Nik


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Friday, April 6, 2012 @ 1:28 PM PERMALINK

Jasmine and I hit Brunswick for some brunch on Saturday because I wanted to take a look at the Rose Street Artist Market.

Now, here is where it gets a little messy. Jasmine thought I meant that the market was in the Brunswick area when I actually meant it was at Brunswick St, in the Fitzroy area. (confused? So were we)

Before we even discovered that little fact up there. We got hopelessly lost.

We were looking for a cafe called Lily's Cafe and after getting on the tram twice and walking up and down the street, we thought we had finally found it. I was so happy I even took a picture of the sign from the distance (it is that orange-y red sign up ahead)

The heat that day was not funny at all, it was the only day out of the 9 days I was in Melbourne where it was over 30 degrees and we were getting lost. (Just our luck)

When we happily ran to Lily's, we realised that it had the same name as the cafe Jasmine had wanted to bring me to but it was COMPLETELY different. What we thought was a brunch place turned out to be more of a sandwich deli. *NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*

We thus decided to google another brunch place and came up with Red Butterfly, we made our way there...ONLY TO FIND IT CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS. I'm not kidding guys, this is the extent of our bad luck.

To make things even worse, the place we had gotten off the tram had shops that mostly sold halal meat and cheap chinese housewear ; so there was really nothing to see.

Finally Jas and I decided to go maps 'cafe' and see where maps would lead it to. It led us to this gem:

Empire Cafe, Sydney Street

Empire Cafe is a one of those cafes that people depend on the cliched term 'has character' to describe.

It is vastly different from your usual brunch cafe. At Empire Cafe, there are no glass tables, menus with white cursive font on a dark classy background, no display with pink frosted cupcakes and no soft french music playing in the background.

What you get is a cafe with foldable tables made of metal grill, amazing punk rock music played over the PA system, graffiti styled mini murals and a variety of assorted items hanging off the wall. There are also posters everywhere for exhibitions about girl power, talks about politics, going vegan and ads for eco-friendly cleaning products. Very grungy and a little gritty, exactly what I like.


Aesthetics aside, the food here is amazing and there is a vegan option for almost everything (which made Jasmine very happy)

Our food took quite awhile to come as there was only one person working the kitchen , but it was so worth it!

Our breakfasts! Mine had eggs, sour dough, homemade baked beans, bacon and hash-browns. While Jasmine had the vegan spanish eggs. The spanish eggs here are AMAZING.




Empire Cafe is located at 295 Sydney Road Brunswick, VIC 3056

After we ate, we took out our maps, put our heads together and realised that to get to Rose Street Artist Market, we now had to tram back into town and out again.

I called Bong to tell him what happened and he laughed at us and told me that I should have been more specific. *sheepish*

Either way, because Jasmine is such a good friend, she said it was no problem and we embarked back into the city to get to Brunswick Street.

We managed to find Rose Street easily this time.

We were all too exhausted to take photos, but if you are looking to visit Brunswick Street in the morning (which you should), you should definitely stop in at this market.

There are great artists here that sell everything from jewellery to art-pieces.

There is Greg Mann with his original pieces crafted from cutlery. Jasmine and I bought got rings crafted from collectable spoons. Greg and his wife Jamie are amazing people and just so delightful to speak to.

If you guys ever go down to the market anytime soon, you'll be able to find them on both weekends. Greg's work can be found at http://www.facebook.com/GregMannJewellery and on (my new favourite website) Recycled Market.com.

I was too lazy to get my camera out and my morning face is frightful so I made my bunny light model the ring I bought.

I realise that the first picture wasn't very good at showcasing the ring so I snapped one with my iphone instead. Tadah!

Amongst many other equally amazing artist's stalls, there is also Linogirl who sells hand-painted porcelain and Type. C which sells cufflinks and earrings made out of typewriter keys.

Rose St Artist Market isn't the largest market there is, but the artists that showcase their work here are amazing and so original. It is definitely worth a visit.

After the market, we had to get out of the heat and settled on Eat.Drink.Man.Woman.





We headed back into the city after that. After walking up and down the streets for awhile, we eventually decided to have dinner at Funky Curry on Bourke Street.

The food wasn't too bad although it seems they were a little heavy handed with the salt. The butter chicken and lamb curry were still pretty good though and its like $9 for rice, 1 meat curry and 1 vege curry, so it was pretty reasonable too.

We walked to AC/DC lane after that and headed into Cherry Bar to watch a couple of bands play.





And watched buskers after that. I love weekends cause all these amazing buskers come out to perform. It is really no surprise why most people consider Melbourne to be the state of the arts in Australia.

We sat outside the State Library and listened to this hip-hop group Big Words who were really amazing. It was great to see people come off the street to join them.

The next day we woke up early and headed out for Camberwell's Sunday Market.
Before we made the decision to come here, Jas, Bong and I were discussing if we should go to St Kilda's Market or Camberwell. (We ended up having time to do both, kinda) but I'm so glad we decided to go to Camberwell.

Getting to Camberwell Market is simple. Just take the train from Melbourne Central and follow the crowd when you walk out. ( I think you can take a bus too, but we wanted to try the train)

We stopped for breakfast at the Carpark Cafe.

Melbourne styled iced chocolate and iced coffee. Yummeh


The Farmer's breakfast that we spilt.

Camberwell is FULL of stalls selling EVERYTHING. It is one of those trash & treasure markets where people like me (with the tendency to buy/look at everything) thrive in.



Used clothed, genuine leather products, old love letters, old greeting cards, furniture, crystal jewelry, vintage dresses, sunglasses, old fashioned kitsch tableware...everything.

This beats our expensive vintage shops any day and its 200% more fun rooting through everything to find your own items.

We were a little late and the market closed at 1230pm that day so I really didn't get to poke around as much as I wanted to. D:

I also didnt buy much even though I bet if I had more time I would. I only bought two crystal necklaces, a bag and a top.

There is old steam train you can buy tickets to go on at Camberwell Station, we didn't but that didn't stop us from trying to get it into our photograph.

The market started to shut down around us and because the day was still young, we decided to hit St. Kilda's.

Because we got there late, the market was already winding down so there wasn't much to see or do.

You should always get to the markets early but thats what happened when you only have 1 weekend to cram market hopping in. The crafts at St Kilda's Market isn't as exciting as what we've seen at Rose St's market and it was a little more touristy and pricey.

I'm glad we decided to go to Camberwell first , best advice ever from Jas and Yun.

St Kilda's Beach

Luna Park. Luna Park is an institution in its own right. It has been around since 1912 and is gearing up to celebrate its 100 year anniversary this year.

Admission into the park grounds is free, all you have to do is walk through Mr Moon's mouth.

I love fairs, almost as much as I love markets. The smell of popcorn, fairy floss and the atmosphere just makes me regress to about 10 years of age. I suddenly feel the urge to go on all the rides and try to win rigged carnival games for soft toys I  don't even want.



The scenic railway is the world's oldest continually operating wooden roller coaster.
Yes, I said wooden. The entire track is wooden. And to make things more amazing, the brake operator actually stands up on the roller coaster to control it. I really wish I had a picture, but we waited for ages to see it in operation and (as usual) only when I kept my camera did it actually start.



It costs $43/$44 for a ticket to get on all the rides. Too steep for Bong and I. But go into the ground to take a look anyway if you are in the area.

We decided to take a walk down the beach. It was a really sunny weekend so there were a ton of people taking the opportunity to get a little sun before the chilly autumn weather set in again.



We went back after that, did laundry, ate fried rice and listened to these really talented teens have a classical music jam outside the room. Never have I been interested in classical music until then.

Love to all!
Update more later!

Labels: Australia, melbourne, travel

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