Pop Up Hotel - Memories from Glastonbury 2013!

This time last year, I was getting excited for Glastonbury 2013, and now I see twitter and social media is full of similarly excited people for this year's festival in 3 months time!

I've been terrible over the past 6 months with trying to post about all the fun things I've been doing and amazing places I've been travelling to, but now seemed time to post about my memories from staying at The Pop-Up Hotel during the festival. I'll post about Glastonbury another time!

Seeing as I was travelling from Sydney, I didn't want the hassle of bringing all my camping gear and supplies for the 5 day festival. If it had been Sydney, I totally would have had everything I needed but hardly wanted to buy it all again! Plus, Glastonbury is renowned for getting washed out with rain so glamping totally seemed worth the money. The Pop-Up Hotel brings uber fabulous accommodation to festivals and events around the UK and they often get profiled in magazines for their beautiful offering. Here's my experience from staying with them!

This was the view on the bus to the festival - beautiful Summer skies.

We got in late on the Thursday evening and got picked up from the bus drop off point. It was nice and easy and we got shown to our tent for the weekend which had gorgeous plush quilting and covers set upon air mattresses that were so comfy - I had a perfect night's sleep every night! 

Because we arrived at night, seeing the view of our little tent village with blue skies on the first 'official' day of the festival was so awesome!

Now one of the big reasons I booked with Pop-Up was because for the same price as some of the other off site accommodations, we were assured amazing bathrooms and facilities. How else is a girl meant to look stylishly Kate Moss like at the world's most famous music festival?

Now I was too busy having a good time to really take the time to take proper photos so these will have to suffice, but seriously, upon seeing the facilities we knew it was money worth spent. Yes, we weren't on festival campsites but the 1km or so walk back to our little highly secured village for a hot shower, flushing toilets and mirrored basins was awesome. 

Even the showers had beautiful decor - and not only that, we had powerpoints for hairdryers and hair straighteners!

And how can you forget beautiful soaps and handcreams by the basins?

These were the more premium tents, which we got a look into occasionally because everyone tended to leave their tents open to let the breezy air through. People were friendly and everyone was there to have a good time, so we never felt unsafe leaving around iPhones to charge or  expensive designer wellies (think Burberry and Hunter everywhere!).

On many a night we would come out and see people hanging out near this bonfire/firepit.

Anyone care for a beauty makeover? Well there were facilities for that too!

Every tent came with a gorgeous deck chair!

And now if I was less lazy and had a tripod, I would've been able to capture this much better but my favourite thing (besides the Pop-Up hotel cupcakes we got!) was seeing the tents all lit up every night. It was breathtaking!

Excuse the noise and slight blur to this, but seriously, how amazing is this? I was in love every night!

So now my problem is, I can't see myself ever attending a music festival and not glamping! How can I go back?

Wordless Wednesday

Holiday Dreaming...take me here please!

Alila Villas, Bali

Jumeirah Dhevanafushi, Maldives

The Long Room, Trinity Dining Room, Dublin

All images thanks to Conde Nast Traveller

My H&M Australia Picks

April 5. Unless you've been living under a rock you would know that date is the day H&M lands in Australia.

If you haven't already noticed from my blog posts, I love H&M. People are always a bit shocked given the presence of high end designer wears in my wardrobe - they think I'd be more of a Topshop or Zara kind of girl. No, no! It's all about choosing the right thing at H&M. The base prices are definitely cheaper, but if you venture into the mid end ranges they're great quality, great designs and happen to fit me perfectly. Plus, they have the most amazing sales. Part of their business strategy involves ensuring stock doesn't sit on shelves for more than a set number of weeks. After that, they have to put those items on sale and thus there is a never-ending sales rack in H&M. Love!

My favourite H&M items are amazing blazers (no more than US$60, and often cheaper), great work dresses (including a black crepe back dress I bought in Morocco for the equivalent of 7 euros) and a beautiful coat from Hong Kong that was worn by Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl.

Anyway, enough of my H&M rave. I'm patiently waiting for Australian online shopping to launch. In the meantime, these are the items I am loving:

Premium 100% Wool Felt Hat - $24.95: I am totally getting this when it's available to buy online!

Sweatshirt Skirt $49.95 - I love the colour of this. I need to see the fabric to see if its worth the price but I can see this being very wearable all seasons of the year! Remember my comment above about choosing wisely at H&M? Fabric is such a big indicator and so this could be a definite hit or definite miss. We will have to wait and see! But gorgeous cut and colour.

Double Breasted Coat $39.95 - This coat is 51% wool, uber cute, seems to have the signature Swedish well-cut design that fits me like a glove and is under $40. I mean really, what more can you ask for? Pity I have a tonne of other coats already that are similar, including a Zara one that I bought when I lived in the US and even on sale it was $80. You get the price differential already, yes?

Figure fit coat $89.95 - I want this. It is gorgeous. So elegant. A bit more pricy, but again its 60% wool but looks more light weight and perfect for our mild Australian winters.

Sleepwear Set $27.95 - OK so it may be polyester, but its super cute and looks comfy and still quite luxe despite being chain store. And really, Peter Alexander quality is not that much better usually but much pricier!

And because I can't help myself, a few other cute items that I would need to see in real life to know for sure. But uber cute overload!

And I haven't even got to the Homewares yet - I fell in love with the homewares store and collection when I went to Sweden. It was my guilty pleasure. I love that they will be bringing it to Oz!

The prices on the Australian website are actually decent too - shocking, I know! But we will have to see if the same can be said for the full range once it hits stores. I'm a little disappointed that some of my favourite items (work out wear, swimwear and the full work wear range) aren't available but I am patiently waiting!

What are your favourite items?

Le Petit Prince

Lately, I've been all about the immensely meaningful words of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). Seriously, practically every page has a beautiful quote. Here's one of my favourites:

I might share more in the coming weeks :)

Oscars: Winning Dresses through the Ages

I love me a good infographic, and if you haven't seen this then you need to. Amazing!

Life in Photos: February 2014

How is it already March? With February being a short month and being hectic (it is my birthday month after all!) I didn't get the chance to get back to blogging. Well here you can see some of what I got up to :)

I got some beautiful long stemmed roses for Valentines Day - but my favourite has to be Morgan the monkey that accompanied the gift.

I went to Canberra for a wedding - I literally ended up going to Canberra twice in the same month after not having visited for literally a decade! Anyway, we decided to visit Old Parliament House which was actually quite cool and interesting. An awesome piece of Australian history.

A straight view into the House of Representatives at Old Parliament House. How beautiful is beautifully aged wood?

On the suggestion of some canberra based friends, we visited Brod Burger, apparently a Canberra institution for amazing burgers. These were seriously huge! Tasty definitely, but the most amazing burger ever? Probably not. But definitely a cute place to check out.

I finally visited Vapiano which opened in Sydney late last year. I'd been in Brisbane a few years back and used to eat there a fair bit when I lived in the US. I'm glad its finally opened in Sydney because we definitely need that kind of eating space - easy for big groups, perfect for fussy eaters who can eat what they want, easy to get a table, and just good tasty pasta. Yum yum!

I never really get presents for my birthday, but this year I was spoilt with a small but decadent gift - amazing Godiva truffles. Some of my favourite! I'm still trying to eat my way through the box, but how beautiful is it just to look at?

I regularly brunch at Bitton cafe in Alexandria as its always easy to get a table and the food is reasonably priced and awesome. This was my omelette the other day - perfect Sunday morning brunch.

This is a terrible photo, but one of my birthday meals was at Waitan a newer Asian restaurant that is well known for its extremely expensive fitout. It is really relaxing dining there and the food is reasonable quality, albeit on the higher end of pricing. That said, the peking duck is actually quite well priced for the two courses, however not really traditional Peking Duck as much as it is roast duck. Still, good, clean tasting food with attentive service and a beautiful decor.

So as usual it turns out most of what I did in February was eat! Hmm...as a result I need to get back onto the treadmill!