Adelaide Day2

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I was up first this morning at 7am. We had no firm plans until afternoon so we were in no rush. We had breakfast in the room from our convenience store shopping and the in room coffee/tea making setup. We had plans for a second breakfast/early lunch. On the Indian Pacific train, they had chocolate waffles with ice cream. We did not have that. Last night when we were searching Google maps for something either on Rundle Mall or near Stamford Plaza that we wanted to eat AND was open, I found the Original Pancake Kitchen (We are always open!). Clay had me read the menu to him to prove that we didn't want dinner there even though they were open. Clay told me he wanted to go this morning for chocolate pancakes with ice cream. I still didn't think it was breakfast food, so we ate in the room first. We would never have found the Pancake Kitchen without a map! It was down a dead end alley all by itself. It was packed mid morning but it was Saturday. It was far too much sugar and ruined us for the day. It was however aversion therapy for our next stop of Haigh's Chocolates. Clay picked a bag of chocolate malted milk balls which they called something else. I picked a milk chocolate coated marshmallow square. We spent less than $10 I am pretty sure. Then the girl that rang us up started pulling on a glove and asked if we'd like an Easter Egg sample. Yes! Milk or dark chocolate? Milk. She gave us each a shard of egg shell big enough that it would have cost $1 or $2 out of their chocolates case. Just when we thought we couldn't eat any more chocolate we each had a big handful walking out, so of course we ate it before it melted in our hands. We walked to a Vodaphone where Clay was assured his data plan was good until August and to ignore the April 24 expiry texts. The guy told him if it expires on April 24 just come into any Vodaphone store. It is not clear it will be that simple then and why we've been in 2 stores in big cities now. Anyway, we'll see and hope for the best. Clay went in Woolworth's and bought 4 more chocolate bars! He said he needed more hard candies because of his cough continuing but that doesn't explain the chocolate bars. There were a couple of shops with local artisan goods that I wanted to visit. Clay found the Jam Factory and we walked blocks to get there to find it closed for the Easter holidays. We came back to the room to rest before our afternoon tour. I looked up the other place, Tandanya that Clay was arguing about the best way to get there and when to go and found it was also closed until Tuesday for the Easter Holiday. End of discussion and by now it should be clear where to begin the discussion, is it open. We rested for about an hour and I watched the paddle boats up and down the River Torrens. Since we weren't sure how long it would take us to find our tour meeting spot we left in plenty of time. We caught the free tram down the block and rode it 3 stops to get off at Victoria Square. We walked about 4 blocks or so to the corner of Gouger & Moonta Streets to wait under the Chinese gate for a guide in a red Feast on Foot t-shirt. We had actually booked this through Viator for about $49USD pp. It lasted from 2:30pm to 5pm. We had "dumplings" from 4 countries. It was a lot of food and a lot of walking. We had water at every stop and we stopped a lot for street art as well. There were 11 of us and 5 of us were there because someone had given them the tour as a gift! Clay wants a list so here goes. YMMV as this was Easter weekend and the guide said some of these were substitute stops. First stop was the one that killed us all. It was a full-meal sized $5 AUD Russian Piroshki from Piroshki Café inside Central Market. It was so big and heavy that we could hardly eat anything else after it! Second stop was Genki for Japanese Gyoza. Very nice. We each got a serving of 4. Third stop was Fushun for both steamed and fried Chinese dumplings. They weren't bad, but were served family style at tables of 4 with I would guess 4 dumplings per person of each kind on the platters. I only ate 2 of each and had to force myself. They were very thick dough and the fried were really crunchy and chewy after the very delicate gyoza. Our table left about half what we were served and all regretted that we couldn't take them away for later when we got hungry tonight. Last was Bakmi Lim, for an Indonesian bao bun. We could chose from 3 fillings. We both chose BBQ pork. It was not as good as the same bao buns we had in Brisbane and Auckland. We enjoyed the tour and besides it was the only tour we were able to book this Easter weekend via Viator or anywhere else we looked online months ago, so we were happy to get it. We had plans to walk to Original Coopers Ale House for Clay to have a 1/2 dozen oysters and a beer and anything for me as a light supper, but we were too stuffed! Clay wanted to walk back to the Stamford Plaza and I wanted to take the tram back. We went to catch a tram as it arrived. It was jam-packed! WTH? The areas we had been walking were a virtual ghost town after 3pm, same as yesterday on Rundle Mall. We sat down to wait for the next tram. I felt it had to be an anomaly but Clay was ready to walk it. A local came along and chatted us up and told us everyone was on their way to the Adelaide Oval for the "footie" tonight. That explained a lot. Their closest tram stop is also our closest tram stop. We did all 3 cram on the next tram, so it worked out. That ends our stay in Adelaide. We check out in the morning to go to check our luggage in at Adelaide Parklands Terminal 2.5 hours before our Ghan 12:15pm departure. We know now there is no Internet on the trains, so I won't post tomorrow for sure. Don't worry. I'll post as soon as I have typed up an entry and have Internet.


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