Reasons to Be Cheerful - Finding There Are a Lot of People Who Care

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The boyf and I went to our first climate change march when we were in Melbourne. I doubt it will be my last.

How to Reduce Anxiety - Hang Out With Friendly Dogs

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We're still missing our Jack Russell, Billie, nine months on, but now we're talking about getting another dog. If anyone knows of a good-natured Jack Russell in New Zealand that needs a good home, let us know. It turns out that this kind of Jack Russell is pretty hard to find.

In the meantime, we get our dose of dogs when we're out and about, including on our recent trip to Melbourne. We encountered this lovely Jack Russell in Prahran.

This one is the inspiration for the Oven Street bakery in Brunswick.

Unfortunately the bakery had sold out of bread, but at least the dog were still there.

Reasons to Be Cheerful - A Visit to Melbourne Doesn't Have to be Expensive (But it Was!)

Ballooning over Carnegie in Melbourne (Click to see options for using this image)

Australia is expensive now, but Sydney is about 10% more expensive than Melbourne across the board. I've lived in both cities and loved Sydney in the mid-nineties, but the money has ruined everything except the parks and beaches.

Fortunately you can find plenty of places in Melbourne that you can enjoy on a budget. We were staying with friends in Carnegie (the illustration above shows the fancy new elevated train station). The suburb is only 20 minutes on the train from the city and using a MYKI card will cost you less than $10 a day for unlimited travel on trains, trams and buses (trams are free in the central city zone). But it is also a great place to walk around exploring different neighbourhoods like Balaclava, where we came across this:

Balaclava is definitely becoming gentrified like neighbouring Ripponlea and Elwood. But Carnegie is still packed with affordable ethnic eateries including the excellent Paradai Thai. It also has great coffee all over the shop and the bagels at Huff Bagelry make a cheap, but filling breakfast.

On this visit to Melbourne I was accompanied by the boyf who loves his food and wine. This meant that we did visit a lot of fancy restaurants and wine bars. But we also went to some other cheaper places that I would go to if I was on my own. Like Don Don in the city which is a great place to get freshly prepared Japanese food for less than $10. This tofu curry was about seven dollars.

And of course there are lots of places you can enjoy for free. We went to both NGV galleries and the gallery in the State library. Libraries are often the best places to visit in cities and Melbourne is no exception. The Shrine of Remembrance is an incredible building to visit if you like 20th century history mixed with architecture that reminds you of a scene from Indiana Jones. The adjacent Botanic Gardens is always worth a wander.

Melbourne's beaches shouldn't be overlooked. Take a tram down St Kilda Road and get off at Elsternwick. Walk west, through the suburb of Elwood, stopping for coffee at one of the many great cafes and then keep on walking until you reach the bay. In the summer, the swimming at Elwood beach is the best.

If you have a bike, you can also cycle the whole of the seafront from there up into the central city. Look out for the scale model of the solar system along the path. Or if you want to go the other way (and it is summer), you can stop at the Brighton Sea Baths - basically a fence around the sea. A great place to people watch. Even if it is too cold to swim, there is a good restaurant with views over the water.

Recharging the Creative Batteries in Melbourne, Australia (and Becoming Less Anxious)

We're just back from a long week in Melbourne where we were catching up with friends and revisiting old haunts. It's a great city for art and other culture and a good place to recharge my creative batteries.

I always stop in at the free exhibitions in the NGV galleries in Federation Square and on St Kilda Road.

The international collection had an amazing exhibit on Venetian glass, something I wouldn't normally be drawn to.

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But by far the most impressive work there for me on that visit was Zhu Jinshi’s “Ship of Time” about letting anxiety go. It did the job and walking through it was quite an amazing feeling from me.

The boyf wasn’t as impressed.

Melbourne is also well-known for its street art, which can be seen all over the city, but is most noteworthy in the central city laneways.

Our friends took us to see the newly painted Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand prime minister) mural on a silo in Brunswick. It made me proud to be Kiwi.

Here are a few more snapshots of the city: