The Drowsy Chaperone!

Friday night musical "Drowsy Chaperone" at the Arts Centre with Helena the British Statistician.
I absolutely loved the music, the dancing and Geoffrey Rush!!
And I want to learn how to tap dance now!

Music in the park I - Romantic tunes

Me and visiting Norwegian Tirill attended the first Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert in the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. They are having four outdoor concerts in all - and all are free!!

Romantic favorites was the theme this time. We brought picnic rugs, pizza and beers and squeezed in between snoggling love birds.

The music was spectacular!

Me and my lovely little creatures beer

Yarra Valley Wineries and the Dandedongs III: Finally wine:)

Tasting different wines at Rochelle with other eager wine tasters (whereas I am sure I saw none actually using the spitting bucket)

After birds and trains, we are finally ready for visiting the wineries.

First off is Rochelle, where we get an introduction to wine tasting and try wines with different types of grapes. (I get aggrevated by drinking Merlot). Afterwords, we get to taste different types of fudge (mmmmmm)

Then we head off to Chandon, which is mainly known for their production of champagne from Champagne and sparling wine in other countries (like here in Australia).

Toasting too sparkling wine with other day trippers (here Soon from South-Korea) at Chandon.

Winery Chandon

Yarra Valley wineries and the Dandedongs II: Billy the Puffing Train

We puffed and tootoooed our way through the blue mountains of the Dandedongs on the Puffin' Billy from Belgrave to pretty village of Menzies Creek with our feet out of the wagon!

It was great! The train trip lasted for 30 minutes and I wish it lasted much longer.

We even got the friendly conductor to take a picture for us. From left to right: Rob the Canadian matematician with Dennis the Conductors hat, hatless and a bit envious me and Tirill the visiting Norwegian

Yarra Valley wineries and the Dandedongs I : Feral birds

Me and Norwegian visiting friend Tirill goes to Yarra Valley and the Dandedongs for a day trip.

First stop is a bird sanctuary where we got Billy Tea (Mmmm!) and crackers with Vegemite (Yuck!) in addition to feeding birds and admiring tall trees.

The bus driver warned us beforehand about the feral biting cockatoos, but they seemed to put on their best behaviour for our visit. They even posed for my picture and didn't bite me...

Me feeding cockatoos leftovers (picture taken by Tirill)

Loving NY amongst lightning bolts and bats

Sunday night movie "NY, I love you" at the Moonlight cinema at the Royal Botanic Garden.

It was a great movie and nice to sit amongst the colorful crowd of people and picnic blankets, trees and flowers, and bolts of lightning and bats!

I even saw a shooting star!

Gon Chi Fac Chia! 恭喜发财!

Me and visiting Norwegian Tirill starts the Chinese New Year day with dim sum at Bok Choy Tang on federation square and then head off to Chinatown where lots of dragons were loose!

Apparently, the dragon is lured to the restaurant by cabbage.Then the dragon claims his red packets from the restaurant either through the window or the front door. The dragon is supposed to give luck to the restaurant this year! When the dragon is gone, lots of fire crackers go off making the lovely big crowd of people putting their hands over their and their kids ears.

Loved it!