we've moved into the west of melbourne, to a suburb called footscray. when people have heard we were relocating here they've called it all sorts of things from "downtrodden" to "scary" to "i've heard lots of people get mugged at the train station!". encouraging! however, we happen to live in a quiet sort of area, about 10 minutes walk to the main drag and that is where the real value, the real beauty of this scruff, 'working-man's' suburb is.
walking down paisley, barkly, or hopkins st you will see the most vast range of ethnic backgrounds, a cacophony of languages pouring through and best of all, a range of restaurants to back them up. there is every kind of dining experience to be found here, all extremely cheap, too. however there seems to be a heavy concentration of vietnamese, chinese, indian and african eateries. i think we've had pho and rice vermicelli bo la lat just about every day for the past week! it's exciting to see all these little places with their variety of exotic foods and the people that fill them.
the other beautiful thing about footscray is the market. it's massive, filled with fresh produce, meat, seafood and everything else under the sun for great prices. we've yet to do a weekly shop there (unfortunately a coles is pretty close by) but i'm looking forward to giving the market the attention it deserves.
all in all footscray has been a good experience thus far. our apartment is lovely and is starting to feel like home, as is the area we're living in. thumbs up!
