Have bike will travel...

Steven and I finally got around renting a motorbike last weekend. We are now the proud renters of a bright red Honda Wave for the bargain price of $50 a month.

All last week Steven took the bike to work since I have yet to build up the courage to try it out in the city and this weekend, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we no longer have to wait around for the bus.

On Friday evening we went to Cantina Central in District One for a post-dinner snack of chips and quacamole and (cooked) ceveche (can you call it ceveche when it is cooked...?). After Cantina Central, we rode over to the Lion Brewery and Restaurant to try out their signature beer brewed fresh on the premises. Our choices were "Light" Lion Beer or "Dark" Lion Beer. We both chose the dark and were please to find it not too much unlike my New Castles back home. After our beers, we rode back home, enjoying the view from the road as we wove our way through the hoards of teenagers and young Vietnamese cruising at a snails pace down the streets, reminding me very much of Lake Worth beach when I was a teenager, only with more motorbikes and less cars. And of course, lots more Vietnamese.

Saturday, we headed over to District 7 to check out the campus of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where I had heard many local sports teams go to use their athletic fields, in search of somewhere to get in a regular run out from under the curious stares of 100s of passing motorists.

We found RMIT to be much smaller than we'd imagined, consisting of only one building, but we did find the sports fields which were invitingly green and surrounded by a red stone path that we figured would be suitable for running, surrounded as it was by bushes and fences far from the business of the road.

After leaving RMIT we rode back home for lunch before heading out again to meet a friend at Bobby Brewers to watch Slumdog Millionaire and then to continue the theme Mumtaz for an Indian dinner.

Sunday, we were up and out early to make it to RMIT before the sun got too hot and enjoyed a leisurely run (at least leisurely for me – Steven admitted that he was worried the whole time that they were going to kick us out for trespassing..) and then home for a quick change before going back to the market to pick up some shirts Steven had made and then to meet up with friends at the Rex Hotel for an afternoon by the pool.

It was a busy weekend and we made the most out of our new wheels! (And as you can see , as we've settled into our lives here, our exploits in the city don't make for very interesting posts!)