Our Blog Has Moved!

Just an update to let you know that our blog has been moved to http://www.mwchurch.org.au/blog. Be sure to update your feed readers to use this url instead.

Our website has also undergone a revamp, check it out: http://www.mwchurch.org.au

There will be no new posts made to this blog so please go to the new blog above.

Chocoholics Tour

Today Pepper, our Young Adults connect group, went on a Chocoholics Tour of the CBD of Melbourne.

The Tour kicked off at 12pm out the front of Patchi, at Melbourne Central, a store that has it origins in France. We did some taste testing of milk and dark chocolates as well as the sugared almonds you sometimes get at wedding receptions. Aside from chocolate, Patchi also sells art objects and glasswares of quite interesting designs.

From there we strolled to the old Melbourne GPO to go to Cacao Fine Chocolates. I must say that this was my favourite stop of the day with rather exquisite chocolate designs and flavours. Again, more taste testing and quite a few purchases were made by our Tour group.

Our final destination took us through to the Block Arcade and onto Haigh’s Chocolates. Haigh’s has the distinction of being the only chocolate company in Australia that imports raw cocoa beans that they process at their Adelaide factory. This stop had the most taste testing with a rather nice speakeled chocolate, a variation on the humble chocolate freckle.

Was a great day and we all had a lot of fun, though I think some of us might give chocolate a miss for at least a couple of days! If you want to book a tour, visit Chocoholic Tours here.

Bronson

Movie Night!

This month Pepper, our Young Adults connect group, headed off to the Sunshine Village Cinemas to go see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.

We started the night off with dinner at Mambo’s and we were all in good spirit. Most of us were/are great fans of the Indiana Jones franchise and had high hopes for this latest installment. So, with dinner finished, we headed off to the cinema. Tickets were purchased, as were drinks, lollies, choctops and in we went. I’m not going to give a “review” of the film but lets just say that it didn’t live up to hype we had all expected.

And that’s the great thing about Pepper – even though the “event” might not have lived up to what we had all expected, spending time together, laughing, talking about our week, sharing a meal etc is what was most important… the relational aspect of the group.

Bronson

Permite Comer!

“Permite Comer” roughly translates from Spanish into English as, “To Eat!” and indeed, that is what we have done tonight! Yes, tonight we had Mexican at Viva Zapatas, in Williamstown.

Enchiladas, frijoles, tacos, rice, quisadellas etc we had the lot! Viva Zapatas is a charming little restaurant with a lively atmosphere, helped by the Mexican music that sets the tone and also the Mexican memorabilia that is proudly displayed on the restaurant walls. Service is prompt and pricing is reasonable.

Highlight of the evening had to be the mini bongo’s that Zoe had given to David as a little present on her return from a business trip to Sydney. We all had a go at adding to the vibe for the background music.

Top night with good food but most importantly, good friends!

Bronson

Chocolate Market

Today Pepper met up at Max Brenners, in Melbourne Central, for a delicious breakfast of waffles, double chocolate soufflles, plus other delights all washed down with some of Max Brenners signature hot chocolate drinks. It was a bit cold, requiring coats, jackets & scarves but was great to just relax and enjoy each others company.

After overdosing on chocolate, we then headed off to the Queen Victoria Markets. Here you can find all kinds of clothes, nic nacs, electronics & curious goods plus the fresh food area. We had a challenge to find the “best value item for $10″… I almost brought a cool Russian style beanie but my other half convinced me that I didn’t need it (plus the fact that she had my wallet!).

After a hour or two of wandering around the QVM, we all headed off home after enjoying a nice morning together.

Bronson

Culture Day

Pepper, our young adults group at Melbourne West Church, went to the NGV International today. The National Gallery of Victoria International is one of the premium art galleries in the southern hemisphere, rivalled only by the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. The great thing about it is that it is free – you just can’t get better value for money than that!

So we met up at the NGV around 11am, got our coffee/muffin fix first and then headed in. Some of the exhibitions we saw were;

• Sneakers – the journey from functional sportswear to cult fashion. Didn’t see any of the ProSports I was wearing as a kid in there!
• International Collection – pieces by Rembrandt, Tiepolo, Picasso plus others. Highlight was the $300 million dollar The Banquet of Cleopatra painted by Tiepolo 1743-1744.
• Small Worlds – travel photography of the nineteenth century.

After a few hours browsing the various different art, we headed down to South Bank for lunch the Blue Train Cafe where we ate big, talked about movie classics and had a great time!

All in all, an enjoyable Saturday morning/afternoon.