Katie:
I decided to return to Yarraville and explore the area more in depth. You don't have to go to the city center to reach it, and it's only a twenty minute train ride from Altona. Though it's quieter than the city center there's still a lot to take in.
The first place I stopped was a pop-up shop. Pop-up shops are a new trend in Australia. It's essentially a shop that "pops-up" using a short-term lease wherever it can find sale space in a suburb. When the lease runs out the shop "pops-up" in another suburb. Pop-up shops are often used collectively by local artists to display and sell their wares. The one I went to had all sorts of handmade purses, jewelry, clothes, teas, cards, artwork, etc. It was a lot of fun to wander.
Next, I stopped in a private physical therapy (or physiotherapy as they call it in Australia) clinic called Physiotherapy & Clinical Pilates: Yarraville Village. One of my co-workers recently suggested seeing what physical therapy looks like in Australia, which I thought was a brilliant idea. I purposefully went during lunch hours not to interrupt too many patient sessions. I was able to talk shop with with a kind female physical therapist for a few minutes, but didn't want to steal too much of her lunch time. She explained that the physiotherapy clinic was initially stand-alone at another location in Yarraville, but recently moved in with the pilates and barre studios. They have found this merging of businesses into one space to be very helpful in continuing care with their patients. There are three physical therapists on staff as well as some staff for the studios. Manual therapy techniques are a main focus of treatment. Unlike in Michigan, physiotherapists are allowed to order x-rays and do dry needling. I didn't get a chance to ask about length of visits or amount of visits, but the therapist did mention that the care at this clinic is one-on-one. It was a fun and interesting visit, and I wish we had had more time to chat.
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| Outside of the physiotherapy clinic |
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| You can see they provide a lot of great services to the community. They also have a sign stating that they are members of the Australian Physiotherapy Council, which seems to be an indication of good practice. |
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| Inside the gym area with pilates and exercise equipment. The three doors in the rear are manual therapy treatment rooms. |
I then continued wandering thru the streets of Yarraville and in and out of shops. One of the main draws in Yarraville is the historic Sun Theatre. The art deco architecture has been preserved and movies are still played in six theatres that seat between 23 and 200 people. In the affiliated Sun Bookshop next store, I was tempted by and bought an adult colouring book. Just like in the States, these seem to be all the rage in Australia. I justified the purchase because it should provide good entertainment for our flight and provide a technology-free, relaxing outlet for me when we have down time. Plus, one of the colouring pages is of Sydney, Australia!
Brandon:
I decided to head to downtown Melbourne. I had only one must stop place, and that was more of an errand than anything. Katie and I discovered on our last flight that'd it be nice if we had an audio headphone splitter so that we could be listening to the same bit of music or audio book and both have our own set of headphones as opposed to sharing one set and getting to only listen in one ear. So I went straight away to the location that had said splitter and found it with ease.
For the rest of my time out, I just wandered aimlessly. If I saw a shop that looked interesting, I stopped and looked in the window or went in. I stopped at a couple of outdoor shops. I kept my eye out for a good juice or smoothie place and stopped at a couple to price them out. I even went back to one to actually buy something, but they didn't accept credit cards. Stymied. But about 10 min later I found myself in a mall we had been in a few times since that's where our church is located, and there was a juice shop I kept eyeing, so I decided to give it a go. I got a watermelon, orange, and strawberry ice frappe. Well worth the hunt.
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| A cool Dr Seuss art shop I stumbled across. I thought my dad might appreciate this since he's a big Dr Seuss fan. |
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| An alley converted to be fancy with a bunch of coffee and food shops |
I then made my way back to Federation Square where I had heard there was an information center where I could get a free sticker of this rhino on a skateboard. We've seen the signs on the trams as safety promotional thing. Sadly they didn't have any. But I did get a button that says "Heart your trams". I suppose that was a pretty good consolation prize. And they gave me some other places to ask, but those didn't pan out either.
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| The sticker I was hoping to find. |
After that excursion my time was running out. My "curfew" was 6:30, so Katie wouldn't worry about me. I had just enough time to get off the train in Newport and stop by a shop that sells a good variety of local craft beer to pick up some brews for dinner.
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| The drink selection for our last evening in Melbourne. |
I made it home and then Katie and I went to the grocery store to pick up dinner. The original plan was to get some kind of turkey or chicken patties to make burgers, but a chicken roast dish with bacon and cheddar and cream cheese that I had been wanting to try was finally back in stock. So we went with that instead even though it was going to take at least 3 times as long to cook. It ended up taking even longer cuz I did't realize the oven turned off after the first timer went off. Still totally worth it though.
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| Our delicious dinner that was TOTALLY worth the extra wait :) |
We agreed it was a great way to spend our last full day in Melbourne. Thailand here we come!
Had to jump in and say that I think my PT place does dry needling now. I'll double check.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Let me know. I didn't think it was legal in Michigan. Maybe there's an extra certification that can be done though. If so, I want to do it!
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