Ch-Ch-Changes

July 20, 2016July 20, 2016 | poppypeach

Visiting the beautiful City of Melbourne is always a joy with all the memories that come to mind discovering new places to visit with the kids. When I lived in Melbourne over 10 years ago I enjoyed a lot of ‘growing up and finding myself’ time here! Everything from finding my love of art, discovering my calling as a designer, huge nights out partying, broken hearts, love affairs, living alone, living broke week to week as a student, riding and owning a bike, living in share accommodation with strangers, freelancing jobs in many offices in the city and surrounds, enjoying eating and cooking food and finding the love of my life has all been a part of my life patchwork here in Melbourne.

This panorama is up on top of a hill at the Royal Park Nature Play Playground in Parkville just behind a place where I used to take my little blue bike and ride the oval round and round to get some exercise in the city away from the traffic and up behind the native trees. Everywhere I go I am telling the kids this is where I rode my bike or that is where I lived. There were many good times back in the day in this amazing city!

Looking down into the city from the top of the hill and how the landscape has changed dramatically with lots of high rise apartment blocks. I don’t think living in an apartment block will be that appealing to a modern family these days. A lot of the 1 BR and 1 Bath apartments sit empty with a price tag of $450,000 plus attracting many an overseas investor looking to plant some cash somewhere.

Still the architecture of some of the buildings are a sight to behold with so many details. The building on the right is a building belonging to the RMIT Design Hub with an outer skin of disks of glass on the exterior of the building. This fascinating except is from the Sean Godsell architect website: In particular the outer skin of the Hub incorporates automated sunshading that includes photovoltaic cells, evaporative cooling and fresh air intakes that improve the internal air quality and reduce running costs. The cells have been designed so that they can be easily replaced as research into solar energy results in improved technology and part of the northern façade is actually dedicated to ongoing research into solar cells to be conducted jointly by industry and RMIT. The entire building façade, in other words, has the capacity to be upgraded as solar technology evolves and may one day generate enough electricity to run the whole building.

Down the road from our place we found a wall of cats belonging to Cat Boarding Melbourne and who can resist a lucky cat and Missy wearing her fave cat dress.

Finally I had my first sit down coffee in a Melbourne coffee shop at Heartattack and Vine in Lygon Street, Carlton. We made a visit to my friend at Readings to get some book recommendations of local authors and kids chapter books. Mr Ash now loves any book by David Walliams and is trying to collect as many books as he can before we leave Australia. Each of the books he read in one day and so far he has collected Gangsta Granny and Awful Auntie . He compares the writing of David Walliams to another of one of his fave authors Roald Dahl.

As the day seemed too good to go back home and stay indoors we ventured out to the Royal Park Nature Play Playground in Parkville as I had heard from my sister in law that it was named the nation’s best playground by landscape architects. The design of the play structures are fantastic in their design, as you see chunky tightropes with rope to hang on up above the top of a crows nest which leads to a gigantic spider web. The kids really enjoyed navigating the space up high. Even I enjoyed climbing over the huge log sculpture and climbing in the nets – great exercise in balance and body strength. Lucky my yoga planks and chaturanga help me lift myself up onto the logs, it’s a great workout!

The kids enjoyed watching the videos of themselves jump off the structure – you can see how much fun they had at this playground. As we left there were screams of can we go back with Daddy soon?!

Everybody walk the dinosaur

July 18, 2016July 19, 2016 | poppypeach

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We made our trek down south to Melbourne and we were greeted with a coolness only Melbourne can offer. The winter down here can be quite brutal so I always carry a coat, lucky I found this great vintage lambskin leather coat to keep me warm. Of course it does not snow here like the East Coast of the USA but coming from sunny Queensland to Victoria it was a bit of a shock!

We have an perfectly sized Air BnB house – 2o mins by tram to the city. Our first couple of days we were getting organised and enjoying the local shopping precinct before we decided to head on into the city for an afternoon adventure. We enjoyed a tram ride into the city and walked over to Federation Square so that I could show the kids the place where my husband and I met volunteering over 10 years ago! It was so cool to see how the space had changed since it first opened – there’s a cinema, cafe and bar upstairs, free exhibits for the public on the ground floor and the gallery below currently hosting a Scorsese exhibition. I will have to take the kids for a peek this week to check out the videos and games in the free gallery space.

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Saturday we met up with some friends outside the Melbourne Museum before we met up with our family here. We enjoyed a coffee from Ciuccio (Donkey in Italian) Cafe down Gertrude Street and the kids played together on these Roman ruins outside the museum. Even the take away coffee does not fail to disappoint here in Melbourne!

We were checking out the museum exhibits and the cousins were warming up to each other before we headed in for the highlight of the day the Jurassic World exhibit. It was $90 for a family to enter and we did not know what to expect when we went through. Once we went in it was such a treat as the dinosaurs looked so real! At times the kids were holding onto to us, as they were a bit scared of the gigantic realistic dinosaurs.

The lighting was dark and it was an adventure for all, like you would experience in a film and presented in a way that has some excitement – though I won’t give away any surprises!

After the exhibit we had a look at other exhibits in the museum including The Melbourne Story and we found a 3D model of the Australian Coat of Arms with a taxidermy Kanga and Emu. It is so funny how when you are travelling you learn so much about your country when you visit. I had never really taken any notice of the shield and how each pictures represents one of the six states.

Later on we enjoyed some wine and a delicious risotto fresh from the Thermomix followed by a mango sorbet ready in 6 minutes – amazing. Thank you to my sister in law for the incredible Thermomix demonstration and food! Her hubby found this super cool wine ‘Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch’ – I just love the label!

Last Sunday I had booked in ages ago with my good friend who I have not seen in 5 years! So we travelled down to Port Melbourne to visit and enjoyed wine and some lunch with them before we took the kids on a Pokemon Go adventure down to the beach. See those black specks on the beach, they were a gang of Pokemon hunters!

While we were there we met this super cute fur baby named Neville Furbottom going for a spin in a bike basket belonging to his human. This little cutie just loved pats and the kids!

Soon the Melbourne weather started to get a wee bit chilly and we headed back home – we had a lovely relaxed afternoon with our friends and the kids made some new friends! It is so good to see old friends like it was just yesterday when we last caught up, the major difference is when we see the kids and they are all growing like weeds!

Steppin’ Back in Time

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016 | poppypeach

Something that I enjoyed the other day when I visited my parents place was looking through the photo albums from back in the day – just seeing what we wore and the memories of what we got up and that hair – now that is some long hair do!

On a mission down to the local shopping precinct for supplies for cat toys (for my sisters kitten Milly) we passed a few icons and met some new ones like this kissing Gourami at the candle store. The button box was at a place called JJ’s Bargain Center where my sewing adventures began, I am sure that some of the stock from the 1980’s is still there as I saw some pastel stretch fabric that bought back some sewing memories from when I started sewing in Home Economics class.

When our craft supplies mission was over we grabbed a juice and headed on down to the lagoon and the kids couldn’t resist going in even though it was winter. In the end we said strip down to your undies and go as deep as you can. At least it was sunny for a winter’s day and being in Queensland this is a tropical winter so dressing in layers is best with the cool air in the morning. The kiddos enjoyed our walk along the beach collecting shells and writing graffiti on the beach as we were looking for shells we found a little sea caterpillar – very exciting! On closer inspection and reseaching this little fella we discovered it was a toxic marine animal AKA a Bristle Worm, yikes lucky we watched Australia’s Deadliest Animals for some reminders on the many venomous critters that inhabit this large island.

Still getting through all the junky food we have been missing since moved to the US and we enjoyed some very tasty pastries from Big Dad’s Pies – the Spinach and Feta roll is delicious. Ash is enjoying a sausage in some pastry here called a BBQ Smokey. I love the pastry sold here as it is flaky and very tasty. Funny how savory fast food is what I miss when I’m away from here!

Dream on at Dreamworld

June 19, 2016June 19, 2016 | poppypeach

Friday was a day out to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast! We have not been to Dreamworld since we were little kiddos! Back then we used to go on all the rides but these days there is a very low tolerance for the rollercoasters. We all had a blast with the kids and their favorite ride was the log ride even though you get drenched riding a log downhill. Afterwards we had the best time drying off in the drying machine – we have this great video as we paid $5 to stand under ultra violet light and be blown by a blow dryer for 5 mins!

The fun never stops at Dreamworld and we went on lots of rides mostly with the kiddos. The rollercoasters were out and I would say the log ride was the scariest ride we went on – the other exciting ride were the dragon dodgems! The kids did enjoy the day and say they had an awesome time, without the need for huge thrills. I do think that my days of crazy rides are long gone.

The photo opportunities are endless with so much fun and colour so I had a blast being the tourist and taking pics with all sorts of characters. The Dreamworks ride area was super cool and set up beautifully focussing on their range of characters from their films – Madagascar, Puss In Boots and Kung Fu Panda. My uncle who gave us the day out wondered where the Chinese restaurant was, maybe Dreamworld should add a dumpling place to compete with the crazy priced food that was on offer. We shared a pizza between the 7 of us and it cost us with drinks $4.80 for a water so the grand total for lunch was over $70, that was insane!

Another favourite spot of ours was Tiger Cub Kindy where you could get very close to tiger cubs. These pics were taken by the trainers who took your camera into the enclosure to take shots for a donation to the DWF (Dreamworld Wildlife Foundation). They are such incredible creatures with their numbers dwindling in the wild we as humans need to do whatever it takes to save these majestic creatures. Most of the cubs were born at Dreamworld which is a success for the tigers as their habitats decrease dramatically. Any cat fan will be so excited to experience these animals up, close and personal!