On 23rd of January four intrepid Local Guides rocked up to the Queen Victoria Market - Summer Night Market. The market is pretty full on and includes many of the usual bargain stands plus four stages, food and alcohol. It was a hot summer night so plenty were hunting out the drinks to go with their food. Even with over 100 food stands the lines were 30+ people deep at the popular ones. The vendors are food production champions and it only takes a few minutes before you’ve got your food. I had a most enjoyable lamb souvlaki from The Black Sheep and still wish there was a way to review transient vendors because it was one of the best I’ve ever had. The smoke from all the cooking which was predominantly done over charcoal filled the enormous shed adding to the atmosphere. Even though QVM is 141 years old it is fully accessible as the planners included wide aisles and all flat entry and exit to nearly every part of the market. Originally this would have been for the motors and carts that brought the goods and produce in every morning but lately it also advantages those that need it.
If you’re in Melbourne and its a summer Wednesday (or even a Winter Wednesday) then attend the Summer Night Market. You won’t be disappointed. Great food. Great prices. Lots of interesting people.
The Motley Crew from this small Meetup were Gerhard, Frank, Kana-Am, and Paul.
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Hello @PaulPavlinovich
Thanks for share with us. Nice Recap 
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Thanks for sharing @PaulPavlinovich . My wife and I visited the Victoria Market in October 2018. It is certainly big.
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It is a fascinating place @TheEagleEye did you go to a day market, fruit market or night market? They have quite different personalities.
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We visited the day market only @PaulPavlinovich . If we lived there we would love to buy many things there. I liked the delicatessen area best as I enjoy cooking. The produce there was spectacular.
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It is a great market @TheEagleEye it is one of the cheapest places in Melbourne to buy great quality very fresh produce. The deli, meat and fish building is quite amazing. The bustle of the shoppers and the smells are delightful. There is an awesome German sausage maker in there that I visit every time I go to the day market for some wonderful bratwurst in a crusty roll with sauerkraut.
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Thanks for sharing @PaulPavlinovich , this market looks amazing!
I am loving your photos, you really managed to capture a lot of life, however I do regret seeing the food photos before having breakfast. Now I’m in the mood for waffles.
Is the night market on for every Wednesday of the year, or only in specific periods?
I’m glad you like them @MortenSI there are two night markets run by the same organisation - the Summer Night Market and the Winter Night Market. The Summer one tends to run into Autumn. The Winter one tends to run into spring. They basically keep going as long as patronage is strong but they always have a couple of months break when transitioning.
Both of these markets are adjunct markets to the main one which is the Queen Victoria Market and it runs on four days a week. The meat, cheese and fish hall is open every day except Sunday. The other parts open on particular days for the particular products. Saturday is the only day with all stalls open.
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This sounds great @PaulPavlinovich !
I can’t get enough of markets like these, they are always so full of happy people who are not only there because they have to but because they want to be there.
If I had the choice of doing my groceries at such a place, I would go there everyday.
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That’s very true @MortenSI people do generally seem to be really happy at Markets. They tend to have a carefree vibe to them that infects the people attending.
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That’s what I love about shopping in these places @PaulPavlinovich , but I really have to be careful not to spend too much money.
Because of the happy atmosphere and the fact that they sell all kinds of fun things, I always end up with stuff I didn’t need in the first place.
Oh I know that feeling… that’s probably where my 250+ cameras, 1000+ model trains, 25+ live steam engines, thousands of books and no-one knows how much Lego came from @MortenSI
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I sense a collector in you @PaulPavlinovich , that is a massive amount of things. You could basically open up your own hobby store.
I love the big LEGO sets myself, but I just can’t convince myself to spend that amount of money on them. They are really expensive.
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I get most of my Lego second hand. It’s not as though it wears out @MortenSI - it is very expensive new. It’s only expensive second hand. Sometimes you get lucky, I got about 80% of the Lego City major buildings for $200 which is about a $2500 value.
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No you’re right @PaulPavlinovich , most of the LEGO I got as a child is still good to this day.
Maybe I should start to look for more second hand LEGO, just to build up a collection. Although I have a fascination with the big sets like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, and if I bought such a set second hand, I would be too worried that pieces were missing.
Hopefully I will man up one day and just buy it, but I feel like I could use the money for so many other great things.
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Yeah those big Star Wars kits are amazing. I’ve helped build up a death star. That took three of us an entire weekend. I’ve got a 3,000 piece truck that I’ve not attempted to build yet. The person who had it checked everything off against the online list for the kit and there were three pieces missing which I ordered from Lego online. The only thing I don’t have is the instructions! Fortunately Lego now have all of their instruction books online as PDF which is really handy. I was putting together my latest acquisition of the set #20 minifigures and to my amazement she who has always made fun of my lego started ripping open bags and putting together minifigures - either I’ve converted her to the plastic cult or she’s given up @MortenSI
Sometimes people at work give me their old stuff. I’ve even had a magic Ghostbusters II kit given to me from @KimberlyAnnG after cheering her up. This of course turned out to be expensive because I couldn’t have G2 without G1 so I had to go and find one of those old kits :).
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How great of her to give you that set @PaulPavlinovich !
That death star set sounds massive, but that is just the kind of challenge I’m looking for.
I guess it’s that feeling of completion once you’re done, that drives me so much.
I didn’t actually know that you could order specific pieces from them in case you were missing some. This opens a whole new door to me shopping for second hand LEGO.
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You can @MortenSI https://shop.lego.com/en-AU/Pick-a-Brick#shopxlink - you’ll want to change it to your region. It’s probably not worth it most of the time and for many things you can go to your lego store but if you’ve got a complex kit with a few missing bits the service is worth its weight in gold.
Lots of people also do their own creations look for #moc or #myowncreation on socials to see what people are doing - they’ll use the brick ordering service to get their parts - or they’re like me and after they’re bored with a kit it goes into zip lock bags of like pieces for building other things. I don’t have room to keep them all built and with a few exceptions like G1 and G2 and my Big Bang Theory and Hogwarts stuff I tend to break them down after doing the photos.
I usually share a lego photo each day on insta @dropbearpaul
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Thank you for the tip @PaulPavlinovich !
This is going to open up a whole new world to me, and hopefully help me overcome that fear of ending up with an incomplete set.
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Great to be of help @MortenSI do you know about Lego User Groups LUGs? They are older children (adult aged) who gather together to play with lego.
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