Day one in Melbourne

We have had our first day in Melbourne. After a short delay, we had a smooth trip down, landing  just on dusk. It was cold, brrr...about 16 degrees, much colder than home. Everyone is all rugged up with coats and hats and scarves. I had warm clothes, but Peter left the plane in shorts and t-shirt.

Today we had a lazy day, but went to Victoria Markets. This is a terrific place. We will go back and have a full day there. Its a bit like Ladies Market in Hong Kong, or the main market places along the main street in Phuket. Just the sort of place we like to meander around.

We went there for the meat, fish and veges. I wish we had something like this on the Gold Coast! The quality of the meat and fish is obvious, and the prices much cheaper than the supermarket.

It was easy to see the freshness of the fish on sale.

A large area of butchery shops are all together, with the shop owners yelling out their specials. Its a really noisy place.

Melbourne is a very multicultural city, people from all over the world live here, and lots of them come here for their food. Outside there were food stalls with authentic food from counties all over the world.

My daughter lives right in the CBD, so instead of having photos of suburban homes, little green gardens and driveways full of cars, from her place on the 5th floor, we get to see the backs of lots of shops.

This view from the spare room shows many fire escapes from the backs of buildings. The fronts of these buildings are mostly shops and restaurants and are probably about 100 to 120 years old, pretty old for Australia.

My daughter, like most of our family is an avid reader and she has some terrific books. I have started on a book called 'The time traveler's wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. Its the most unusual story. Apparently it has been made into a movie, and it must be the most confusing movie to watch until you really get into the story.

The book is about a guy who has some genetic problem that means he suddenly, without control, moves from one time zone to another, mostly into the past, but sometimes into the future. He flits from time zone to time zone, always turning up naked, and having to find food and clothes etc until he flips back to his 'now' time. In the movie 'Back to the future,' Marty McFly sort of did a similar thing, but he was never allowed to come face to face with himself. In this book, Henry often meets up with himself in different time zones, so he, as a 30 year old may zip back to be with himself as a 9 year old.

The basics of the story is how he met Clare and fell in love with her and married her over an extended life time. I am about three quarters of the way through so far so don't know how it will end, but it must have been a terrible job writing it, keeping track of not only everything that happened, but constantly in and out of time zones.

Tomorrow is a busier day, on the bus and trams, going around the city and trying to sell some books.