There are tentative plans afoot in my world.

Plans that could finally kick me in the ass and stop me from living such an idle life.

It’s not that I don’t love my idle life. Being able to make enough money to live while working only a handful of hours a week is amazing. I have had the best year! I get to sleep as much as I want, I’m always available for parties, lunches, and movies. I get to read. A lot. And I pretty much don’t have to do anything I don’t love.

Society tells me I’m wasting my life if I continue to just laze around doing only the things I like to do.

But I disagree.

I’m wasting my life if I don’t do the things that set my heart on fire. Things I’m so excited about I find it hard to sleep from the ideas running in my head. Just over a year ago it was the prospect of quitting my lucrative office job to run my own jewellery business and live off less than minimum wage.

Now it’s the prospect of travelling the world and seeing amazing things. Wanderlust has finally got me. The thought of actually relocating so very far away from the safety of my friends and family is still one that fills me with anxiety, but who knows how I will feel in a few months. Or next year when I’ve actually visited other parts of the world.

Back from our holiday in the Gold Coast of Australia now but feeling a renewed sense of luck at the gorgeous weather we had after hearing about a storm that is currently ripping through that part of the country. It has already killed one person.
We originally wanted to go this week and tried to book tickets but Air NZ screwed us around and we had to go a week earlier. Lucky or what!

My recollection of the short sunny trip is in the style of Sarah Von’s memory list.

1. Getting up at four in the morning is NOT awesome. Especially when you go to bed at one.
2. Movies on the plane make it less scary to fly, they’re distracting.

3. The Gold Coast is immediately warm when we arrive. It’s 8.30 in the morning their time and the sun is as hot as it gets in Wellington in the middle of summer. Plus there’s no wind.

4. It’s amazing how much you remember about a place even though you’ve only spent one week there ever. As we were driving from the car hire place I could remember exactly where the supermarket was up the road from the place we stayed at last time. And I got to have my first cupcake of the holiday. It wasn’t that great.

5. Our rooms had amazing views. Chickie Little and the Hubby’s room had views of the beach and the river either side and ours had a wide view of the river. They let us check into one of the rooms early so the girls could catch up on some sleep and the boys could go be hunter gatherers and find us some food.

6. The Boy mysteriously forgets that I don’t like to eat onion or capsicum and that I don’t like pineapple on pizza, so he orders dinner from the only place he can find open on a Sunday night and brings home a vegetarian pizza which has tomato paste, cheese, onion, capsicum, and pineapple as toppings. I end up eating pizza base with tomato paste on it for dinner because I’m so hungry.

7. I apparently love the fleeting feeling that I’m going to die and subject myself to it occasionally on rides like the Claw and the Giant Drop.

8. I don’t know how people met up with friends before cell phones and the internet. Trying to meet up with Gem was a huge failure, the phone number I gave her was missing the country code which ended up being necessary, and we didn’t have internet access so I didn’t get her email saying her nana had died and she couldn’t meet us in Brisbane after all.
9. The trip to Brisbane led us to discover one of the three Ikeas in Australia though. Ikea. Is. Awesome. I finally understand why everyone goes on about it. My memento is a black and red striped mat and an Ikea pencil.


10. Shopping was great. We went to Pacific Fair, Queen St Mall, Australia Fair, Harbour Town and the general Surfers Paradise area. Harbour Town was by far my favourite. I didn’t buy anywhere near as much I hoped I would. But I did find an amazing new paid of sneakers!
11. I think Chickie Little was getting a bit pissed at me for the amount of sushi I was eating. She can’t have any for at least 6 months on account of her condition (pregnancy). The warm weather calls for something fresh and tasty and sushi is always my pick. I went to my first sushi train too!

12. The forest we went into up Mt Tamborine was magical. We went for a short walk to Curtis Falls. I kept expecting to see monkeys or fairies popping up.

13. Coolangatta airport is tiny and boring. Then our flight was half full with kids. And the In flight entertainment system was screwed and needed to be rebooted. It wasn’t until about an hour into the flight home that it finally started working. No thanks to the kids who kept leaning on and poking the screen despite being told that doing so would men having to start the reboot again. I honestly wanted to slap the little bitch sitting in front of us. I wanted to slap the parents more though. The flight attendants had to come and get the dad about four times after their little toddler son kept running up the aisle getting lost and then starting to cry.

OK, not really. But I am off to Oz.

All going well I’m there right now, basking in the plastic, beaches, and “culture” of the Gold Coast. Don’t be too jealous.

I’ll be back in a week but I’ve got a couple of posts to go live while I’m gone. Comments and emails and purchases will all be dealt with when I’m home. xx

1. Gold Coast, Australia, 2. Tracks to Surfers, 3. Morning at Broadbeach, 4. cimg0531, 5. Steel rails, chasing sunshine round the bend, 6. cimg0646, 7. Sunset Surfers Paradise Australia, 8. Smile for the Camera, 9. cimg0524, 10. cimg0490, 11. Gold Coast, 12. Gold Coast Burleigh Heads 09, 13. Cutest Koala

15 January 2009 – Alien says Mofo!

16 January 2009 – Wellington Anniversary weekend trip to Napier

17 January 2009 – 30% off fairies. Saweet.

18 January 2009 – Ahuriri beach, Napier

19 January 2009 – You can gauge the miniatureness of a miniature horse by comparing it to Chickie Little. This one must be tiny!

20 January 2009 – Revamp!

21 January 2009 – This is my ‘O crap I’ve been inside all day and haven’t taken a picture, what should I take a picture of’ picture. It’s my fary light twigs-or xmas tree-with disco balls and a pink seahorse.

I got back from my xmas break on Friday night and spent the next few hours reading hundreds of articles in my Google Reader and watching an episode each of Coronation Street and Dexter. There is so much I want to be posting that I feel kind of overwhelmed and don’t know where to start and then end up doing nothing :S

Hopefully recapping what I did when I was away will clear out some of the clutter in my head so I can go forward and tell you all about my Project 365 and 101 in 1001 :D

This post is very image heavy so click through if you want to have a look and your internet connection will handle.
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I returned to work today after our weekend dash to Taupo which was full of cafe dining and sun. The trip was marred only by the fact I realised an hour and a half down the road the boy had not put my chargers, the laptop, or the toiletries bag in the car.

Before you get all “why didn’t you put it in yourself”, it’s because he was picking me up straight from work. The plan was to leave everything I wanted to take on the couch and he would put it all in the car when he came home to pick it up…but he didn’t. I made him buy me some tinted moisturiser, face wipes, deodorant, a new toothbrush and toothpaste and razors so I could cope.

While in Taupo I was given a manicure for a birthday present. It was my first ever manicure from a professional! Just a simple shape and polish but it was great. I chose the brightest pink nail polish in a shade by China Glaze called “Make An Entrance”. It’s super fast drying which is perfect for me.
I took some pictures but they all make the colour look red. The bottle gives you a pretty good idea of the true colour though :]

The rest of the time was spent shopping and eating. There are some fantastic cafes in Taupo, we went to Fine Fettle a couple of times and Replete and I’d recommend both to anyone in the area. Fine Fettle is especially good for anyone who doesn’t eat gluten.
We had a nice long soak in the Taupo DeBretts natural mineral water hot pools. The boy got to go sailing (I hate boats!) and then we drove home again.

And although Lotto jack potted again and I didn’t become a millionaire at least the weather was beautiful the whole time!

What can I say, Melbourne was great. Far too populated and bigger than my poor legs could handle but great nonetheless.

I’ve discovered from my trip that I’m not as big a city girl as I thought I was. We spent a large chunk of our trip shopping, not buying much as I though I would though. We walked for hours and miles down Bridge Rd; Chapel St; Brunswick St; Lygon St; through the DFO; in Myer; down Swanston, Bourke, Flinders, Collins, Spencer, Queen, Elizabeth and all the ‘Littles’; Along the Yarra River; through the aquarium, museum and casino; on the St Kilda Beach; exploring Queen Vic Markets; and up to Chinatown.

Getting around

Public transport is a dream, especially when compared to Wellington. We secured a metcard week long pass on our first day there and this gave us access to the buses, trains and most importantly trams for our whole trip. We only used the train once and all other times caught the tram. You usually don’t have to wait to long for a tram where ever you’re going especially if it’s just across town. And it’s worth jumping on even for just a couple of blocks because preservation of your legs is a must.
The Skybus is a separate operation (so no using your metcard) that will get your from the airport to the Southern Cross Station (aka Spencer St Station). Tickets are $16 one way and there is a free shuttle from the station to your hotel if needed. We couldn’t find where to catch the shuttle and after being pointed in a number of different directions decided to walk the few block to our hotel. With three bottles of duty free, two carry ons, two suitcases and two jackets between us it was a bad time to find out that the city blocks printed on the map are a lot bigger in real life. We got there in the end though.
We caught the hotel’s shuttle back to the airport direct to minimise confusion or frustration, this was $55 for up to four people all inclusive.

Dining

Dracula’s was definitely my favourite part of the trip. It is very me :D
Dancing, singing goth guys and girls waiting on and entertaining you for a few hours. What could be better? The show was very funny, the audience engagement fantastic and with S being sucked into the show by one of the female performers made for a very funny night. My only gripe would be that one of the female waiters took her role as an undead zombified blood splattered servant too far and told us to go get our own glasses when we asked for some to go with the bottle of water she delivered to our table. I thought she was joking but the glasses never came. Prices are $61 each on off peak nights, $67 peak. We found 10% discount vouchers with free cocktails at the visitors centre though :]

Eating in Melbourne tends to be very cheap. It’s worth eating out for all your meals with the increased price of supermarket shopping these days. We enjoyed Italian at a place on Lygon street where you can get a huge bowl of pasta for about $14.
Chinatown is a must for visitors looking for cheap eats, we ate in Chinatown three times during our stay. I love Asian food (especially Japanese). On our last night we ate at a busy dumpling house with people constantly being ushered in and out, upstairs and through to other rooms. You can get a plate of 10 or 20 dumplings to share on a table for between $5 and $10. They also offer noodle plates, buns, sweets and are BYO.

Accommodation

We were lucky enough to know someone in the hotel industry so managed to get a fantastic one bedroom apartment on the 18th floor of the Medina Grand, Queen St at a very nice mate rate. Accommodation in Melbourne is not cheap (the same as New Zealand) but if you are looking at apartment accommodation and want to spend at least a couple of hundred a night Medina is a good option. For views you can’t go past the St Kilda Medina! We got to visit a room here with the most spectacular views over Albert Park, the city and the ocean.

Money

The strangest thing about Melbourne (and I think this applies to Australia in general) is that everyone uses cash. Coming from New Zealand where EFTPOS was trialed very early on (if not first) most people pay for most of their transactions electronically, either using an EFTPOS (debit) or credit card. EFTPOS terminals are in almost every shop including dairies and many delivery drivers now also carry portable EFTPOS machines. The fees are not high and bourne by the customer not the retailer. It is common to pay using EFTPOS for transactions as small as 50 cents and payment can be divided amongst a few different card, people or cash/credit/EFTPOS.
It was very strange to be out at a pub in Melbourne and instead of buying something on their EFTPOS or credit cards people would leave the pub, go down the road to an EFTPOS machine, withdraw money and come back to buy a drink with the cash!
Many shops have cash only signs and large numbers will not let you pay by EFTPOS for purchases under $2 or by credit card for purchases under $20. On the way home in the Melbourne airport we had exactly $20 and 5 cents (yep Aussie still has 5 cent pieces) so S bought a $20 book. The lady at the desk didn’t count the money properly and said he was a dollar short (after she had already started putting the money in the till) and when S offered to pay the extra dollar on his credit card they looked at him like he was cracked and said they couldn’t possibly because everything is linked to the computer and they could do cash or credit card, not both. Luckily the staff managed to scrounge up the extra money needed and a kind customer offered us her 40 cents change.

I’m glad I’m home now. It makes me appreciate Wellington and it’s small town feel, now we really need to do something about the transport system. The best bit…

hardly any Aussies :D

JK

xxoo

It may be the Gods or it may be that my partners cousin is one hell of a good guy and has managed to get our first two nights in the hotel as well instead of us having to stay at a mates house.

Due to the long weekend all of their Melbourne hotels are fully booked, so we got upgraded! We will now be staying in a premier one bedroom apartment, we just have to put up with the shower missing it’s screen until Monday. No problemo.

Thank you Mr Simon and Mr Andrew, you’re fantastic! xxoo

So, that’s me for just over a week. I’ll be back in Wellington on the 14th with lots of photos and hopefully lots of new clothes :]

Ok, I am officially excited about my trip to Melbourne now. We finally confirmed where we are staying thanks to Sol’s fantastic cousin. We get a beautiful one bedroom apartment at the Medina Grand for a fraction of the cost of the shittiest room we could previously afford!!!!

*Play bass I picked it up and played for about 5 minutes, that counts right?!
*Clean
*Get a new book from the library I got it and read it :]

♥ Clean Ew ew ew…I must MUST clean. It’s no wonder I get home and crawl into bed every night after work and just stay there. It’s because I can’t stand looking at the rest of the house. I wish Sol would let me get a cleaner in. Having someone in our house while we’re not there has got to be better than living in filth. I think we need to sign up to Chore Buster again.

♥ Plan for the iCiNG Transformation Challenge Gala has inspired a transformation in at least 800 people around the world it seems. I plan to eat better and get stronger for a month. Go back to avoiding chocolate and cheese (this is my biggest downfall and cutting 2 things out is pretty easy). And try to get some abs or muscles or something. All the girls on the L Word are so lean and strong and I’m jealous!

♥ Sus out some more details of my trip to Melbourne and blog about it. Yay I’m finally going to Melbourne:D