Posts Tagged With: food

Fiji Day 5 – home time tomorrow

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Mel

Today we enjoyed our included breakfast (I’m a bit obsessed with muesli and banana at the moment) and then opted to laze around on the deck in the illicit stolen beanbag and in bed for most of the day.

After lunch at Vulcani Restaurant at the resort….and some pina coladas…..we wandered up to the other end just to see what there was and then continued to laze around because that’s what the last day of holidays is for right?

we watched our final sunset from the private deck and then in the early evening ….with the cover of twilight…..we returned the stolen beanbag to the beach! We had dinner at Tavu Grill on the beach, paid the final bill and arranged an express checkout for early the next morning and packed our bags.

Alarms are set for 4:30am tomorrow (waaaaaah) to begin the journey home. At least we get a breakfast box to go at no charge in the morning. I am excited to see Bear and Jet but sad to leave the relaxation here to return to the go-go-go of real life. Not to mention the frozen nightmare that is Canberra winter – it was -9C at home two days ago! We will definitely be back though – vinaka Fiji 🙂

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Fiji Day 4 – lazing around

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Mel

Today consisted of doing this at the resort all day:

Dinner was Fijian BBQ at Sunset Point. We watched the sun go down, ate delicious BBQ and then sat near the open fire enjoying the night time beach vibe. On the way back to the room, a horse chased us….which was kind of exciting / terrifying.

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Fiji Day 3: adventures around the western side of the island!

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Mel

Today was a great adventuring day which started very early. We are our complimentary breakfast and then headed out on a half day trip with Valentine’s Tours (booked through Viator). The tour collection for us was at 8am and then we headed to the Sri Siva Subramaniya temple, which is the largest Hindu temple in Nadi. I had to wear a sarong (so did B) and we had to be barefoot, no head coverings and no photos were allowed inside.

After the temple, we went to a tourist store in Nadi (I bought all my Australian school students Fiji pencils) and then on to visit the local fruit and veg market. I loved the COLOURS that we could see there! It all looked so tasty.

From the market, we went to visit a local school where we dropped off some donations of books, pencils, writing paper etc and the kindy kids sung “twinkle twinkle little star” for us. It was a bit cute.

After the school visit it was off to a traditional village named Viseisei (the first official Fijian village, estimated to have been settled over 3500 years ago) where we had a tour and learnt about traditional village life. I found this bit a little uncomfortable…while I respect local customs and culture, it is quite an oppressive society for women to live in. B really enjoyed learning all the history stuff and checking out the chiefs house though.

After the village visit we trekked further out for the Garden of the Sleeping Giant which is basically a formerly private garden owned by a famous TV star (I think it was the guy who played Perry Mason?) and is now a popular tourist attraction with over 2000 orchid species present.

While the sheer range of flowers was cool, I’m not sure if I would have gone there on my own without a tour.

From the gardens we went to my FAVOURITE part of the day trip – the mud bath! Now, I had done a lot of reading for this beforehand so was able to prep B for it so there would be no surprises. If you decide to visit the Sabeto Mud Baths (which we highly recommend!) you need to be prepared that this is owned and operated by villagers. It is not a fancy day spa.

Basically – you follow these steps:

  1. Arrive, pay entry fee if not on a tour (around $20 FJD + another $5 FJD if you need to hire a towel)
  2. Put your bathers on. Even if you’re a bigger lass like me, you will want to go in a bikini or for guys shirtless.
  3. The mud has been collected from near the source pool and is in a bucket. You slather it on.
  4. You wash it off in the mud pool. This was the hardest part for me as I have sensory issues and the pool of the mud bath is sponge like and muddy. I had to mentally prep myself a fair bit beforehand to be able to step in!
  5. You go into the thermal springs and laze around. It’s glorious.
  6. There are 2 men’s showers and 2 women’s but both run cold water. You will want to rinse your bathers out in full (so much mud!!) so bring a change of clothing including undies

From the mud baths we returned to the resort for another quick shower and a change of clothes before taking part in a Sunset Dinner Cruise on Captain Cook Cruises.

The sunset was spectacular and the food, drinks and dancing were also good. Due to the fact our hotel was a fair way out than everyone else’s – we got a private transfer instead of the same bus! Score! Patrick the platypus had a great time on the cruise and drank way too many cocktails.

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Fiji Day 1

Posted on July 8, 2018 by Mel

We did an overnight flight from Melbourne to Fiji. Not ideal for travelling but not totally awful either. We left Melbourne at 11:50pm AEDT and arrived at 6am Fiji time…so just under a 4hr flight time. While at Melbourne airport I realised I HAD FORGOTTEN MY TRAVEL MASCOT PERCY – again! This time, we bought a tiny ring in, his name is Patrick.

On arrival, we went through customs and then caught a taxi for about 25 mins to the main reception area for Sonaisali Island. We had to catch a tiny boat across the inlet! It was barely 7am, the sun was just coming up and nobody except staff was up at the resort so there was opportunities for amazing photos.

We relaxed on beach chairs and napped for the morning before being allowed to check in three hours early (midday). Our bure is pretty cute. We share a common wall with next door but they are all set up like that and we are right smack bang on the beach in front of where the sun sets. We cuddled up on a beanbag on the beach for awhile in the afternoon before I convinced B to “move” the beanbag on to our deck. I’ve written a pleading note asking them not to take it back lol.

All the beanbag shenanigans was exhausting (and we hadn’t slept for 26hrs) so it was nap time. Then beautiful sunset photo time!! Amazing. I picked the 9 best out of like….63.

Dinner was at the main restaurant at the resort and was traditional Fijian curry. Yum!

Day 1 cocktail count: 2 mudslides, 1 pina colada, 1 fruity dacquiri and 1 Moscow mule

Today’s lesson: max out the duty free coming over on wine and bubbly – the cost here is obscene. A $17 bottle of wine in Aus is $80 here and a bottle of bubbly is literally 4x the price!

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Fiji time!!

Posted on July 6, 2018 by Mel

Today was the last day of school for semester one, 2018 and tomorrow we fly to Fiji for a full five nights of glorious relaxation! When we decided to do a relaxation trip I settled on Fiji pretty quickly (only a 3hr flight from Sydney) and immediately started researching for my two main requirements – a swim up bar and an ocean front villa or room. Turns out those are damn hard to find in peak season! I also initially had “childfree” as a main requirement but all the strictly adults only places needed another flight from the domestic airport so B vetoed them this time around and we just aimed for a smaller resort without a huge kids club to attract families. I’ll come back to you another time LikuLiku Lagoon Resort.

We are staying at the Doubletree Resort by Hilton which is on Sonaisali Island. It’s very close to the main island and is only a 25 min taxi ride from the international airport with a 2 min boat ride across the inlet.

We have booked to stay in a King Premium Ocean Bure (hut) facing onto the beach. The pricing was exceptionally good (this whole trip is cheaper than what it cost us to go on what we politely refer to as “the Perth trip from hell” in 2016) and the inside of the bure looks amazing!

We have one short day trip planned to visit the mud baths and the garden of the sleeping giants but other than that it’s basically all about relaxing together, drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas in them and frolicking in the water while Canberra freezes through -5C temps. Here are some photos of my recent suffering – working on a farm school site requires multiple layers, thermals, a beanie and good gloves at the moment!!

The doggos (yes – note the plural! We have formally adopted Jet as of two days ago) will have a family of pet sitters coming to stay – highly recommend Emma Lily Grace Services in Canberra – and the big babies won’t even miss us a tiny bit while they have kids to dote on them and give them all the pats they want.

Fiji, here we come!! 🏝 🍸 🍹 🏖 😎

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MICF Day 5: Rice Paper Scissors and Wil Anderson

Posted on April 22, 2018 by Mel

I booked a late lunch today at the much raved about (and heavily reviewed) Rice Paper Scissors. Last year we tried for dinner there but with no bookings and a “we will text you when a table is available” dinner approach it didn’t really work in between comedy shows. Also, we are way too impatient for that sort of “popular eatery” shit. This time I booked lunch (hooray – a booking system exists for lunch) and we went for the 5 dishes for $59 shared option http://ricepaperscissors.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SS-RPS_Menu_148x297_CITY_221117-draft.pdf

With a shellfish allergy I always have to be careful in Asian restaurants (we got one fish dish just for B and the rest was shareable) and we rated our first 4 meat based choices as excellent, with the crispy barramundi coming in as a bit “meh” compared to the rest.

Tonight was the last night of the comedy festival. Booooo! We came quite late this year because of when school holidays fell so hopefully next year we can come a bit earlier. It was also our most expensive comedy show ($45 a ticket) in the form of Wil Anderson and his show “Willegal” about his unplanned adventures with the law last year. We were in the front row which was initially very worrying but because this show was unlike his others and more narrative focused, there was very little crowd interaction.

After Wil Anderson it was dumplings for dinner at my favourite “no interaction with wait staff” restaurant China Red and then bed time before a big day tomorrow.

Tomorrow – PENGUIN PARADE AT PHILLIP ISLAND! Then home.

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MICF day 2 and 3: Improvised comedy + some weird shit + Vue De Monde

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Mel

Day 1:

Today we started with Cafe Issus and the ever popular Nutella brioche with fairy floss. Afterwards it was time to explore Degraves Lane with my nice camera.

Once shopping time (ahhhh Dangerfield ahhhhh) had ended it was late lunch time and Meat Maiden was the go – as recommended by the QANTAS magazine. B highly rated the brisket and I thought the lamb shoulder was decent.

At 5pm we went to Zero Latency. This time I was a spectator and B played Singularity and Zombie Survival with 7 strangers. He wants to go AGAIN next year which tells you how much he liked it…even if he only managed to place first once this time around.

Then it was Impromptunes – the improvised musical. They really lived up to their “adults only” theme tonight, boy did I feel bad for the teacher who had brought in a school group! Tonight’s musical was “Garlic Bread” and it contained multiple simulated orgies haha…hence my sympathy for the school group teachers!

Once Impromptunes finished it was off to a late night showing of “let’s get practical” with Melbourne favourites the very good looking initiative at The Malthouse. Food was average at the venue and I’ll be blunt but polite here and say…this was just not our cup of tea. We both had regrets about missing other late night shows for whatever the hell this was meant to be. We probably should have taken a hint from the audience of 20 people who all seemed to know the performers before we walked in. I’m all for alternate or subversive humour but this just missed the mark for both of us.

Day 2:

Well, today was the long awaited booking for Vue de Monde at lunch. I had to book months in advance for this (and that was just for lunch – dinner was gone ages before then) but far out it was worth it!! You are talking $1000+ for two people to have the chefs degustation and prestige paired wines but B and I both rated it number one restaurant to date. The food, the view, the wine, the service….all A+++

After a wine/food induced afternoon nap, we managed to miss Improv Comedy at the Highlander Bar (dammit!) but did make it to a cabaret/singing show out at the Melba Spiegeltent in Collingwood. Now last year the Spiegeltent was a highlight (drag cabaret) and I though this years acapella performance (Ginger and Tonic) also rated pretty damn high. B didn’t think it was as good as the drag cabaret show YUMMY but enjoyed some of the jokes – it was a bit more female oriented in terms of humour.

After that was an $8 Uber ride back into the city to Coopers Inn for the late night “comedy boxing” show with no names we knew beforehand but a lot of adult giggles. It was the first show we have been to that hasn’t run to schedule but was also our first late night one so possibly that’s a common thing in the later shows. We enjoyed the humour although felt a little bit “odd one out” since most of the audience were, to put it politely, wasted.

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Moreton Island Bridesmaids Cruise: Day 5 massages, relaxing and official hens night!

Posted on January 13, 2018 by Mel

Today started with two of us having a “pamper package” at the day spa while the other two slept in. We then swapped places after lunch with the other two getting “spa-d” while the morning two had a nap. The day spa package was excellent value considering the usual extortionate pricing – $129 each for two focus massages, a facial, a foot spa and other small things as well.

Lunch today was at Salt Grill which was impossible to get into for dinner, but easy to book for lunch! The cover charge was also slightly less for a lunch booking. The food was amazing!! Lana was happy we finally got a decent dessert 🙂

We had originally booked in to a 3:30pm cocktail mixing class but after some more stuff ups on P&Os end (they changed the time and only booked 3 of us in) I cancelled it. Instead we went to a dance class!!

Dinner was relatively early again (so many people booked it out on day one which was probably why everyone was late to the evacuation drill) but because we had enjoyed an early lunch it was all good. The Dragon Lady is another included meal – this time Asian fusion style and definitely had better service than the Waterfront. We all gave the food a thumbs up.

Tomorrow’s disembarkation starts at 7:30am. Our time slot is 9:25am so we have to be out of the room by 7:45am and head off to eat breakfast and waste some time. This means we planned not to have a big one tonight….in theory…..and then it turned out to be my “official” hens celebration.

We participated in a music suggestion class, a salsa dance class, had dinner at Dragon Lady, watched a musical performance, watched an R rated comedian AND danced to some live music….and still made it to bed just before midnight!!

What a fabulous cruise this has been ❤️

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Day 9: Leaving Singapore…final thoughts and a final review of Hotel Fort Canning

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Mel

Positives from this trip:

⁃ The public transport here is cheap, efficient and easy to use. An EZlink card was only $5 and most trips within the city area are 0.77c so we counted it as a must buy.

This is probably the easiest public transport system I have ever used and I would have been totally comfortable on my own….which is not something I have ever said about a PT system in a new place before! Gold star for you singapore.

⁃ The weather has been pretty good for this time of year. We knew it would be wet and humid but that also seems to have kept crowds of tourists away so we were happy! A poncho and good waterproof or water friendly shoes are a must at this time of year. B wore travel hiking shoes most places and I wore quick dry sandals. Be prepared that nothing shuts down in the rain, people only really freak out about lightning

⁃ Most things didn’t have too much of a line up in late Dec/early Jan. A lot of the reviews and online comments I read suggest we got lucky with both timing and weather in regard to this. We had very short lines for the pandas at River Safari, Gardens by the Bay, cloud forest, universal studios and other things. We also got our own carriage on the Singapore Flyer champagne flight! That was seriously an amazing experience for $78 each. The only time we really saw huge lines was bloody Marina Bay Sands.

⁃ I am putting Hotel Fort Canning in both the good and not so good categories! It was a great compromise between my desire for a resort stay and B wanting to be in the city. It also got a big thumbs up from B due to its lovely surroundings, the very quiet pool area, it’s 5 min walking distance to the MRT, the fact we could Uber most places in the city for under $10 and the free drinks from 6-7pm each day for guests. The bath tub was my highlight. I loved those tubs soooo much.

⁃ The hawker centres were amazing and all visitors should try them! We visited two, the Maxwell Food Centre and the Hong Lim Complex. Amazing food for under $5. We were lucky enough to get to Ah Heng at 10:15am when there was no line at all

⁃ Changi Airport has The Haven Lounge which is in arrivals Terminal 3. Although we have qantas club access, we realised we had to clear immigration to get to it….which you can’t do without a boarding pass….which we weren’t going to get until 7:30pm at night! So we discovered this place. Basically you select a time and pay a fee and you can use their guest lounge. They provide free drinks, snacks, lounges, wifi, powerpoints, one shower and one meal. You can also pay a bit more for a nap room. What a good idea!

Not so good things:

⁃ Hotel Fort Canning has (mostly) been a positive experience for us, with two notable negatives. If you are like me and don’t sleep like the dead, be aware the doors are really not 5 Star Hotel level and offer no soundproofing AT ALL. It’s like being in a cheap motel in that regard. We ended up staying in two areas of the hotel (level 1 room 111 and level 2 room 216) and in both rooms we would be startled awake by guests next door closing their doors as normal and it rattling the walls, rattling our door and sounding extremely loud. You could here all hallway conversations as well. The second issue (out of their control) would be the fact the MRT return trip is only doable by going up extremely steep stairs or a very slippery footpath. I slipped and fell on the footpath. Not ideal for many travellers wanting to stay in a 5 Star Hotel! We did wonder why no shuttle but I assume that’s because as quite a pricey hotel, they figure many guests will taxi.

⁃ SGD and AUD are very close to on par, B tells me the aussie dollar is slightly weaker at the moment. Things here are not cheap AT ALL. Think Australian tourist pricing and then some because alcohol here has a significant mark up. A bottle of prosecco here is $40+ and a bottle of jack Daniels is $90+ so imagine how that translates to bar pricing! Most cocktails ranged from $17-$30. I would compare the costs here to visiting somewhere like Hamilton Island in Australia in terms of drinks, attraction pricing and “normal” eating. Hawker food centres are obviously an exception 🙂

⁃ It’s humid as hell at this time of year. Literally. So be prepared with sensible clothes and shoes. You will sweat like nobodies business!

Stuff still on the to-do list (and yes, we both agree we will definitely come back to do these!)

⁃ High tea at The Raffles (closed for renovation until mid 2018)

⁃ The skywalk at gardens by the bay which was closed due to wet weather when we went

⁃ Visiting some of the outlying islands, one is apparently inhabited by lots of friendly cats. They recommend you take tons of cat food when visiting. Seriously. They only have two ferries a day (10am, 2:45pm) so we gave this idea a miss on this trip

⁃ Explore more of Sentosa Island than just Universal Studios. There’s zip lining, beaches and so on.

– I still really want to stay at Marina Bay Sands just so I can get in that damn pool!

⁃ Singapore night safari and Singapore zoo in the day time because….polar bear!! POLAR BEAR! This is me staring longingly at the polar bears butt from the “sneak a view” window in the other zoo

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Singapore Day 8: Relaxing and then eating Jumbo Seafood at Clarke Quay

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Mel

Today = pool, naps, reading my first 2018 book club book, more pool, more naps and when it started to rain and we had to vacate our glorious day bed next to the pool….I had my last bath in the wonderful deep soak tub.

A few days ago I went on a google mission to find the best chilli crab in Singapore. Turns out, that’s really hard! However, Jumbo Seafood at Riverwalk kept coming up again and again and again. So I booked us a table and off we went!

We went to the smaller one along the Riverwalk side but there is also one called Riverside further into Clarke Quay. It was about an 8 min walk from the hotel through the lovely Fort Canning Park and across some very pretty bridges.

When we arrived for our booking, they explained the seating was for 1hr 15mins which was no drama to us. I know that timed seating can piss people off sometimes but we love it – it means prompt service!

I’m allergic to shellfish so I ordered the salted fish and chicken fried rice. It was REALLY good and a small serve ($16) was more than enough for two people. B ordered the chilli crab of course! It was the small crab at around 800g. His comments were “it was really good, the sauce had a nice tang but wasn’t too crazy hot – more like sweet chilli”. He definitely recommends people try the chilli crab here.

After dinner, we wandered back through Clarke Quay. We got very lucky with the rain again and it turned from a rainy afternoon into a lovely evening. Clarke Quay is obviously the centre for night clubs etc. It has a loud, colourful, drink filled vibe. We got some cool photos and had some shots at the shots bar.

HFC perk 7: they have given us a late checkout of 2pm tomorrow so we will be able to go out in the late morning, collect our souvenirs for the kids and then come back to the room and shower before heading to the airport

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