Australian Museum

It's been a wet, miserable week and keeping Jaeminkins indoors was enough to make me go batty. So, I decided to investigate what my options were.


Googling away, I came across The Australian Museum. What appealed straight away was the fact they had a kids space specifically targeted for under 5 year olds and they also had a baby friendly space for the babies to crawl around. Admission was $12 for adults and children under 5 years are free.


So I was keen to check it out as it had been awhile since I'd been there. Even with the drizzling rain, the city was buzzing, the David Jones Christmas windows were attracting many passer-by's, a sign of the Christmas craze.


With 2 of Jaeminkins good mates, we were 3 prams in tow. Walking through Hyde Park, it was good to see signage at the Australian Museum for a ramp entrance through the the boom gate.


Can I tell you that Kidspace is AMAZING!! The space is designed especially for the under-5's. It's a mini museum dedicated to stimulate young children's imaginations and encourages them to explore the natural world. The kids are encouraged to investigate, touch, feel real life objects and specimens through magnifying glasses. There's stuffed animals to touch, plastic replicas of snakes, spiders. Pepe would have been terrified but the kids were loving it.


 You can park your pram just outside of the space. Its marked up with line markings just like a car park. There is a nappy change and feeding area and you can ask for staff for a bottle warmer. What else could you ask for?

As soon as I put Jaeminkins down on the floor, he was running off exploring. Playing with the toys, real life spiders encased  in glass and crawling through the cubby house 'pods'.

The Kidspace features five 'pods', these include a bug pod, marine pod, volcano pod, observation pod and imagination pod. Such a fabulous set up, I couldn't find Jaeminkins for a few moments but I could hear his shrieks of joy.

Jaemie with his mate Paul, were busy discovering and crawling from pod to pod, stopping along the way to touch the puzzles on the wall, look through the glass windows and make new friends. 


It was funny to watch Jaemie climb into a box and crawl out landing face first and Paul copying the same move. Maybe I shouldn't been photographing this moment but it made me laugh.



There are bee, lady bug, frog, dinosaur costumes that you can have your little one dress up in. Jaemie didn't like keeping on his outfit at all. Luckily Jordan did and happily posed for me.

There's also a painting space set up with easels and paints where the bubs could paint and pick up their drawing once it had dried.


I love Kidspace and I think the boys did too. We spent all morning there, the boys running riot whilst we photographed their antics.

After the boy's lunch, we managed to walk around the museum and check out the dinosaurs, birdlife and Australian marine life and extinct animals. Jaeminkins didn't enjoy this too much as he whinged his way through the  sightseeing tour I was giving him. 

It wasn't too long before we were hungry and Pepe suggested Bodhi at Cook and Phillip Park. It was close by but I was dubious about having a vegetarian meal as I'm a meat lover. We tried their pumpkin, mushroom and beetroot dumplings. Also tried their dishes of fake duck and fake pork noodle with tofu.
Not too sure if I want to repeat that experience again.

After a fun day, let's say that Jaemie fell asleep in my arms whilst drinking his bottle of milk before going to bed. I've found that's a definite sign that he enjoyed himself immensely and also tired himself out. I highly recommend Australian Museum for keeping the cubs amused.


Anyone else know of well kept secrets like the Australian Museum?? Please let me know.


Australian Museum

6 College Street Sydney
NSW 2010 Australia
(612) 9320 6000

9.30am to 5pm daily (except Christmas Day)

Adult: $12
Family (2 adult, 2 child): $30
Family (1 adult, 2 child): $18
Concession: $8
Child (5 - 15yrs): $6
Under 5s: FREE
Members: FREE

http://australianmuseum.net.au/event/Kidspace

Sculptures by the sea

Attempted Sculptures by the Sea down at Bondi on what was a scorcher of a day (35degrees!) Had good intentions to leave early but the reality is that when you have a bub this is never the case. As Isla was rolling around on the floor and Jaemie had a tendency to crawl over and poke her, I was keeping my eye on them. But this time, Jaemie was trying to feed her a lid and cracking up in laughter and didn't try and poke her but did try and give her a kiss. So cute!!!  After an hour of fussing around, babies were seated in the car seat and we were off.

I thought it wouldn't be as busy on a Monday but I was mistaken. Parking wasn't too bad but the park and walkway was overtaken by school kids, tourists and so was still crazy busy. Lugging the babies was a struggle as well making sure we had food, nappy change and spare clothes for them.

All we could manage was the sculptures around Tamarama Park and Tamarama Beach. The thought of walking to Bondi Beach wasn't even an option, my sis did think it was 2km away and the thought of managing the stairs and walking back to the car wasn't too desirable, so we had to drive over.

Great sculptures this year, I loved the tap and the golf green on the rocks,

Introduced my sis to my fave eatery of Sababa and we managed to feed ourselves with our bubs in our laps. Let's say that Jaemie ended up with bits of parsley and falafel in his hair, a messy affair.

 The water was definitely cold as seen by my sister's expression on her face.

Headed home after our outing and I was feeling immensely tired but Jaemie was still on the go. He's dropping down to one sleep when he's with me but childcare still manages to get him to have 2 sleeps. Have no idea how they manage that.

Guess what time I was in bed by??? 920pm.

Still haven't managed to work out how to use my computer so hence the lack of blogs but I'm getting there.

Til next time

Sababa
82 Hall St, Bondi

Another day in Melbourne

The next day we got up early due to Jaeminkins waking at 6.30am and took advantage of room service. The ricotta pancakes were so good. 

We walked along the Yarra River and admired the art sculptures along the way. Jaeminkins made his presence felt as he protested about being in the pram for too long so we had to let him out. He loved walking on and touching the Melbourne blue stone. I was amazed by the number of rowers racing, reminded of Putney, UK.

We managed to find Chapel Street and soaked in the sun then stumbled across Prahan Markets. We managed to get our fill of sausages offered for tasting and walked all the way to St Kilda to Uncle P’s house and I was knackered after the long walk. 

Uncle P organised a bbq with hungarian sausages and they were huge but tasted awesome. I loved the beanbag as Jaeminkins had a hard time trying to slide out of it. How cute are my boys with Uncle P??

I was ready to skip the night’s festivities and head to bed myself. After running around like a headless chook to get ready before the babysitter arrived. I was wondering why Jaeminkins was so quiet and so I went round to have a look to see what he was up to. Let's say he discovered the tissue box and was having a great time pulling them all out.

On another note, he managed to crawl properly for the first time. He lifted his bum and was on his hands and knees, what a milestone.

We managed to get dressed up for a night out at Parliament house. One great thing about the night was the speeches held in the members’ assembly. Must have been nerve racking for the speakers but it was a great space and I can’t report too much heckling was done. But how handsome is my Pepe??

One place I did want to visit was a coffee place called Brother Bada Budan which focusses on specialty coffee. I can say it’s unbelievably good. I can understand why it’s so popular and I loved the chairs decorating the ceiling.

I wanted to visit my favourite boutique Very Very but it was going to be too late to visit as we had to catch our plane. So can you guess what happened next? The Pepe Affect, our plane was running late yet again. Did I mention that I wasn't going to travel with Pepe after this happened again.

Brother Baba Budan

359 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne 3000