Post Holiday Blues

I've been neglecting this blog which is 1 part I-have-been-on-holidays and 2 parts life-has-changed-faster-than-I-have-been-able-to-keep-up. So now I'm using this winter hiberanation period to really focus on me and for once being in some semblance of stable life.

Anyway. That is all not very exciting. What is exciting is that I recently returned from holiday! My second trip to the US this year, my 4th in 4 years, but sadly likely to be my last for some time now. I think I need to give the North American continent a break from me for a while!

I'll try and post about my holiday highlights if I get around to it, but for now, here are some of my photo faves :)

 Perfect white sand and pristine blue seas in Barbados. I probably should have noted above that I actually spent half my time in the Caribbean, not just the US. And it was, like my last Caribbean trip, breathtaking. And blissful. And just what I needed!

Trunk Bay in St Johns, USVI. Consistently rated amongst the top 25 beaches in the world, and I wouldn't disagree!

A rare shot you'll see with me in it. I don't generally like posting photos of myself on this blog, but this is me hanging on a boat in St Lucia.

 The famous Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas. American History worthy.

Texas State Capital in Austin, Texas. I loved the architecture. I loved the patriotic scattering of the state Star on everything and anything. And I love this shot.

Laguna Beach, Orange County, CA. Teenage dream come true. I used to be obsessed with MTV's Laguna Beach, and am still a huge fan of LC. Long live MTV.

I realise all my photos look like postcard pictures I've stolen from the internet. I can assure you, everywhere was just that photographically amazing that it didn't take much to snap a postcard worthy shot, though I do like to claim some photographic skill ;) These were all shot on my beloved travel camera the NEX6 with kit zoom lens (I didn't even touch the second Sigma lens I took with me!).

And before you ask, I bought one item of clothing my whole trip! Yes, one! After enough visits to the US in as many years, I can definitely say I am probably one of the rare visitors who can abstain from shopping :)  

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?

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!

Charleston, South Carolina

Over the Christmas break I found myself in Charleston, South Carolina for a wedding. Charleston is a quintessentially cute, Southern little town with such a lovely colonial town vibe. It's recently been appearing on the 'new cool cities to visit' lists regularly, and I've since heard it is the second most popular place to get married in the US behind only Vegas (for obvious reasons).

The wedding I went to was seriously breathtaking. The best wedding I've ever been to, but I knew that would happen because the bride is the uber bride who has been planning this wedding since the day I met her (long before she even was engaged).

Here are some pics I wanted to share with you of the beautiful place that is Charleston!

I ate at the popular and hipster restaurant Husk that has all the Southern specialties such as this - pumpkin pie! We also had pigs ears lettuce wraps which were AMAZING!

 

This is an unfortunately badly shot photo of the building in which Husk is in - I was not my usual self this trip and really didn't take many photos, and didn't make an effort in most cases. I was just all about having a good time and soaking it all in!

Sunday brunch is, as always, a huge thing in the US, but in a religious southern town like Charleston, it is Halls Chophouse for 'Sunday Gospel Brunch'. I wish I had bothered to take a photo of the live, grand piano playing, soul crooner who sat in the corner entertaining us for the day. And for a bit of Southern hospitality, this was my complimentary glass of bubbly, after the restaurant owners started chatting to us!

And now for the wedding - at a beautiful plantation overlooking the river. Despite being in the middle of winter, it was a sunny warm Winters day which was absolutely amazing.

I do slightly regret having such a good time that I didn't stop to properly take photos of the sunset. But this is seriously how amazing it is - the following photo was taken with no filter on an iPhone. Is it not spectacular?

Southern food at the wedding - mac & cheese and chicken & waffles!

Beautiful beautiful florals - all painstakingly done by an amazing florist.

And for a sense of the main street - this was the high end shopping strip where you could literally get any designer item you wanted!

I love me a good holiday, and this was definitely one!

Holidays!

Today, I head off for a few weeks overseas and so you may not hear from me for a while. So much happens in my life that I never get round to blogging about everything, and I never even finished blogging about my epic 5 months overseas from 2012. Anyway, I'm off again and you may recall I posted excitedly as one of the highlights is definitely going to Glastonbury 2013! So excited :)

In the meantime, I've scheduled a few posts while I'm gone and as always I'll be in twitter. You'll hear more real time updates about my holiday on twitter so click on the links on the right to follow me @AShoeAffair and stalk my holiday!

In the meantime, I leave you with this amazing photo of a place that is high on my 'to visit' list ;)

Jumeirah Dhevanafushi, Maldives - CN Traveller Hot List 2012

Travel Tip Tuesday: One Cent Flights

It's been ages since I did a 'Travel Tip Tuesday' post so here's a good one if you're looking to travel soon - I came across this website One Cent Flights.

So how does it work? Basically its like an auction site where you bid for the price you're willing to pay for whatever flights they've advertised which include awesome destinations as Australia to the US and Europe. Basically you're bidding on the amount you will pay to then have their set travel agent book you the return flight on a set list of airlines (which are actually quite good, not cheaper budget airlines!) based on the travel dates you want.

Bids increase in increments of 1 cent, so you'll often see international flights go for less than $100! Bidding ends when no further bids are received and a set countdown timer runs out. The catch is that you have to pay for bids at a starting price of $1 per bid but if you're clever with your auction strategy, even if you bid say, 500 times, that's only $500 plus the auction price (which might be less than $100). At a total of < $1000, that's still cheaper than the average return flight internationally!

Now I'm not affiliated with them in anyway and I haven't actually tried it (as I've already booked my holiday for 2013!) but I thought it was something others might really get into. Even the domestic flights have pretty good deals.

When you sign up you get 5 free bids but if you want a bonus two, click here!

Happy Bidding!

Melbourne trip

I was in Melbourne last week for work and while the weather was pretty average and I was pretty busy with work I still found some time to eat and relax!

I went to the much loved and popular asian hotspot Chin Chin and didn't even have to wait for a table! Score!

The sashimi entree was pretty tasty (above) as was the crying tiger (below). Crying Tiger was a little too spicy for my liking but we also tried the crispy skin duck which I don't have a pic of which was awesome! The serving size was very decent too which is always a plus.

I stayed at the Crown Metropol again which I love mainly because of their beautiful pool and facilities. Being the newest of the Crown hotels it has uber modern interiors and a fabulous view. Below is the view from the gym - makes exercising that much better!

They ran out of king rooms so I got a double room instead...one bed to sleep in and one bed to sit and watch TV and read in!

And that famous pool - it is on the second top floor with an edgeless infinity pool feeling as the pool overlooks the edge of the glassed walls all round. The view is magnificent! See below the pool water appears to flow over the edge and you can see the view just yonder.

Not to mention the pool temperature is beautifully heated and the perfect 1.2m height continuously across which is perfect for lap swimming.  Below is the view from where I was perched in the hot tub/jacuzzi which is awesomely heated at 38 degrees. I just chilled in here to relax!

I love going to Bistro Guillaume everytime I'm in Melbourne and this is my standard order - Steak Frite with paris mash instead of the frites. The bearnaise sauce is just right! Usually I will also order dessert (profiteroles) but I just couldn't fit it all in!

On my last night I went to Cumulus for dinner and despite it being a Thursday night the wait wasn't actually too long. I have to say, I've been there for brunch but their dinner wasn't as wow as I would have expected. We ordered the whole snapper and wagyu brisket as our main dishes, both of which were tasty and well cooked but not wow. We did order a freekah salad though which was amazing and had a selection of charcuterie items and entrees which were all very filling and came to about $40 a head which is pretty good considering how full we were.

I just had to try the breakfast buffet at Metropol which is on the top floor at their exclusive 28 members bar and lounge. Being just above the pool, it has an amazing view over the city skyline and of course of the pool below. The buffet is just between the two 'book cases' and the interior decor is beautiful. It apparently can be hired for functions and I was just imagining it would be beautiful and perfect for a 21st, work cocktail function or engagement party. It is very reminscent of the manhattan rooftop style location of my 21st actually, which is probably why I loved it so much!

The breakfast selection was small but refined - just the right amount of variety though for the $38 pricetag I think one would generally expect a larger selection. They had the normal scrambled eggs, mushrooms, sausages, bacon etc as well as the yoghurt station below, beautiful fruit selection, pastries, breads and cereals.

Annd finally...my room service breakfast order one day was pretty swanky - butter milk pancakes with fresh berries. Delish (excuse the blurry iphone photo!)

After all that though...I'm glad to be back home in Sydney!