That's about 40 minutes longer than Anthony normally would have put up with stop and go or crawling traffic. Or threatening to run over people. We ended up just pulling into a garage that's was a little walk away but wouldn't cost us an arm and a leg, which was fine, more strolling for us. The day was a chilly breezy 50 degrees or so with the sun peaking out every so often. We merged in with the rest of the massive walking crowd and headed towards Chinatown. Why? Because I've been craving dumplings and Anthony remembered me mentioning it. So we headed to the Camy Shanghai Dumpling House!
Melbourne is known for tucking away wonderful restaurants down these little alleyways that you just know must be super scary at night. They're narrow, dark, and dingy. The kind that you see in movies where the innocent good guys always walk down while they're constantly looking over their shoulder, only to be blocked in by nasty looking tough bad guys. So yeah, the restaurant was down one of these alleys but fortunately it was during the day. And of course it helped that this place was packed! Upstairs and downstairs. I'm "borrowing" some of these pictures from Urban Spoon:
Sign from the alley.
Front door.
Picture of the downstairs inside as soon as you walk in the door. There's more seating to the right, which is where we sat.
It's a real simple, no frills interior with self service hot tea dispenser (with plastic cups) and ginger/soy sauce dipping sauce. There's no such thing as service with a smile here and don't expect them to go above and beyond. If they can't reach you, you're expected to take the dish from their hands. Neither of us has been here before but we've heard and read about it quite often.
The price was quite reasonable, especially compared to the rest of Melbourne. Anthony tried their salted fish with rice which came heavily coated in diced garlic. Fortunately we like garlic. And I, of course had to try their dumplings! Since it was cold today and my need to stay hydrated for the bubzi, I tried their Dumpling in Soup, which appears to have been pork dumplings.
It hit the spot! And I think it came out to maybe $15 for the both of us. Now that's cheap eating in Melbourne! It's cash only, which meant we had to send Anthony for an ATM trip while I had waited for a seat. I noticed they had a sign above the cashier about frozen items so I think they sell their dumplings in frozen packs. Anthony promises to swing by some day to pick me up some. I didn't buy any that day as we weren't sure how long we'd be out and about and I'd rather not carry it while it melted.
Of course, I have been also craving a bubble tea and since we're in Chinatown, naturally I had to get a bubble tea. Cold weather be damned! So with a full content tummy and bubble tea in hand, we headed back out towards the city. We headed towards Bourke Street which has a shopping area that is blocked off to cars. As we approached there we passed by Bread Top and I couldn't resist NOT stopping in and of course that resulted in me having to make some lovely sweet Chinese bakery purchases. Pineapple Bun and Egg Tarts were on my must have list! I think I bought about 6 items there, which were all happily and greedily consumed by breakfast the next morning!
Anthony wanted to show me the Food Hall at David Jones (large department store) so we headed downstairs to their Food Hall. Now this Food Hall isn't like your typical mall food court, it's MUCH more lavish and fancy. The food stands are full kitchen prep areas with a selling counter. There's one for a butcher, seafood, cookies (yes, it's nothing BUT cookies), bakery, confectionaries (nothing but candy), sushi bar, sandwich/pasta, couple coffee places, juice bar, books, and a little grocery area. The grocery area is where we stumbled upon a section of American products!!!
Yes, Pop Tarts and that box cost about $13.00!
But you know what I was truly happy about?? It was the can of French Onions that go in the Green Bean Casseroles and the can of pumpkin pie!! Now I can make those for Thanksgiving!!!!
Only these couple of shelves of US products. Sadly they are about 5-10 times the cost of it!
Oh and we found green pepper tabasco sauce! Granted it was about $6 but we actually mourned the last drop we got out of the bottle my sister had shipped us. We seriously thought that would be the last time we would be tasting it until we get back to the States. Needless to say, it made Anthony a very happy camper.
Okay, so you may still be wondering what all this has to do with the title of this blog. Well, since we hadn't sent out any pictures of me pregnant, this will be the first picture evidence!
Yup, 5 months and 2 weeks pregnant!!
Anthony thought I was nutz when I popped outside without a jacket and handed him the camera. It was a cold and breezy 50 degrees and here I was in short sleeves asking him to take pictures. I told him I must satisfy the curiousity of our friends and family that have been diligently asking us for pictures! I haven't bought any maternity clothes, hoping I can get by, so I'm squeezing into some regular clothes. The pants barely zip up and if it wasn't for Anthony's strap style belts, they'd probably be falling off at this point!
So there, "See, I Really Am Pregnant!"
I read the next 4 weeks, bubzi is suppose to double in weight so she took about 5 months to get to 1 lb and will take 1 month to get to 2 lbs. Yeah, I foresee an interest next 4 weeks.......
- julie
2 comments:
Too cute Julie, my daugher Shell (Tonys cousin) is getting down to her last month and finally is showing.....she is a long tall blonde and so didn't show right away. God bless you guys with healthy baby. so hard to believe the cost of things over there.
You look great Julie :)
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