Photography Archives - Jerlin Huang

July 2, 2016June 9, 2022All, Photography, TravelLeave a comment

Queen Victoria Market Favourites in Melbourne!

Queen Victoria Market has always been one my favourite places to visit in Melbourne! Imagine Singapore’s Parsabella Farmers Market, but better. Step into a cozy cafe or enjoy street food aside alfresco tables in the cool breeze. Grab some groceries, a couple of healthy snacks (granola, nuts, pumpkin seeds, etc.) and some wonderful goodies for your skin. More pictures below!

To avoid disappointment for making a wasted trip down, do note down that QVM is closed on Mondays and Wednesdays!! From 1 June to 31 August though, their Night Market opens from 5pm to 10pm on Wednesdays.

Opening Hours

Tuesday/Thursday: 6am-2pm (for produce) and 8am-2pm (for speciality shopping)
Friday: 6am-5pm (for produce) and 8am-3pm (for speciality shopping)
Saturday: 6am-3pm (for produce) and 8am-3pm (for speciality shopping)
Sunday: 9am-4pm (for both produce and speciality shopping)

Getting Here

By Train

A 7-minute stroll along Elizabteh Street from Melbourne Central Station or William Street from Flagstaff Station

By Bus

Take the Melbourne Visitor Shuttle and alight at stop 8 for the Market.

By Bike

Ride along Royal Parade and Victoria Street on the major bike lanes leading to the Market.
Free bike parking provided in and around QVM!
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By Tram

My favourite option! Hands up if you have a thing for free rides. I love how convenient travelling is with the free City Circle tram, it’s also why I make sure our accommodation venue is always in the vicinity of the CBD.
You can take tram 19, 57 or 59 to stop 7, Elizabeth Street or tram 55 to stop 9, Peel Street.
Get off at the corner of Elizabeth Streets and La Trobe and walk to the Market in the North direction.

Baked goods and brewed coffee – one of the best breakfast combinations. Cappuccino from Market Lane Coffee, coconut macaroons and almond biscotti from the bakery right opposite the glass windows/tables (sorry I can’t remember the name). The almond biscotti pairs perfectly with a dollop of cappuccino foam and the sweetness from the coconut macaroons balances off the bits of bitter in the coffee.

If you’re not up for coffee but some chocolate indulgence, koko black is for you! Their hot chocolate is amazingly rich and luscious. Would never give it a miss each time I’m in Australia.

Check out that charming chocolate art 😉

My family got a few tubs of raw honey back from this store and they loved it!

There’s also a really attractive doughnut truck right at the end of the farmer’s market if you are craving for some sugar and carbs.

Skincare products from Coconut Revolution which I absolutely loved and wish I bought more of! I highly recommend their Coconut Body Butter. It provides a nourishing treatment and tops it off with an amazing coconut scent. They have three kinds of moisturizers: the body lotion, body cream and body butter – in ascending moisturizing levels and thickness. The body butter is the thickest and also the most expensive, but it has the longest lasting effect. Might get my brother to ship more back from Melbourne because their shipping fee costs almost AUD$30 🙁

People watching at Queen Victoria Market can be a really beautiful sight :’)

For more things to do in Melbourne, read here, here, or watch my travel video here!

June 8, 2016June 9, 2022All, Photography, TravelLeave a comment

Melbourne Things To Do: WilliamsTown and Direct Factory Outlets!

1. WilliamsTown

On the first day after our flight, most of us were really tired so we decided to have a chill aftertoon out of Melbourne CBD. Williamstown was one of our options since we could get to take the ferry ride from the city at Southbank Promenade down to the Yarra river. The Melbourne River Cruises ferry ride was a tad expensive though (AUD$29 for adults) but they have a family package as well!

Confession: We went to Williamstown mainly for the Fish N Chips!! We had really good recommendations for this stall – Off The Pier, Fish and Chippery – but the weather wasn’t exactly in the best of mood and they didn’t have any indoor seats for their customers.

It started to rain and got really cold so we settled for another indoor Fish N Chips restaurant, Williamstown Mussels, to hide from the strong winds.

Guess what? After eating our fills with a huge family combo, we went back to try Off The Pier because we couldn’t leave without getting a bite of “the best Fish and Chips” 😛

And boy did it not let us down!! We got it without the chips because we had so much chips in the previous restaurant. The fish batter was crisp on the outside and the fish was so fresh and tender on the inside. It was so much better than the one in Williamstown Mussels. Prawns were 10/10 amazing too but if I’m not wrong they cost AUD$2.50 per piece. One thing about Australia though – they do not have chilli sauce. So fellow asians, please take note haha.

Williamstown was a really tranquil and peaceful town, but it was a little quiet and isolated – like a seaside village. There wasn’t really much to see except a few quaint shops and cafes.

The scenery was good though, thank God the weather cleared up so we could see the clear, blue skies 😀

2. Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) @ South Wharf

The ferry then came to pick us up and we requested for them to drop us near the Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) at South Wharf!

The rest of our day was pretty much spent shopping. DFO South Warf (20 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf VIC 3006, Australia) is one of the best shopping outlets in Melbourne. There is also free wifi in the basement food court for those taking a break from shopping!

I was right there last year as well! They have a huge collection of discounted clothes and shoes from a wide variety of both Australian and International sports and fashion brands! (Adidas, Nike, Converse, New Balance, Nine West, Dr.Martens, UGG, Michael Kors, The London Rebel, Calvin Klein, etc.) I got a pair of Nikes there, shoes are pretty cheap in Australia for some reason. Unfortunately, the shops in Australia close quite early (DFO closes at 6pm) so we didn’t really had much time to shop. I also met up with my brother for a short while before he had to run off to study for his exams.

And that was it! Most updates will be here soon 🙂

For more things to do in Melbourne, read here, here, or watch my travel video here!

February 7, 2016August 8, 2016Photography, TravelLeave a comment

FRANCE: What Paris looks like from the Eiffel Tower

After watching the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paris has always been a dream.
Most opinions I’ve heard about Paris are on either extreme sides of the spectrum – you either love it or you hate it. It’s definitely the former for me. Well it may be a little too fast-paced sometimes. More often than not, you start to realise that everyone else is walking faster than you. But looking back at these photos make me miss the lovely city already. I did have a wonderful time, the city has an alluring charm that only those who step into it would understand and being able to experience that was such a treat. I’m already looking forward to head back and hopefully share this experience with the people I love next time.

All the hearsay about the French being rude didn’t turn out to be true for me. In fact, I’ve actually met a lot of kind strangers without whom I might have ended up wandering in circles like a stray cat. The French people are proud of their language, they are not rude. They love people who try to speak a little French because it shows them we’re putting in some form of effort to be a part of their culture. But of course, having attended a month’s worth of French lessons, I’d say French is definitely a difficult language to grasp but hey, learning a few words won’t hurt!

Basic useful French phrases to know:

Excusez-moi – Excuse me
Merci – Thank you
Un, Deux [duh], Trois [tua], Quartre [cart], Cinq [sunk] – One, Two, Three, Four, Five
Bonjour – Hello/ Good Morning
Au Revoir – Bye
Bonne Soirée– Good Evening
Bonne Nuit – Good Night
Aujourd’hui – Today
Hier – Yesterday
C’est la même chose [c’es-la-mem-shos] – It’s the same (Lol this was Shaun’s favourite phrase…… Haha it’s useful when you’re ordering the same thing as the previous person)
Comment tu t’appelles? – What is your name?
S’il vous plaît [see-voo-play] – Please
Pardon, je n’ai pas compris. – Pardon, I did not understand. (Past tense)
Excusez-moi, je ne comprends pas. [zheu neu kompron par]- Excuse me, I do not understand. (Present tense)
Je ne parle pas français [zheu neu parl par fron-say] – I do not speak french.
S’il vous plaît, je cherche…… [see-voo-play, zheu share-sh ……]– Please, I’m looking for… (place you’re looking for)

IMG_0802_low-res — View overlooking the Seine River, taken from the Eiffel Tower.

IMG_0817_low-res — Facing east from the Eiffel Tower. Here you can see the gold dome of Les Invalides. Besides being a burial site for previous outstanding French war heroes, it was also once commissioned by Louis XIV as a hospital for soldiers.

The view overlooking southeast over Champ de Mars from the Eiffel Tower, towards École Militaire at the end of the lawn. The tall black building sticking out is actually Tour Montparnasse, where you can get an amazing view of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. (Because you can’t actually see the Eiffel Tower from the Eiffel Tower, ha. More pics on that later!)

I’m always in awe of the fabulous architecture in Paris (and the unbelievable amount of good-looking people). Parisians have an extraordinary good fashion sense, especially in Winter. (｡♥‿♥｡)

Alright, more updates real soon. In the meantime, au revoir and have a lovely chinese new year folks! 🙂

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February 1, 2016November 14, 2016All, Photography, TravelLeave a comment

FRANCE: First Glimpse of Paris Suburbs

We flew from Singapore to Paris with a transit in Zurich for around SGD$1,200 for a return trip if I remember correctly. Our departing flight was via SwissAir and Lufthansa! Not extremely impressed with the service by SwissAir but Lufthansa was great! And Lufthansa’s plane seats are much more comfortable as well.

The first night, our accommodation was located at Nanterre, France.

Nanterre is one of the western suburbs of Paris but it was really convenient for us because we could get to Paris from a nearby metro station through the express subway. Our airbnb host was extra kind to pick us up directly from the bus station near his apartment.

Since we arrived pretty late in the afternoon due to a flight delay, our host suggested that we head down to a nearby Christmas market which was only a 10-minute walk away!

This was our first Christmas market so I was pretty excited and wide-eyed for all the scrumptious looking food. I’ll admit to being a hopeless sweet-tooth addict here, so my eyes were basically lighting up at every signboard that screamed “Churros” or “Crepes”.

There’s something about Christmas markets that give you warm, fuzzy vibes in both your heart and tummy.

We’d have love to try more food but our host offered to prepare our dinner for us. Guess what?

Looks lovely ain’t it!! It was such a simple dish – Traditional melted Raclette over the grill accompanied by humble boiled potatoes, and a variety of dried meat selection. Not forgetting the ridiculously cheap wine available in their supermarkets!! The french love cheese and wine. Love is probably even an understatement. It’s probably the equivalent staple food to them as rice and noodles are to Asians.

Shoving boiled potatoes down our stomachs with a couple of glasses of red wine plus insightful conversations with the host – that concluded our first night in France.

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Category: Photography

Opening Hours

Getting Here

1. WilliamsTown

2. Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) @ South Wharf