Winding Down (Melbourne – January 1-4)

We got to our Hotel in Melbourne late in the afternoon on New Year’s Day.  We went to the harbor area where there was a free entry theme park and lots of restaurants.  Do you see a theme “Free” and “Food” were the words of the trip…which seemed to cancel each other out since food was sooooo expensive.  We spend over double what we would spend at an equivalent restaurant in the States…I will never again complain about prices in America.  If we were taking this trip from NC instead of China I would have bought a loaf of bread and some pb&j to pack for lunches and we would have only had ice water to drink.  However we were coming from a land where even the Italian restaurant is basically Chinese and not the best Chinese.  We were also excited (actually I think Adam was more excited then I was) that I was able to eat a full adult meal without vomiting, gagging or taking 1 bite then leaving the rest because the first bite ruined all food for me.  I had new restaurants to choose from (not ones with memories of the gagging or smells etc… from the past 6 months) and I actually wanted to eat.  Adam mentioned a couple times that he liked watching me enjoy food and he showed me how much he actually liked it by allowing me to stop at overpriced cupcake and ice cream shops whenever my eyes got big.  We probably spend double what we thought we would spend on food this trip but it was worth every penny and if I had to do it again I may have enjoyed even more. 

Back to Melbourne…I think the coolest thing we did here was on Jan. 2^nd.  Adam and I went to a Cricket game.  I thought Cricket was a lot like baseball but neither of us really knew anything about it.  Adam “wiki’d” it as we were sitting in the stands waiting for the game to start and it was still very confusing to us.  I apologize to any Cricket fans out there but we both found the game strange and boring…even though we truly enjoyed the experience.  What happens is each team gets 20 overs, 1 over is 6 at bats.  The same batter will hit until he gets out (which happens if you hit the wicket before the runner gets there or the ball is caught.  The bowler (pitcher) keeps changing for each at bat.  The teams don’t change places until the batting team finishes their 20 overs.  Get it…yeah I still don’t.  This was (I am guessing) the equivalent to a minor league baseball league, but we happened to be in the state (we had to root for the home team) with the best team, they had been the champs for the past 3 years or something like that and they totally creamed the Queensland Team…Go Victoria!!!!

January 3^rd was a holiday and museums and what not were closed so we took a free trolley tour of the city and tried to stay out of the cold wind, and went to a mall.  We took it easy strolled through the city, took some maternity shots at the park and ended the evening by ducking into an arcade.  We saw a Deal or No Deal game and decided to use up some of our coins.  I picked suitcase #11 and won the Jackpot…200 tickets!  Too bad it wasn’t the actual game.  We took a major risk because my last 2 cases (mine and the one left) were the highest (200 tickets) and the lowest (1 ticket).  I stuck with mine and bam…I was the big winner.  We gave our tickets to a little boy who was very happy to be able to pick out some quality junk from the ticket counter.  Did I mention we stopped at Krispy Cream for breakfast…yeah what are the chances our hotel was one block away from a Krispy Cream!

at the cricket match