Queen Vic Market & Dragon Boating

To finish out the Australia Day weekend, we spent Sunday down at the Docklands watching dragon boat racing and then wandered around the Queen Victoria Market.

Neither of us knew much about dragon boat racing and weren't quite sure what to expect when we got to the river. To be quite frank, with a name like "dragon boat" one would logically expect something much larger than what we saw! But it was entertaining nonetheless and we joined in the cheers as they paddled to the finish. The course was not very long - probably only 400 or 600 meters - so you were able to easily see the full race. The boat you see in the photo above blew away its competition in the short distance.

After watching the races we headed to the Queen Vic Market to pick up food for the week. It's hard to describe the market until you've experienced it, and a picture doesn't seem to capture it, so we'll have to just try to explain. Imagine the sheer chaos and crowds found at the Minnesota State Fair, except under a roof and running every day of the week all year long! Basically it's people in gridlock trying to buy "stuff".

There are two sides to the market - one side has all of the fresh food stands and the other side has everything else. On the fresh food side you can find all types of fruits and vegetables; raw meats like you would get at a butcher; and meats, cheeses, olives, pestos, and such that you would get at a deli. The "everything else" side has pretty much anything you might be looking for - clothes, trinkets from Australia, trinkets from other countries (Russia, China, etc), jewelry, fabric, packaged foods, bags and purses, blankets, hats, and so on and so forth. It seems that every other vendor is trying to sell you authentic Australian-made UGGs! Our new apartment is near a different market so we'll continue to have new adventures at the markets for quite a while it seems...