motherly station worker named Karen showed us tourists how to put credit onto the MYKI pass cards and then get on the train. We got onto the platform, with a brief detour where six or seven cops where standing around one gypsy-looking guy sitting on the curb with cuffs on.
Melbourne has a hub and spoke system; if you're in the suburbs, you're going to go to the central city loop, and then you change to another train if you need to go back out to a different spoke. We got on at Broadmeadow station and headed for Flinders Street. Spent part of the time talking about family history, part talking to a lovely oriental girl who had just gotten out of her college class in Tourism. We met Josh and Gwen under the clocks at Flinders Street and had lunch at a cafe, after which we split up; Diana and Gwen looked at galleries, Josh and I went (by my request) to Mind Games,
a wargames shop, and also to a shop which was allegedly to have steampunk stuff but didn't. Turns out that one of the guys at Mind Games--the owner, perhaps?--had worked at Iron Crown Enterprises in Charlottesville in the late 80s; I'd worked for them one summer while in college, around 1982.
Went to the Victoria State Library, and then to a vintage clothing shop on the way to the train station. Pause at a 7 Eleven with the intent of getting a drink, but a Coke which would be $1.19 at home was $4.20 here. I held off.
We visited Josh and Gwen's place and met Gwen's brother Chris and cousin Duncan, and thenwent back out to Chinatown for dinner. There's a little upstairs place called the Supper Inn off an alley. Maybe 50 seats, and it was full. I had dim sim and Chinese donuts stuffed with prawn paste and sesame seeds; we also got chili ribs, sweet and sour chicken, and beef with black bean curd. For a complete change of culture, we then went to an Italian place where Josh and I got gelato while Gwen and Diana got cups of Italian chocolate. Quite a full day, but a lot of fun.
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