It's officially Spring Fest in Melbourne - Flowers are in full bloom and the city is vibrant with gentlemen looking smart in suits and top hats and ladies in chic and florals, with feathers in their hair. Melbourne is bursting with life as everyone dresses up and heads down to Flemmington for the Derby Day races, the final race before the Grand Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. For us first-timers, it was an exciting yet somewhat stressful time as we struggle to find the right outfit to try fit into the crowd at Derby Day (i.e. hat for Jem and feathers for me!!)
It's amazing that Melbourne Cup is such a big deal in Melbourne (they have declared Tuesday a public holiday just for the races) yet, many people we met have not been to the races! We would've missed out this year as well, since our pockets are pretty light from furnishing our home, if not for Jem's good fortune at work - He had won tickets at a monthly company drinks session! So sometime last week, he texted Gie the good news while she was out shopping with a couple of colleagues (Meera and Laura - in pic) and the frantic search for a pretty but affordable fascinator began...
Fascinators is a term for those ribbons, feathers and flowers that you can fasten in your hair.
You wouldn't have an idea of how much effort and money the Melbournians put into dressing up for the races until you step into the shops. Glamorous big hats and all sorts of fascinators with funky feathers fetched up to hundreds of dollars! Gie and her colleagues had gone to Myers to try on some hats and even though Gie was convinced that she looked stupid in hats, those $700 hats looked absolutely gorgeous on her... Of course, that is why they cost so much! Last weekend, Jem and Gie went shopping with Bee, Freddy and Desmond at DFO (Direct Factory Outlet - wallet friendly shopping) and there, Gie found her black ribbon with white trimmings and some sparse feathers for only $25!
Opps, just realised that we have yet to introduce some people to you... Meet Bee - Jem's colleague at Mitsubishi and Freddy, Bee's boyfriend! Bee had won tickets to Derby Day as well so the four of us went together. Before Derby Day, almost all our weekends and nights were spent feasting like kings and queens, drinking like drunks and ... playing Monopoly...!! Heh.. in fact, the very first time Gie met the gang (oh almost forgot about Desmond - you'll see him in some pics later), we had stayed up all night playing Monopoly until Macca's bfast at 7am... Freaks!! Anyhow, back to Derby Day...
Initially Jem was reluctant to buy a hat for that one day, but as you can see, even he gave into the spirit of the races and bought a hat for that one day! Weeee!! Freddy thought he looked like the Italian Mafia boss.. heh! The atmosphere was just awesome! We had arrived sometime in the afternoon and Flemington (home of The Cup) was packed with people! All trains were re-directed to Flemington and if you didn't know how to make your way there, you could just follow the Hats! Upon our arrival, we followed Laura and her friend Luke to the track area and caught our first race! Bee and Gie stood right next to the tracks and watched the horses whizz by, the crowd went wild nearing the finishing line and some people were happier than others.. Gie was just thrilled to be in the thick of the action with the horses galloping right in front of her!
Freddy and Jem also made some bets and we actually won one of the races! The one we won was the tri-factor where we bet on 3 horses to win and to our glee, they won! Such flukes, the bunch of us had absolutely lil' idea what was going on, let alone the names of the horses we were vying for! We included a lil' video of the winning race! Don't expect too much becoz Gie was so excited that half the time, she wasn't filming much! Unfortunately, that wasn't the only bet we placed so at the end of the day, we still lost about $20 but if not for that particular race (we won over $100), we would've lost quite a bit more!
After an afternoon of bubblies, speeding horses, people gawking, we called it a day at about 5pm and the skies started clouding over. Jem nGie n many drunk Melbournians made their way back into the city and home. There, we turned back into normal people who wear simple clothes and prepared for a night of Karaoke with Desmond, Bee n Freddy!
For more photos, view it at shutterfly here---> http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbNmTJk3btWGV
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