Posts Tagged With: cocktails

Day 1 and 2: Bali (Jimbaran)

Posted on December 17, 2022 by Mel

We arrived at midday yesterday after a 15hr (yes I did say fifteen hour) delay – thanks Jetstar you giant bag of dicks. I used the TICBALI service on arrival who meet you in arrivals, priority pass you through all sections and then transport you to your hotel. That was $50 well spent as we were walking out of the airport 45 minutes after we arrived and saw on social media afterwards that wait times were closer to 2.5hrs for others.

We checked into Ayana Segara which only opened about 4 weeks ago. It’s part of the Ayana resort which is four different locations all near each other and with shared facilities – which means 17 restaurants, 12 pools, many bars and a beautiful day spa. Plus a private beach! They also do towel art. I love towel art.

After check in, we enjoyed the view from the room and the closest pool, before heading to Rock Bar for dinner. Rock Bar is built into the cliff rocks near Jimbaran and is pretty amazing. No beautiful sunset for us *shakes fist at clouds* but the view was still lovely and the food was great.

Our first night was rough with 5 star resort pricing not stopping bogan jerks from carrying on. I spoke with a manager this morning who was apologetic and arranged for us to move rooms and have a free massage. Hopefully tonight is better!

After our included breakfast we headed to see how busy it was at the Ocean Beach Pool which is the much instagrammed infinity edge pool that overlooks the ocean. We got lucky and scored a cabana as well as a very empty pool!

After laze in a cabana and a refreshing fresh juice we went to try out the Thalassotherapy Pool. I had never heard of one before but apparently it is the therapeutic use of sea water and minerals to promote health and wellness. You basically work through over sixty different jets at 32 stations over an hour and oh boy, am I sore afterwards! We will likely do this again though, it was amazing after 8hrs in airports and on a plane.

After the Thalassotherapy spa we lazed around another pool with some cocktails…then a 4th pool with yet more cocktails….it’s kind of the theme for this trip! After an hour in the pool number 4 which was an infinity pool on the roof, I declared it “my pool” and refused to get out so we had dinner at the Luna Rooftop Bar. I ate from my spot in the pool in case you were wondering. We almost got a sunset tonight.

Plans for tomorrow include more pools, more cocktails and a massage!

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Day 7-8: Monkey Mia to Geraldton to Perth!

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Mel

We left Monkey Mia around 9am and headed for the Ocean Park Aquarium in Denham. I had booked the visit here on the theory we would get into the shark tour with a booking but they don’t actually allocate booking times so lesson learned…no point booking ahead for this place. Instead we arrived at 8:30am and had a great breakfast before their first tour at 9:20am. The breakfast views were next level.

The aquarium tour was amazing! Probably one of the best aquariums we have been to and I saw a tiger shark for the first time ever! His name was Boof. Best shark name.

We then drove the 4.5hrs to Geraldton with a short roadhouse stop at Billabong Roadhouse again. Our accomodation in Geraldton was at the Ocean Centre Hotel as I picked something easy, quiet and with an attached restaurant. We arrived in Geraldton around 3pm to an easy check in at a lovely ocean front room.

The attached restaurant was actually shut due to easter so I booked dinner at Skeeta’s which was a 5 min walk from the hotel and had amazing tapas and cocktails with a view of the marina at sunset. They were busy though so you definitely need to book.

We had breakfast at Dome on the beach and then left Geraldton around 9am for the 4.5hr trip to Perth on the inland road. Apparently the coastal road is nicer but for us inland was a slightly shorter trip – about 25 mins saved. We stopped at Badgingarra as the halfway point to stretch our legs (great pies, gross toilets) before being reunited with the fur babies!

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Margaret River Day 1: Busselton Jetty, Cowaramup

Posted on January 15, 2022 by Mel

A note before we get started: CARRY YOUR SUNSCREEN WITH YOU IN WA SUMMERS. I am so very sunburnt today.

We started out at 8am to ensure we beat the traffic and had time to wander around Busselton foreshore before our jetty train trip to the underwater observatory. We have both been to Busselton before but don’t really remember it as it was many years ago….and we had never been on the jetty train!

The drive from Perth was about 2hrs 40 mins and we arrived with plenty of time so had some nibbles and drinks at the Shelter Brewing Company. It did seem very decadent to enjoy a cider and a beer at 10:30am. Normal people would sit there and “people watch” but I dog watched instead….so many dogs! The views around the brewery and foreshore are lovely. We didn’t go in the water (a bit cold) but there were lots of kids swimming in the enclosed beach net and jumping off the platforms.

The jetty train (return trip) and underwater observatory tour cost was $36 each to prebook online. The trips going out there still had a few tickets left when we arrived but as it’s school holidays and summer, they were very close to full. The train is electric and solar powered – very cool. It takes you the length of the jetty (1.8kms) with a little commentary about the local area as you travel. At the other end of the jetty is the underwater observatory which is one of only six in the world.

When you get off the train you head inside for your observatory tour. I felt this part was a bit unorganised while we were there – the guide kept telling everyone to be quiet and stay with her as we circled down but there wasn’t enough space on each landing as the tour had so many people so neither kids or adults were listening to her. We ended up staying at the back of the group and just coming down one level at a time behind them. It is very interesting to learn about the artificial reef and how it attracts the fish, you also get to see the fish swimming around and how they change as the levels change while looking through viewing windows. They told us there is a “special needs” seal who sometimes comes and says hello but we didn’t get to see her.

They give you an hour at the observatory but even if you stop at every level and look at each window it won’t take that long. We ended up with 40 mins left so walked up to the end of the jetty for some photos and then waited to catch the train back. Quite a few people from our train opted to walk back the 1.8kms rather than wait ages but I had forgotten sunscreen so we just waited in the shade instead.

We then headed onwards to Margaret River! We stopped at Candy Cow in Cowamarup (a town which embraces its name through the placement of SO MANY GIANT COW STATUES around the place) and bought some snacks while cow-spotting just a few of the 42 life sized fibreglass cows in the local herd.

We are spending the first few nights at an air bnb at Margaret’s Forest Holiday Apartments right in the centre of town. Even though it’s in the town centre, it’s surrounded by bush and is very quiet. There are two balconies we can sit on to enjoy nature (and wine) as well as a fully self contained kitchen. The pricing was very reasonable at $149 a night.

Dinner tonight was prebooked at “Morries” which came highly recommended for their tapas selection and cocktails. Morrie’s was about a 9 min walk from our accomodation at the “other end” of the town strip. They were full (Saturday night) so I was glad we had booked and they also have a 2hr window to be aware of. We tried 4 of their cocktails between us and they were all very good – properly made and no “glossing over” the alcohol amounts. We also tried 4 different tapas dishes and our thoughts are below. We give this place an 8/10 and would return. Bs only issue was the pork belly and mine was the same issue at every place down here – which is they are seriously understaffed so service is a bit of a disaster.

  • Croquettes: mmmm cheesey melty goodness
  • Pork belly: the sauce was nice but the pork belly bites were a little dry
  • Beef cheeks: this dish was melt in your mouth delicious
  • White chocolate brownie dessert: even with a GF brownie this was still pretty good
Categories: Australian Getaways, western australia | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Japan 2020 Day 13: Niseko (Hirafu Village and Kutchan)

Posted on January 18, 2020 by Mel

This morning I got up with B and caught the shuttle bus from Hanazono to Hirafu with a mission in mind! First – onsen time. I went back to Hirafu-tei and once again had the onsen to myself just before it closed for the lunch break. I then made my way back to the Hirafu welcome centre, purchased a delicious baileys hot chocolate and began a concentrated look out mission for the local bus. There are no labeled bus stops at the welcome centre – it’s a bloody bus/van free for all – and my plan tomorrow is to catch the local bus to the local train station and then catch that train to Otaru for a day trip….but I need to know where the local bus stops first! It was scheduled to arrive at 11:07am and I furtively noted its arrival and departure spot (relatively punctual because this is japan) from my coffee shop location. I also got pretty photos of Mt Yotei which was finally not fogged in.

After playing bus spotto, I wandered down the road to Tozanken ramen and grabbed a number. I was first in line! Woohoo. Their pork ramen is really good although only one slice of pork in the standard dish whereas Nakama (the place we ate last night) had 5 slices in their standard one and it was cheaper. I had the “set” this time which had really good gyoza and was ¥1100. I swear the ramen was better this time than the other day but I was really hungry….

When B got back from the snow we used the private hot bath at the accomodation again so he could relax his muscles and I could float around like a garden fairy while drinking vending machine hot chocolate….coz that’s what hot baths are for right? I also secretly love they are calling him B Smith as his name since I booked all the accomodation this time under my surname haha.

For dinner, we went to Izakaya Nidaime Samurai which was once again recommended by our accomodation. It was kinda like Japanese tapas! Bs friend who was also here skiing from Australia joined us. They had a lot of drink options here and apparently match really well to what dishes you order, we mostly stuck with beer and umeshu though. This place was super reasonably priced – we had 6 shared dishes and 9 drinks for ¥11000 between us all.

The food was excellent – sashimi, pork, chicken, salmon, Japanese omelette and sablefish were all delicious. There was nothing we tried we didn’t like! Except for me who tried sashimi for the first time haha….you can see below for how that went!

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MICF 4th year (day 4): Rice Paper Scissors, Wil Anderson and Circus Neon

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Mel

Today started with a well earned sleep in before lunch at Rice Paper Scissors. We booked online beforehand (highly recommend) and were seated second because of this. There was quite a crowd of people without bookings waiting for them to open up at midday. We have eaten here before and love the tapas style, use your hands and shared plate approach.

Today’s share plates were bettel leaf prawns (B failed to eat the leaf and got told off lol), pork belly, steamed pork buns, marinated chicken thigh and wagyu steak with citrus sauce. Our highlights were the Bellini with pear and berries and the steamed buns!

After lunch we had a nap to allow all the food to wear off before it was time for tonight’s comedy shows – Wil Anderson and Circus Oz: Neon at the Melba Spiegeltent in Collingwood.

This is our third year seeing Wil Anderson live and his shows always draw big crowds, are always funny and are always topical. Our top tip for his shows though: don’t be late and don’t be in the front two rows! He picks on the audience lol.

We then had a snack and a Moscow mule at Locanda which is the bar attached to our hotel. Rydges on Exhibition Street does the whole “veto your room being serviced and get a $10 food and beverage voucher per day” so we had $40 of room credit to spend on pizza and booze. Mmmmm pizza. Circus Oz NEON was out at the Spiegeltent in Collingwood ($9 Uber ride).

The show billed itself as “an unapologetic, funny, and downright dirty dancing cabaret where circus meets comedy and song in an unforgivably big shoulder pads night out. This is Circus Oz as you’ve never seen them – adult, uncut and celebrating the gloriously gaudy and glitzy 80’s” which was for 18+ only. Once again, this venue and show were a highlight of the festival for us! So many catchy 80s tunes and some amazing acrobatics. I have also quickly become a Geraldine Quinn fan despite not having heard of her before this years festival.

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MICF 4th year (day 2): Styled by Sally review + Om Nom Kitchen dessert degustation + Urzila Carlson and Anne Edmonds

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Mel

Breakfast was at the Cafe Court at the Melbourne Emporium. We ate at Earl which was very….hip. I did enjoy my egg pot which was basically toast soldiers for adults. The ceiling was cool, although I have no idea how they would change the light bulbs from three floors down!

I then met up with Anne from “Styled by Sally” who was to be my personal shopper and stylist for 3hrs. I need some help with what to wear (other than oversized jeans and exercise gear) since losing 32kgs….I’ve sort of lost my personal mojo/style. Anne was great and she worked with me to build a base wardrobe around two different pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of pants and a skirt. From there we added all sorts of cute tops, scarfs and cardigans. I also bought my first ever trench coat!

After personal shopping, B came to help me carry all my stuff back to the hotel (he’s a good egg) and we had Betty’s Burgers for lunch.

After lunch, I took advantage of the ridiculous spa bath in our hotel room and once again overfilled it with bubbles.

Dinner was the dessert degustation at Om Nom Kitchen on Flinders Lane which was amazing. All the sciencey bits made the presentation look superb and the food also tasted good. I think they do normal meals as well but the dessert and cocktails were what was recommended to me so that’s what we went with.

Once “dinner” was finished if was off to our two comedy shows for the evening. The first was at the town hall main stage and was NZ comedian Urzila Carlson. We love her style of humour and really enjoyed her show last year as well. I booked the tickets really early for her show so we were front row again.

The second show was a later one (10pm) also at the town hall although on one of the alternative stage areas downstairs and was Anne Edmonds. We haven’t been to an Anne Edmonds show before (although enjoy watching her on Have You Been Paying Attention) and she was also really good.

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Day 6 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): what I learnt about massages and ping pong shows

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Mel

Today started with my favourite activity: lounging by the beach and drinking pineapple fruit ices.

We then had a free Thai massage at the hotel where I learnt a few things about Thai traditional massage:

  1. They use their fingers, knuckles, hands, forearms and elbows to really get in there! Some people like that, some don’t. So make sure to tell them to go gentle if you need too!
  2. They use coconut oil which feels lovely afterwards but it causes you to sweat a lot more. We forgot to shower before heading back out to the street and literally had pools of sweat dripping off us. It was pretty gross.
  3. Unlike in Australia they get real up close and personal. I had my butt and my chest massaged….B said they came mighty close to his bits a few times lol

After the massage we headed out to Banglor Road while debating if we would attend a ping pong show.

I’ve been reading a lot about the ping pong shows and while it all sounds like a bit of fun I have concerns about both the women in the shows (many have their passports held to ensure they work) and the wildlife that is used in some shows….those poor tree frogs! In the end, I opted for us not to go for these reasons.

Instead we had our last round of street food (I’m obsessed with pad Thai now) a final cocktail and took pretty sunset beach photos before heading back to the hotel to prep for our 26hr trip home tomorrow…..argh. We are travelling Phuket – Kuala Lumpur – Sydney – Canberra with some long waits in between unfortunately.

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Burasari Resort: Phuket (Hotel review)

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Mel

Well, here is a summary of the positives and negatives of this resort! Obviously this all comes from our point of view.

Link to their website: https://phuket.burasari.com

Cost: we are here in the high season and 6 nights cost us 46000 baht or $1985 AUD. That was for a mood suite though, there were cheaper rooms.

Positives

1. Free mini bar which is refreshed once a day is omnomnom

2. We stayed in a mood suite which comes complete with a 7 foot bed (quite hard though but I think that’s a Thai thing) and a personal spa bath on the deck. The rooms are really attractive and well put together, they also include a bag and beach towels you can take to the beach/pool with you which is super handy

3. Customer service after our asshat party next door neighbours woke us up every 20 mins from 3am was mostly positive. After the initial complaint was poorly handled (see below) we were very satisfied to have our room moved to a quieter part of the resort and to be offered a free massage each at the day spa (4200 baht value). Now to be fair, this offer came with the understanding I would remove my very VERY angry trip advisor review….but I thought that was fair.

4. Pool bar is nice but sadly only open 2 hrs a day which seems weird. Either way….it’s a nice bar and the 2 for 1 drink offers make it excellent value. The resort also has a restaurant with free breakfast and a second bar which served cocktails at resort prices – around $15 AUD.

5. Finally, the biggest positive is proximity. You are a 30 second walk from the beach and a 5-10 minute walk from Banglor Road. There are taxis galore and it’s easy to get anywhere. We ate dinner at a street food market every night and each meal was 50-100 baht, with all beers at 80 baht.

Negatives

1. They had a lot of trouble with the fact they thought I was someone else (same name) and never seemed to quite get past that despite repeated attempts to fix it. I gave up in the end.

2. The noise levels from some rooms are very high due to street noise. The downside to being in the centre I guess!? Having said that, the pool rooms also looked amazing but one morning there was a kid in the pool literally screaming for 2 hours. I was pretty glad not to have a pool room that day! I think I would again book a mood suite but request one away from the street

3. As previously stated we did have a problem with the room next door and the initial handling of it was not good. When I rang down to reception at 5;30am I was told to go knock on the door myself. When I told them I would not be doing that as they were very drunk males who had already told someone else to “fuck off” they implied it was my own problem then. After this, the matter was handled much more appropriately.

4. Not enough pool chairs (maybe 20 in total for a large-ish resort) and despite saying people can’t hold them, they don’t enforce this policy at all. Very frustrating.

Would we stay again?

Yes we would. Overall I give them 4/5 stars with the only deductions being for the initial suggestion. I *manage* the drunken asshats and the limited pool bar and pool chair issues. The food and service is generally good, the rooms are lovely and we went to the day spa twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times despite the marked up cost. We were very happy and intend to return again at a later date.

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Day 3 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): Banglor Road and street food

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Mel

We had some “overnight issues” in our room which basically translates to drunken asshats in the room next door partying from 3am onwards and the staff not doing anything about it. The hotel arranged for us to change rooms after I complained though which is definitely a positive!! Now our room has an even bigger spa and a day bed.

We started the day with our free breakfast (omelette station!) and then a few hours of relaxing poolside.

At 11am we headed over to Spa Burasari for a couples exfoliation, massage and facial treatment. Not the cheapest spa treatment ever but the cost was outweighed by the fact they understood me saying “gentle, gentle!” and the convenience of it being within the hotel. We were so impressed we are going back again on Tuesday.

After the massage we walked up to a recommended restaurant called Restaurant No. 6 and enjoyed a 300 Baht meal of two fruit ices, chicken and sweet corn and chicken pad Thai. Yummy and very reasonably priced.

We then walked back and did the room swap to the new room before enjoying the benefit of the free mini bar….again. Mmmm mini bar. We spent some time at the pool swim up bar and then I wallowed in the spa like a beached whale for an hour or so. Dinner was in Banglor Road again at the open food market, I tried to find a name but it doesn’t have one…so instead you can see the entry on the map below with a red coloured cross. Our blue location dot is higher up because we were sitting at the back of the markets eating pad Thai, fruit ices and a chicken satay stick!

Afterwards we walked back along the beach to the hotel and had some quiet time.

Cocktails: 1 strawberry dacquiri, 1 strawberry mojito

Tomorrow: possible beachside relaxation? Unsure….

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Day 1 & 2 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand)

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Mel

The travel time to get here was nuts! 23hrs from start to finish to get from Canberra to Phuket….at least we had Air Asia flat beds on the longer legs though. Oh, and I got to cuddle assistance dogs at the international check in area in Sydney!!

We finally arrived in Phuket at 10:30pm local time last night and it was a one hour drive to Patong Beach, we used a private car hire through the hotel for that which cost a bit more than a taxi but was easier after that long travelling and better for Bs motion sickness. We are staying at the Burasari Resort which seems to have the best of both worlds – a 30 second stroll to the beach and 10 min walk to the infamous Banglor Road! The resort itself is very quiet although there is a fair amount of “street noise” since we are so close to the main bars and beach. The hotel has a few pool areas but only about 20 pool lounges which were all taken by 10am. Some rooms have their own pool wade in areas from the balcony which is pretty awesome….I might consider that next time.

The room we are in is a “mood suite” and it is gorgeous, we get a free mini bar refilled each day as well as a private deck spa. I bought my own bubble bath along and may have used a little too much today….

After a day of relaxing in the spa and reading, we had some mid afternoon drinks at one of the hotel bars (Misty Bar) which was very quiet and had comfy lounges. I had a number of delicious pineapple mojitos complete with pineapple love hearts.

We then for a walk along the beach to watch the sunset and to explore Banglor Road for food and entertainment.

We wandered past quite a few bars full of very…boisterous….Australians and decided to just grab some food and then come back again another night. We had yummy chicken sticks at the local food market. Banglor Road is full of tourists, bar spruikers, locals selling wares and is possibly the first place in my life where I’ve had someone walk up to me and offer a “free fucking show” with an emphasis on the verb meaning of that middle word! Maybe another time….

Cocktail count: two delicious pineapple mojitos

Mini bar damage: destroyed (picture to follow with hotel review)

Tomorrow: sleep in, massage, cocktails, pool/spa and maybe a Muay Thai show

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