pantone801

Dutch Toastie

// December 20th, 2011 // No Comments » // Food, Travel

Earlier this year Mark and I spent a few nights in Amsterdam for their Pride festival. We stayed at a stunning hotel originally built as shipping merchants offices in the 1600′s called Grand Hotel Amrâth. Just down the road we found a café called Prins Heerlijk. We can best describe this as a Dutch version of our favourite Saturday morning haunt- Brown Dog. Prins Heerlijk, like Brown Dog have a simple menu, and everything is made fresh from smallgoods in their front cabinet, sliced especially for your sandwich. Specials are written on the tables in chalk and on the day of Amsterdam pride; the staff all had pink T-Shirts bearing their logo and the statement “Gay for the Day”, and they blasted campy dutch techno music from their speakers. We were so besotted with their food we had breakfast and lunch there pretty much every day of our trip.

Dutch Toastie

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Raglan

// August 16th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Travel

On our recent trip to New Zealand we visited Raglan one the west coast for the first time. NZ is so small, and on one day we brunch in Raglan on the west coast and the next we lunched at Mt Maunganui on the East coast. The trip to Raglan was fun, we brunched at Black Sands Cafe, and did a spot of shopping. Mum bought a cute oak coffee table and bought me a gorgeous 1960′s Crown Lynn Dorothy Thorpe Pine dinner set (look out for it in future food pix), and on the way home visited the stunning Bridal Veil Falls. West coast beaches in NZ have black sand, and are very rocky and rugged. Raglan has the best goofy-foot (left foot) break for surfers in NZ, and Manu Bay near Raglan was featured in the 1966 movie The Endless Summer.
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St Louis and the Gateway Arch

// June 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Travel

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Bunyon’s Statue

// June 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Travel

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No. 8 Hot Springs Club

// April 7th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Travel

Not an actual image. Image courtesey of weegolo.

Over the weekend I had a day off in Beijing and spent the day exploring Sanlitun, and area of the city I have not spent much time in. After a full day of walking and a spot of shopping I was exhausted, and headed off to No. 8 Hot Springs Club (No. 8 Chaoyang Park Road, near the west gate of Chaoyan Park [map].
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Beijing

// February 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Travel

On the way home from QHD I was able to spend 2 nights in Beijing. Traveling from QHD to Beijing by train is much better than driving. The high-speed train which travels at over 200km/h only takes an hour and a half. First class tickets cost AUD$16 although we spent the whole trip in the bar carriage. Conveniently we booked into the Marriot City Wall, which is directly next to Beijing Central Station. The hotel was great, and at only AUD$130 per night a bargain. I highly recommend visiting Beijing in winter- everything is cheaper, and quieter. On my day off I visited Beijing’s’ major sights- Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Olympic venues.

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Quick Golf Trip Away

// January 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Travel

I am thankful I was born in the month of March. Being born between Christmas and New Years poses many problems. Mark has made it very clear that he wants his birthday and Christmas to be very separate occasions. I spend months planning and saving for something special for him every year, and this year my plans fell through at the last minute. I won’t go into the details, but the runner up prize was a quick trip to the Sunshine Coast for a round of golf.

We headed up yesterday morning, and drove up the Bruce Highway with the roof down to Pelican Waters and checked into the Golf Resort. Tee off was at 3pm sharp and we had a fun game of golf. Mark has not played for about six months; and it has been a couple of years for me. The Greg Norman designed course has a lot of water, and with my rusty skills several balls were lost in the drink, but the scenery was wonderful with lots of birdlife and many wallabies on the course. (more…)

Rottnest Island

// September 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Travel

We have been in Western Australia for almost 18 months, and are about to move back to Brisbane. In this time we have had several guests staying who have visited Rottnest, and they have all raved about how beautiful it is. Last week we read that the weather was going to be perfect and we book a trip over. See the video below for more on what we got up to. Rottnest is stunning, one of the most gorgeous places I have visited, and although the morning was very chilly, the weather was perfect.

Pewter Teapots

// August 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Photography, Travel

Last year on a trip to China I picked these up from an antique market that was on next to my hotel in Qinhuangdao. I am sure are fakes and not antiques, but they still very cute. I bartered for them form this tiny old man with no teeth,  not speaking the language, when bartering you enter your price into your cell phone, and show him the screen, he then clears your price and responds with his counter-offer). The little toothless man was very hard on the price. In fact at first I thought they were so over-priced that I left, and later when I got back to the hotel was kicking myself for not getting them. I ended up going back and ended up paying about $30 each for three of them. I am still convinced I was totally ripped off, this was the week before the Olympics, and he showed a great toothy grin when I opened my walled and handed over my yuan.

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Lillies

// July 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Photography, Travel

These were sent to my Grandmother on my Grandpas passing by Tara, my little brothers girlfriend. Gran had them sitting on this sideboard in the lounge which has this yellow tinted glass window next to it. In the morning the light from the window looked great on the flowers.