On Wednesday night, I hit up the Queen Victoria Night Market again with a few friends and had this awesome pulled pork dish. It kind of reminded me of a Chipotle burrito bowl which made me miss the real thing. Don't worry, Peter already looked into franchising a Chipotle in Australia and even contacted the corporate office. It doesn't sound promising...

Tonight Peter and I went to happy hour at Bluetrain, a restaurant/bar in Southgate just down the street from us. They have $4 beer (apparently not good beer, according to Peter, but beggars can't be choosers) and $5 wine. This is by far the cheapest alcohol I've seen, so this is my new favorite place. Plus it's kind of funky and has cool bathrooms, which is important. I may be alone in this, but bathrooms make or break a place, in my opinion. 

After drinks we headed to South Yarra for sushi at Ichi Ichi Ku. We also ordered some dumplings and this beef dish:

The sushi was average but the rest of the food was awesome. We really haven't found any really great sushi in Melbourne yet which is kind of weird to me. 

For the sake of a picture that isn't food-related, here's one I took on our walk to dinner: 

Look at all those bikes that probably belong to people far fitter than I am! I think the last time I rode a bike was circa 2005 and I fell over when I stopped at a crosswalk. Never again.

We still have a fair amount of winter left to go, but I have to say I'm ready for some warmer weather. Either a) 55 degrees feels a lot colder here than it does at home or b) I've become an extreme wimp after enduring an Australian summer. Either way, it's pretty chilly most days and we've had the heat on quite a bit this week. 

Travel Updates:

1) Next weekend I road trip to Canberra with Sylvie and Katie to check out the coastline between here and there and renew Sylvie's passport at the Belgian embassy. It'll be fun to check out the capital city of Australia!

2) We are finalizing plans for our Brisbane trip in the beginning of August and have come up with an itinerary, I think. We plan to stay in Brisbane for a day and a half (long enough to hold a koala and check out the city) before heading north to Hervey Bay, which is famous for whale watching. Peter really wants to see whales and August is prime whale spotting season, so we figured it's now or never. Plus, Hervey Bay is near Fraser Island, which is on my list of places to see. Apparently it's the largest sand island in the world and is home to rain forests, swamps, sand dunes, and spectacular beaches, so we've got to check it out. We then plan to drive back down the coast toward Brisbane, stopping in Noosa, a beach town, along the way. I think it'll be an awesome mini vacation!

 There were thousands of these little crabs running all over. I wanted to bring one home!
 We hiked across the beach and about 15 minutes up to a lookout where we had amazing views of Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet.
 It's a little bit hard to believe this place actually exists in real life.
On our way back down to the beach we stopped at the restroom and I spotted the single biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. It was literally the size of my face and I was terrified.
Pulling up to Whitehaven Beach!
We had a really good lunch on the beach and it was all perfect until we looked behind us and this unidentified creature/monster was making its way toward us:
 The thing was NOT scared and apparently can smell food from miles away. I think it could also sense fear because it was only interested in my plate and left everyone else alone.
 WHAT IS IT