Shopbop purchase!

So two weeks back was obviously Thanksgiving, and so with the Black Friday sales all being online I scoured my favourite summary lists of all the best sites and started the big shop! Conveniently, the sales all started when I was having my day off as I was flying to Bali that afternoon, so I spent my morning website hopping.

Conveniently, I found one of my bargains from getting the Best Buy email newsletter, so I snapped up 48GB worth of SDHC Memory cards for my camera for just US$30. My friend from the US is going to bring them back for me when she comes home in December.

But onto the main event - my shopbop purchase! They had a tiered % off sale depending on how much you spent, so I bought this Marc by Marc Jacobs Globetrotter Sloane Ranger Satchel bag for US$270. It was originally $420, then further reduced, and then I was able to take 20% off so it worked out a pretty good price for what is a classic, black bag. Most of the time I find with these sites the odd colours and seasonal styles are on sale and often you get tempted to buying items you won't even use!

So the bag itself isn't beautiful, but I bought it just as a practical everyday work bag because my old black bags are getting overused and dying. Some of you might remember I've been on the lookout for my holy grail perfect black bag and besides the Chanel diamond stitched tote which I would by in an instant if it was still available, I haven't been able to find anything remotely close to perfect.

The bag is a lot smaller than I expected - the bag itself is the size of an A4 piece of paper, but that means it can't properly fit a piece of paper. That said, it makes it really easy to carry and quite practical as it is still roomy enough for a pair of shoes and water bottle which are vitals in my life! I got lazy so only took a few pics...

Roomy interior!

I love the compartments on this bag - they're exactly how I like my bags. Three on the inside, then one on the outside! And how cute is the luggage tag zip?

I actually preferred the Calamity bag in the same collection, if only because the shape was more elegant and 'pretty' but no site had it on sale and from the pics it looks a little too big to take out at night.  That is really important to me - I often find myself suddenly having to go for dinner/out after work and I don't want to look like I'm carrying my files with me all day!

Globetrotter Calamity Bag

All in all, I'm happy with my purchase and will report back once I start using it. Plus it was pretty awesome that I ordered it before my holiday and it arrived the day I got back!

Sick Sick Sick :(

Who else hates getting sick during Summer? ME! And I'm currently comatose at home alternating between hot flushes and feeling shivery cold. I went to work for about an hour and couldn't even contemplate how I would survive the day so promptly headed back home and slept the day away which takes me to now!

I'm feeling a little better now, but how sad is it that I didn't even manage to spend the day watching TV shows or reading mags? I had Shop til you drop sitting by me but I couldn't even find the energy to pick it up and read.

So anyway, hope you guys are all not deathly sick like me!

The only pick me up? Free shipping on net-a-porter today only! Get shopping peeps :) These Guiseppe Zanottis are very much on my wish list....

I'm baaaack!

I'm baaaaack, and wasn't that a quick trip? I think so...I mean I flew in at 7am and was back at my desk at work by 10am that morning thinking, wow was I really just in Bali yesterday?

Anyway, I'll try to be better and quicker with my holiday post uploads this time in the coming weeks (you know I never even got round to blogging about my Europe trip which was now 6 months ago!) but in the meantime, here is a teaser...

Stunning view from Ku De Ta over the beach at night

Our private pool villa in Seminyak

Now I'm back with quite a nice tan - admittedly at first I thought my tan was pretty light on until I got back and everyone at work thought I was so tanned and I inspected myself in the mirror more carefully and realised they were correct! The weather here in Sydney is amazing this weekend too woo!

Fratelli Fresh: Cafe Sopra

On Saturday I did some shopping - and bought an amazing dress, by the way, but more on that another time perhaps - and so had to refuel halfway through. Stopped by at Fratelli Fresh - Cafe Sopra  and didn't have to wait too long for a table, but they were so slow moving that there were several empty tables for at least 5-10 minutes before they even acknowledged us to seat us!

Anyway, the food was good but not wow, and to be honest I don't really get the appeal? So OK I do admit its good value for restaurant quality, restaurant service but in a chilled out cafe feel but it wasn't anything amazing to write home about. Perhaps let me know if you think I should have ordered other things!

We had the trout salad and panfried gnocchi with mushrooms. They were both good but I think I just had high expectations to be absolutely amazed and I just wasn't all that satisfied. It could be that I was in the mood for something with more flavour.

And this was the cannoli we ordered for dessert First off, I don't think this was worth $14.50 (it wasn't very big) and most of all it just didn't have the type of flavour balance you want in a dessert. It wasn't sweet enough for my liking (and I don't even like sweet sweet desserts!) but it had an odd 'fake' orange taste which I just didn't like too much. So maybe I'm too fussy? My main gripe was that this took aaaages to come out. Now I understand that during peak service times the wait can be a while but this is dessert, it just needs plating and there wasn't a single person around us having dessert.

I was also a little disappointed by the frazzled service - some wait staff were amazingly attentive and friendly but there were a few who just appeared to chat to each other the whole time I was sitting there (which was a while). Don't you hate when you see staff letting the rest of the team down?

Vacation countdown

I'm heading to Bali today so you won't hear much from me over the next few days! Never fear, I'm only gone for 5 days and I may have scheduled some posts in the meantime ;)

I'm excited to just be getting away from life in Sydney for a bit and really taking time out to RELAX! I haven't done that in the longest time!

If you have any Bali tips send them my way, I'll be checking my blog most probably :)

I spent the last few days trying to pack and got to the realisation I should just be packing swimwear and floaty dresses. Priorities, right?

Here's my swimwear rotation:

So blogosphere, I'll catch you all on the other side of my holiday!

Oh and one more thing - HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my American friends. Times like these make me miss the US =(

Chanel Little Black Jacket

I know I'm really late with posting about this but I went to Chanel's Little Black Jacket exhibition a few weeks back and it was AMAZING. I loved the ambience of the space - I love that empty warehouse feeling, I would love to have an event in that kind of space. The photos were of course also exquisite and just go to show how much of a genius Karl Lagerfeld really is.

For those not in the know, the exhibition showcases a whole lot of celebrities all photographed in incarnations of the famous Chanel Black Boucle jacket. Of course they're all impeccably and uniquely styled (Carine Roitfeld was involved, after all!) and most are also black and white.

Yay the flags herald the exhibition!

Beautiful day, beautiful view. I heart Sydney!

Probably the two most famous images from the exhibition were hung out the front as giant banners. Excuse the crappiness of the next few shots - I was in a rush!

Anna Wintour, totally identifiable even from the back of her perfectly coitured hair.

And Carine herself bearing a striking resemblance to Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, of course.

There were 'no photos' allowed inside but I did manage a few sneakies with my phone...

One of the best photos in the exhibition was of this amazingly cute girl - Scarlett Utzmann Huynh - daughter of Carine's assistant. Isn't she just adorable?

I also came across this video showing a 'behind the scenes':

The video above is from the Chanel video channel on Youtube and there are actually a tonne of amazing videos relating to LBJ exhibition. Check it out!

Life in Photos: November 2012

You might recall a while back I blogged about being invited to a wedding? So I ended up attending that wedding last week - it was a really beautiful personalised wedding which was great. I wore some of my fave net-a-porter purchases - YSL Arty and black Miu Miu metalasse clutch. My sister decided to copy me and wear my nude metalasse with her Chanel ring.

On Sunday I decided to go to The Grounds again for takeaway brunch - an amazingly tasty and gourmet chicken burger with fries. The fries were fabulous, but I am on a detox and health kick to try and get my body in beach body shape before my trip to Bali in a little under 2 weeks time! =o Gotta get exercising...

A few weeks back my friend from London came back home for a visit so we went for a girls dinner at Jamies Italian. It might shock some people that I still hadn't made a trip there mostly because I was away for 5 months of the year, but also because I could never be bothered lining up. I love good Italian food, but queueing for hours never really seemed to make sense when there are so many other food choices in Sydney!

I wish there weren't so many queues because the food is fab. I didn't take a picture of my main meal (ravioli, my fave, of course!) but I did take a pic of my amazing Eton Mess. Anyone who reads my blog should know my love for meringues and Eton Mess so this was a must have me. Too bad all the berries were raspberries (I'm not a big fan) but this was such good value for $10!

And then to round off Good Food Month a few weeks ago we went to Sofitel for their Sugar Hit. Look at the thing! Spectacular, right? I wish I had taken my good camera with me because this iphone picture doesn't really do it justice.