Lucille Wong

  • Vive la Valparaíso

    Vive la Valparaíso

    Melbourne has the best coffee in the world and I’ve found proof in the seaport city of Valparaíso, some 120 km (90-minute bus ride) from the Chilean capital of Santiago. In Valpo’s main square is the “Melbourne Café”, a café which markets itself as “making coffee, just like in Melbourne”. The menu features the flat…

  • Peruvian Comforts

    Peruvian Comforts

    If Korean food is having a moment in Melbourne, then Peruvian food is having a thousand moments all over the world. In 2011, culinary royalty Ferran Adrià endorsed Peruvian cuisine, pronouncing it the key to the future of gastronomy. In 2013, chef Alain Ducasse nominated Peru as a leading player in the global culinary scene.…

  • Summer means tennis

    Summer means tennis

    The Australian Open is one of my favourite times of the year. Held in my hometown of Melbourne every January, the tennis means summer days and long, lazy nights. I first went to the tennis with my girlfriends at the ripe old age of 16. It was school holidays. Back then, a Ground Pass of…

  • Camping on the Murray

    Camping on the Murray

    For New Year’s Eve 2013, my friends and I set out to Tocumwal, a three-hour drive north of Melbourne. Toks is on the Victorian/New South Wales border. The rural town is on the bank of the mighty Murray River. The main attraction is of course, the river. Camping on the river is free. And river…

  • A modern family on the move

    A modern family on the move MY sister lives in London, my parents are new retirees and I’m due for some annual leave. I’m the genius who suggests a simple family holiday. My sister and I are in our 30s. The last family trip was in 1993 when we went to Disneyland in Los Angeles.…

  • Abbotsford Convent: a microcosm of Adam Bandt’s Melbourne

    If you haven’t heard, the Greens’ candidate Adam Bandt has recently won a second term in his electorate of Melbourne. He did so by beating the two major parties who ganged up on him by passing preferences to each other. Adam beat them both, proving that the Greens’ spirit of social inclusion and sustainable living…

  • Getting nude in Hakone

    My friend Ange and I were in Hakone, one hour train ride from bustling Toks. Hakone is in a volcanically active national park, surrounded by mountains. The temperature drops, the crowd disappears and the restaurants literally close at 7pm. Tokyo-ians come to escape the city life. International visitors come for the best views of Mount…