Playtime in Melbourne

It's been a busy few weeks, but though we've been working a whole lot lately, we're trying our best to make sure there's still time for fun. Although it's gotten chilly and the streets are no longer filled with summertime tourists, and the festival-a-week season is long over, there are still plenty of fun things to do in the city. Here are a few of our recent highlights:

- The Game On exhibition at the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image): an art show all about video games. How cool is that? We went a few weeks ago and found it to be all about nostalgia, and surprisingly not full of gaming nerds as we had suspected. There were multiple interactive exhibits (sooooo many games to play!) which highlighted just how much video games are part of our generation's (and so many others) growing up. There were write-ups on game genres, historical timelines, international games, music, pivotal characters, and more. And we especially had a good laugh when we noticed how many arcade games had a dad at the controls while their little kid waited anxiously to get a turn! It was kind of a all-you-can-play buffet of games-- definitely worth the $15 admission. Some of our favourites at the exhibition included Street Fighter, Lemmings, Chicken (a much-pixellated game where a chicken/yellow blob has to cross a busy highway and not get run over by trucks/speeding square blobs), Galaga, Wii table tennis, Way of the Exploding Fist, and a Japanese game which simulated driving a slow-moving train.
- Dining out: We are big fans of the Italian eateries on Lygon Street (near our house), as well as the $9 Indian dinners at Funky Curry on Bourke Street (CBD), and most recently ate delicious Chinese cuisine under giant Chairman Mao posters at Post-Mao Cafe in Chinatown (apparently the chef used to cook for old Mao). We've found excellent Japanese fast food in the food court at Crown Casino and some really interesting Japanese treats at Kazen in Fitzroy. Oh... and then there's Chocolateria San Churro (a strange and interesting chocoholic paradise which specializes in, yes, everything chocolate, in drink and in solid form in a cafe setting; although the white hot chocolate is great at first but soon feels like you're drinking a cup of butter). And then there was that lovely multi-course pancake dinner at the very charming and old-school Pancake Parlour... Melbourne has not been disappointing our appetites!
- Drinks at cool spots like the Croft Institute, a science-lab/school-themed bar hidden deep in the alleyways of downtown, past smelly wheelie bins and lots of graffiti; the overpriced but heaps-of-fun Mai Tai, a kitsch Polynesian-themed bar which serves its most popular cocktails by the giant bowl; and at Spleen, a shabby-chic and laid-back sort of place in the CBD which we end up at a lot.
- Possum-feeding in Carlton Gardens: For some reason this activity never gets old. Especially after a few overfilled glasses of wine at the Post-Mao Cafe.

Still to come:
There's still so much to do here (it's starting to look as though we may stay in Melbourne til November or December!)... including checking out the rooftops from the Rialto Tower, the Melbourne Aquarium, dining at a Greek restaurant (the city has something like the second-largest Greek population after Greece itself), and perhaps doing a little shopping for artsy trinkets at the weekly St Kilda Esplanade Market. Not to mention a trip out to Phillip Island (an hour or so away) to see the teeny fairy penguins march in the Penguin Parade!