopping another guy to ask if he wanted to buy "really good beer for really cheap." We walked a little faster after that.

On the upside, I got some loose leaf jasmine green tea that I've been wanting....too bad I don't have a tea pot yet. AND I found a bakery that made Chinese style items like these really yummy egg tarts. For some reason they make them oval here instead of round. They also had a bag of purple taro rolls. I'm sure most people would look at purple rolls and go yuck! But I saw the word T-A-R-O and I had to get a bag. We also got a bubble tea. Yay! There was two shops pretty much caddy corner from each other, should have known the one further from where we were standing which had all the people in it, would have probably have been better than the one that we were standing next to and empty of people.

On the way up the ramp to the train station, this one guy walks up to us and asks Anthony, "you American?" then looks at me and asks the same thing. He starts gabbering about something then also says, "don't get robbed or rolled." Well...DUH. Like we plan to get robbed or "rolled."

I think during the day I could visit there, probably get some pretty good and decently priced lunch. As long as it's during the day and within the first 2 blocks.

- julie