Tuesday, April 17, 2018

A Trip to Melbourne \ Activities Day 2

Early morning start to visit a specific fabric shop which happened to be in an area of the city famed for its laneway art.
Some of it is spectacular.








Other stuff is just graffiti.




Then we trammed it down to the National Gallery of Victoria to see its Triennial Exhibition.
The NGV describe this as cutting edge technologies, architecture, animation, performance, film, painting, drawing, fashion design, tapestry and sculpture.
The venue was very crowded and the work was just not our scene. We did a few rooms but gave up.


The co driver headed back to the quilt show and I decided to have a look around Chinatown.
Melbourne's Chinatown dates back to the gold rush days of the 1850s and is the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the western world.





















Unfortunately there were lots of roadworks going on and it was dusty, noisy and pretty uninviting so no lunch there.
How to rescue the day's activities?
Back at Federation Square I knew that the Ian Potter Centre of the NGV houses an extensive Australian art collection so headed there.

To my pleasant surprise there was also a Colony: Australia 1770–1861 exhibition which brings together the most important examples of art and design produced during this period and surveys the key settlements and development of life and culture in the colonies. Importantly, the exhibition acknowledges the impact of European settlement on Indigenous communities, so I 'did' both, with a snack in between, during the afternoon.
Day rescued!
Meeting up with the co driver we made it back to our apartment for a well earned rest. She was a bit disappointed that two sewing machine companies (looking at you Bernina and Janome!) seemed little interested in promoting their wares. Pfaff on the other hand was quite helpful.
For dinner we chose Rice, Paper, Scissors an Asian fusion restaurant we had noticed just around the corner and always had queues waiting (they don't take bookings).
What a great place!
We got there early and were immediately seated.
Five shared dishes (seafood, meat, vegetarian) and a bottle of Pinot Gris was a great way to end our visit.
Their menu is here.
Back to the room to pack and watch some Commonwealth Games on TV and get ready for the trip home.

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