Australia for the Holidays - Melbourne Part 2

Australia
I really loved our time in Melbourne because it was so relaxing. We got up on our third morning there and went to the zoo to meet up with little G and his dad. G LOVES the butterfly house at Melbourne Zoo, which is where we headed straight for. He was so desperate for a butterfly to land on him and it was hard to get him to leave. After the zoo, G went back home with his dad, and H and I headed back into the city to do some more shopping before going out to Lygon Street for some more tasty food. First we went to Milk the Cow, a cheese and wine bar for, you guessed it - Cheese and wine! After that we went over the road to DOC for a pasta dinner.

Melbourne Zoo
Melbourne Zoo
Carlton Gardens Melbourne
Carlton Gardens

Milk the Cow carlton
Milk the Cow wine and cheese followed by DOC Espresso for dinner
The next morning we checked out of our hotel and headed to our old house in Brunswick East to stay. When we moved to Okinawa, our friends took over our lease and are living there now. I miss that house so much, and it was lovely to be hanging out there again. It still feels like home. Our first night there H and I made dinner for some friends. We made our vegan lasagne with cauliflower bechamel, which is a recent invention of ours. I really should do a post on the lasagne all on it's own! It was so great to be able to go grocery shopping in an Australian supermarket again! I miss the foods. Especially the feta cheese.

The next day we had to run some errands in the morning before meeting up with Jazz and Ty at the Cornish Arms in Brunswick for amazing vegan foods. H and I shared the vegan double down. Which is a vegan take on that KFC monstrosity from a few years ago. Basically it was vegan cheese and vegan bacon sandwiched between two fried vegan chicken patties. It was honestly amazing, and so close to the real thing it was crazy. The vegan bacon was freakily real. Check it out in the pictures below. 

Hanging at our old house. I miss this place
EC - Ewok Cat

Pet shop kitties


Brunswick street art
Brunswick Street Art

Vegan food melbourne
Vegan double down at the Cornish Arms

Home cooked vegan lasagne, salad and garlic bread


Australia for the Holidays - Melbourne

Aust
I had been looking forward to the Melbourne part of our trip so much. It was the first time in what seems like forever that we would be able to have a bunch of couple time and date nights! H and my Christmas present to each other was a night at the Park Hyatt in Melbourne. After we dropped G with his dad, we headed to the hotel and got ready for our date night dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, Moon Under Water. If people are looking for a romantic dinner, this is the place. They have four courses for $75 and their vegetarian menu is just as good as the meat version, which is why we have been there at least 3 times now. Dinner was great, as was the amazing Shiraz we had that was recommended by the waitress!

Moon Under Water Melbourne
Moon Under Water - clockwise from top left - baby vegetables, amazingly delicious shiraz, aged duck, snapper
The next day we checked out of the hotel and in to our next one, Punt Hill Apartments on Little Bourke and headed to one of our favourite breakfast places, DOC Espresso on Lygon St. I LOVE their caprese focaccia, which is full of amazing mozzarella. Yum! After breakfast we went into their deli next door, where they have heaps of food samples to taste. I ate some cheese as well as the most delicious salami i've ever tried!

DOC Espresso Melbourne
Breakfast at DOC - Caprese focaccia and soy flat white

DOC

DOC Cheese
All the cheese in the DOC deli

More deli goods at DOC
After some shopping on the north side we went into the city to emporium and had pho for lunch as well as shopping up a storm and buying clothes that actually fit (try shopping for pants in Japan as a normal sized non-Japanese person! Impossible!).

Pho (top one vegetarian, bottom one beef)
After a rest in our hotel we headed out for dinner and drinks (many many drinks) with some friends. We went to Lucy Liu for dinner, which was lots of tasty asian food, then went to Madame Brussels for some jugs of cocktails. After that we went to the Supper Club for more drinks. All of this lead to an atrocious hangover for me the next day. Ugh. Still, it was a fun night.

Lucy Liu Melbourne
Lucy Liu with friends


Madame Brussels

Madame Brussels Melbourne
Cocktails!
Out of the two hotels we stayed at (The Park Hyatt and the Punt Hill Apartments), i've got to say that I really loved the Punt Hill choice for us. The Park Hyatt was lovely for a splurge, but for the price, I was expecting perfection, which it wasn't really. The Punt Hill Apartments that we stayed in the following 2 nights was fantastic. No as fancy, but HUGE room, HUGE spa, comfy beds and a great location. I would definitely stay there again and recommend it to anyone wanting a good affordable place to stay in Melbourne.

Australia - Christmas in the country

Australia
Most years, my family celebrates Christmas Day down at my Aunt and Uncles gorgeous place in Coorabell, a tiny country town in northern New South Wales. It is one of my favourite places in the world. This year we drove down there from my mum's house on Christmas eve and stayed until boxing day (26th December). Christmas eve was spent having some drinks, snacking on cheese and dips and catching up with everyone.

Coorabell NSW
Coorabell
Coorabell NSW
I love these rolling green hills.


Delicious snacks


Exploring


Cousins <3
Oh Christmas morning everyone was awake and waiting to open presents, except for little G! He was so tired and we couldn't bear to wake him, so we did the present opening and then G opened his when he finally woke up! We were also lucky enough to have a little wallaby come on to the property for a morning visit, which was so Australian!


Morning wallaby visitor
After a chilled out morning, we all took turns making different things in the kitchen, which meant a lunch full of heaps of different, delicious salads, cold meats, summer fruits and champagne! It rained pretty much all day, which was actually lovely and we could sit outside on the deck and watch the rain while eating. After lunch, even though it was still raining on and off, the kids got on the slip and slide and had an awesome time.
Because there were so many people staying on Christmas night, we got to sleep in a tent. G was so excited as it was his first time sleeping in a tent. It was really cute, and made me think that we really should give camping a go while we're living in Okinawa.

Christmas setting

My perfect Christmas lunch. Salads and Veuve

Slip and slide

First time sleeping in a tent

Australia at Christmas - Brisbane

Australia
This weekend we just arrived home from our almost 2 weeks trip back to Australia for the Christmas/New Years break. It was such a lovely trip, and just what we needed after our first year in Okinawa. The first part of the trip we spent in Brisbane with H's family. It was busy, filled with catch-ups with people as well as a last minute passport renewal debacle for me (which I got sorted!).

When we arrived H's sister had an awesome spread of my favourite things, dips, cheese and summer fruits all out on the table for us, so we all sat down, relaxed, had a drink and snacks and watched G and his 8 year old cousin play together for the first time in a year. It was an awesome way to start the holiday because the next week was hectic!

Watching his plane

The perfect spread to be welcomed by in Australia - cheese, dips and summer fruits!

Griff and his cousin.
Monday I was supposed to be hanging out on the Sunshine Coast at the beach with H's family, but instead got stuck dealing with my passport issues, after which I finally got solved, I spent time shopping by myself in the city (and bought 2 dresses and the first bikini i've had in about 6 years!) before heading back out to the suburbs to catch up with a good friend before everyone got back.

Tuesday was filled with meeting up with friends and their new bubs! We first met up with my bestie and her two gorgeous boys (the youngest I got to meet for the first time) at the Queensland Museum, where we had some coffees and checked out the dinosaurs.

Stamping
After the museum, we headed over to Southbank to meet up with two couple friends of Helen's to catch up, have lunch and meet their new babies. So many babies! It was awesome, hectic, and lovely to meet the new additions. It's so weird when all of a sudden everyone you know has babies. How different is life??

My lovely family
Brisbane City
View of Brisbane city from Southbank

Southbank Brisbane
Southbank
That night Helen's sister offered to babysit for us so we got to go and have adult catch-ups with friends in the city. First we met friends at Super Whatnot, a bar in the city for a couple of drinks, before splitting up for different dinner catch ups with people. I headed to Esq, a fancy dinner place in the city for a birthday dinner for a friend. I'd heard great things, but the whole experience was let down by the fact that they wouldn't serve a birthday cake (or even put it in the fridge!) that another friend had bought for the occasion. In the end, after dinner, we took the cake with us, went and bought a couple of bottles of bubbles, plates and cups and headed out by the river to eat it. It was an awesome end to the evening!

Dinner laughs

Story Bridge

Happy New Year and 2015 Recap

Japan
Happy New Year! 2015 was a big one for me and the family, and likely the biggest one we're likely to have for many years to come. I can't believe how much we have done and how much life changed due to a job restructure, which then led me to this job in Okinawa. I'm really grateful for the life we're living at the moment and all the things we have done the past year. Luckily I have this blog to help me remember everything, so here's a little recap of what happened in 2015:

Muruku Beach, Hamahiga Island

  • I went to New York City for the first time and got to hang with my bestie and see Bjork play. So amazing, and now I need to go back for a real (non-work) trip!
NYC

  • I got to pat one of my favourite animals, the capybara :)
Besties

Kiyomizudera Kyoto
Kiyomizudera, Kyoto

Harajuku

Loft Shibuya
Tokyo nights

So glad I invested in an underwater camera

Ramen
Fukuoka
I love this city
Thanks to everyone for reading along on my little blog. I've really enjoyed this last year. There's been the challenges of moving to a new country, but the awesome adventures of discovering somewhere new as well as getting to introduce my lady to mainland Japan (my favourite) bit by bit.  We already have a slew of visitors planned for the first half of 2016, so i'm sure the time is going to fly by. I'm starting to think about what I want to accomplish in 2016 including more visits to the mainland (Tokyo is confirmed, as well as planning for Kyoto, Koya-san, snowy Hokkaido, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong), and visiting more of the islands close to Okinawa (and hopefully snorkelling with a sea turtle).