Adventures!

Chrystal and I went on one of our little adventures last Saturday night. It was great.

We got dressed up pretty and headed into the city, with the plan to have dinner somewhere and do whatever we felt like doing. First stop was Chinatown. We walked up through Little Bourke for a while pondering which restuarant to eat at, and half enjoying, half getting irritated at the people who stand out the front and hassle you to come inside, and Chrystal spotted a sign that said some kind of Japanese name with "Stonegrill" in the title. Only problem was it looked like it was in a food court. Chrystal persisted that we should check it out so we went in. It turned out to be this gorgeous Japanese-style place which had the best steak I've ever tasted. They served most of the food uncooked on these slabs of stone, and you actually get to cook the food yourself (because the stone is so hot) as you eat it. This means that every mouthful was perfectly done, hot and very tasty. It was quite a fun activity too :) The whole place was filled with this smokey coolness and the atmosphere was great. We both ordered one of those wacko Asian drinks too. Mine had beans in the bottom.

So after that we decided to check out movies. Madagascar was the only one that we really felt like seeing, but it wasn't on that late at the cinemas on Russel/Burke St., and we couldn't be bothered walking all the way to crown, so we waltzed around the city for a bit and just had a nice walk.

We thought we'd go for a drink, so we started heading down Southbank way, and I had a cool idea. I remembered when Chrystal's grandparents took us for dinner at the Sheraton Towers, and thought that that would be a nice place for desert wine and some nice sweet niblets. So we went along, but couldn't find it (I was sure I knew where it was). Anyway, after walking for a little bit, I decided to give up and go to a nice wine bar on Southbank, but Chrystal suggested we ask a porter at a nearby hotel to see if he knew where Sheraton Towers were. We walked up to the hotel and something was nagging me in the back of my mind about this hotel (I was sure I'd seen it before). We asked him and he tells us that this hotel used to be Sheraton Towers but had changed its name. Nice :) We walked in and had a beautiful crisp muscat and some Pistaccio gelati. There was this amazing guy playing piano there too - real chubby bloke, but he played with the feeling and grace of an artist. Everyone was clapping him, and it was a lovely place to be.

On the walk back we saw a group of Asian people singing worship songs at Flinders St Station. It was great - there was a whole lot of people watching them, and a couple of Aussie blokes were joining in with the fun (being really funny about it, but it was really inclusive and great to see).

All in all a gorgeous night. I love city adventures where you head into the city for a night and just see what happens and where you end up. The two places that we found though have made that adventure probably the most succesful that I've had :)