What I Wore Today...

Haven't really done many of these posts, and it is technically what I wore yesterday, but oh well. Excuse the giant pile of clothes on the floor behind me. There is another giant pile of clothes in my wardrobe. I need to sort them all out over my long weekend - put away the winter stuff, find places for the new stuff, sort the maternity purchases into winter and summer, etc. As you can see, I'm dressed for a typical Melbourne afternoon. Yesterday's weather was typical Melbourne - sunny one minute, raining the next.

Bad quality photo of my outfit.

Where I went: My aunty and uncle's house for afternoon tea.

What I wore: Jeanswest t-shirt, Jeanswest 7/8 jeans (perfect length on me without needing taking up, hitting just at the ankle), Lululemon cool racerback in white (under t-shirt), Lululemon vinyasa scarf in steep stripe black/heathered dune (I need to master the many different ways this scarf can be worn), Frye Melissa button boots in cognac, Fossil watch.

What is your favourite way to wear a scarf? Do you have a vinyasa scarf and have mastered the many ways it can be worn? 

Baby Expo...

Last Sunday, we went to the Pregnancy, Babies and Children's Expo at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (Jeff's Shed) in the city. We parked at Crown for $6, which was cheaper and easier than taking the train in to Spencer Street. We also got free tickets online, basically by signing up to be spam-emailed by them and their affiliates for the rest of our lives.

Anyway, we went with one thing in mind - prams. I had in mind what pram I wanted but I wanted to see if anything else jumped out at me.

We wound up putting a deposit down on the Joolz Day Earth pram in lobster red.

Joolz Day Earth pram, lobster red, $1499 AUD

OK, this pram is insanely expensive, but most of them are. The reasons why I liked this pram over others was because it has leather handlebars (more comfortable and also more durable than the black foam-type ones most prams have which, a lady in the shop when we looked about a month ago pointed out, have a tendency to wear out and split apart), and also because of the height - when the pram is in chair mode, it sits at table height (perfect when at a cafe/restaurant), and when in cot mode, it is nice and high, so not much bending or hunching over requited which saves the poor back, especially as the baby gets heavier. Also, it is nice to be closer to eye level with your baby when you're walking around! I also like grey (but the grey in the Day Studio which was $100 more for quilted handlebars which wasn't worth it, the grey in the Day Earth wasn't as nice a grey), so red it was (I have been keen on a red pram for as long as I've been thinking about prams) - as I told several people, red goes faster!

Me with the Joolz Day Earth in lobster red at the expo!

This pram moves really smoothly and looks really good. The only downside is the small basket underneath the pram, but the plus to that is that it is a fully-enclosed basket as opposed to most prams which have a giant, wide open basket which any distracted parent could have stuff swiped out of, or stuff could bounce out of.

We decided to put a deposit on the pram (picking up in January) because they were having $450 of extras included as an expo special - the nursery bag, the sleeping bag/foot muff (the cover that zips over the front of the pram to keep the baby warm in colder months, and the XL shopping bag. I added a cup holder ($25 from $30) to my order, but I will be requesting a couple of extras as potential birth/baby shower gifts for people who ask for suggestions - I want the Summer seat, the UV cover, and possibly the comfort cover down the track.

We also had a great time at the ErgoBaby stall, as my husband is super keen for what we have (somewhat wrongly) calling the 'baby strap on'. The girls at the stall looked great in lovely orange dresses and were super friendly without being pushy in demonstrating how the ErgoBaby carrier works.

Modelling the baby carrier!

The stall had dummy babies filled with sand to the weight of a newborn (it felt more like a 2-3 month old weight though). Derek was all too happy to try the carrier on and was very impressed with how much the weight of the baby was eliminated as the carrier sits around your hips. Although he is trying on the new 360 model (four positions, front of parent/forward facing baby, front of parent/parent facing baby, back of parent piggy back style, and hip of parent), we wound up purchasing the Original Earth Baby Carrier (which has three positions, all except the front of parent/forward facing baby) as we didn't see it as being worth an extra $80 for one position - the carrier was also on special at the expo. We also got a newborn insert which allows the carrier to be used from birth. I can see this carrier come in really handy when we travel.

ErgoBaby Original Earth baby carrier, black, RRP $143 AUD (plus newborn insert, RRP $35.00 AUD, not pictured)

We got the carrier for just over $100 plus the newborn insert at the expo, so was a good deal. I am keen to give it a go in the real world down the track.

There was sooooooo much on display at the expo - stuff you wouldn't know what the purpose of is, stuff you know you won't need, and stuff I didn't want to look at yet (like car seats - I need to go to a shop and make sure it fits in my small car), as well as stuff I couldn't buy yet because I don't know the gender of the baby (3 weeks to go!).

After, we had lunch at the food court in Crown, before heading home for a giant nap.

This weekend is the long weekend with Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday - one of the reasons I love living in Melbourne! Spring Racing is always a fun time of year. I have an afternoon tea at my aunty's house this afternoon, movies Monday afternoon, and Cup Day races watching on TV at my Mum's house on Tuesday. I'd like to go for a swim a couple of times at the local pool if I can manage. I also have mountains of work to do which I really can't continue putting off. I will be working every spare minute this long weekend - lucky Monday is 'work from home' day for us this year, as I really need the time as I've got a bit behind with my work recovering from morning sickness (all day) and being super exhausted (I'm slowly coming out of the fog of exhaustion and have got back on the coffee after a couple of months - let's say Thursday morning at work I came to work completely wired, telling everyone I'd had coffee that morning, and didn't blink for a good two hours, lol).

What are you getting up to this weekend? Are you lucky enough to have Cup Day off?

In The City...

Yesterday we went to the city to check out the new H&M and the Melbourne Emporium.

H&M was ridiculously busy, being school holidays. I was surprised how busy it was given it has been open for 3 months now. The place was huge but it was so packed (it's only H&M, people) that it wasn't worth looking hard.

The Emporium was nice, however not all the shops were open. We discovered a Victoria's Secret beauty store (I wish they would stop opening these and start opening proper lingerie stores) which was also jam packed so basically impossible to look at anything. I found out on Facebook this morning it was so packed (they stopped letting people in) because yesterday was it's opening day.

Anyway, I wound up getting a teacup so now I don't have to use my February teacup anymore. I am petrified I'm going to break it and if I do I will be without the cup as they don't make the cup of the month series anymore:

Royal Albert 'Rose Confetti' cup, saucer and plate box set, $99.00 AUD, David Jones.

 The Royal Albert range is on sale at David Jones at the moment. I don't know that I need the plate however I was gifted another cup for my 21st birthday which didn't come with a plate and it bugs me. Now they sell the cup and saucer with a large 21 cm plate as opposed to the smaller 16 cm plates they used to sell.

It is really beautiful!

My old cups - Royal Albert Ruby Celebration Gold Damask cup and saucer (the cup I have no plate for) and Royal Albert Flower of the Month Feburary cup and saucer (I got this for my 18th or 21st birthday, can't remember which one, also comes with a 16cm plate, not pictured). Both these cups are irreplaceable but the Feburary one is more important to me so I'm going to keep it as a display option.

The three cups. You can see how wide the dessert plate is on the new cup.

What do you like to drink your tea from? Do you like it from a nice china cup and saucer or do you just go with whatever's clean? Are you a mug or cup person?

An Afternoon In The Dandenongs...

Yesterday afternoon we decided we needed to conquer the 1000 Steps which begins at the foot of the Dandenongs in Upper Ferntree Gully/Tremont and finishes at the end of One Tree Hill Road. Our reward at the end was to be scones.

I have not done the 1000 Steps before, but we wanted to see if it was easier or harder than the Diamond Head hike in Oahu. Diamond Head was a tricky, but not impossible walk, it was tough at times but generally you moved pretty quickly and the view at the end was amazing. The 1000 Steps is a memorial track for the Kokoda Trail, and has different signposts along the way.

Going up the steps - looks simple, right? WRONG.

 The actual steps start about a 10-15 minute walk from the car park, and they are brutal. You think they're not so bad at first but they just keep coming and coming. You often have to dodge giant puddles of mud. You have to let quicker people past you. You stop any flat stretch you get because flat stretches feel good on the legs. The steps get steeper and steeper and eventually you are basically dragging your body up by hoisting yourself along the handrails, finding an upper body strength you did not know existed. And when you finally get to the top? This:

This is the result at the top of the steps. Not even worth it! 

Let me remind you of the view at the top of Diamond Head, for comparison:

View from the top of Diamond Head (one of the many great views from the top/along the way up).

You can read more about our Diamond Head hike here.

Anyway, I took about 40 minutes to do the steps, with many stops, from the base of the walk leading up to the steps (so the end of the car park) to the top of the steps. I was about 5 minutes slower than my mum and husband. I really struggled. About a third of the way up I thought I couldn't keep going but I didn't let it defeat me. Be warned - there is no drink bubbler at the top either!

After a rest and the urge to throw up subsided, we made our way down via the more spacious Lyrebird Track. This was at least a 20-30 minute walk down as well.

Happy to be on the way down.

In hindsight, I probably should not have gone to BodyPump in the morning of doing the 1000 Steps, but at the time I thought I'd be right!

Afterwards, we headed back to the car and into Sassafrass for some well deserved scones. We put our name down at Miss Marples and, with a 45 minute wait ahead, went into the Tea Leaves shop next door. We purchased seven bags of tea in the end! Some basic ones and some flavoured ones too. Looking forward to trying them all.

Some of the amazing teapots on display.

These cups were really pretty but they were about $250 each!!

We went back to Miss Marples early and our table was ready so we sat down for our scones. If you have not been to Miss Marples before, let me say that it is a real tourist trap. The scones, as you can see, are obviously baked in giant square tins and cut up like pieces of cake, which is a shame as you lose the crunchiness of the outside of the scones, and who has ever heard of a square scone anyway? The scones are quite nice, but if you're bringing Americans over for scones, this is not the place to go for authentic scones. I say scones, rather than Devonshire Tea, because Miss Marples does not do Devonshire Tea, instead calling them 'Devonshire Scones' which is just wrong, because without the tea (you have to buy your tea or other drink separate), there is nothing 'Devonshire' about them - they are just scones. My husband and I had a milkshake each (quite reasonably priced at $5 each) and my mum had a pot of tea (served in standard nursing home style white cups). Our scones came with only two serves of jam and cream, even though we had three serves of scones, so we could have done with more jam (I don't eat cream), but it was enough. Also, Miss Marples was decked out in Christmas decorations for Christmas in July and was playing really dreary Christmas carols (think 'Good King Wencalas' and 'We Three Kings') so that was a bit annoying.

Our afternoon tea.

We had an enjoyable afternoon regardless of the fact our afternoon tea cost $42.50 which is a lot for some scones and drinks, really.

Have you done the 100 Steps? Have you got another challenging walk in the Melbourne/Victoria area for us to try? Do you like scones?

Paradise Cove Luau...

The first main thing we did in Hawaii was go to the Paradise Cove Luau. This luau ran like a well-oiled machine. There were hotel transfers by coach, with running commentary and participate games (which I don't really like) the whole bus ride there and back. Paradise Cove Luau is located right near the Disney Aulani resort, by a few resorts about a 45 minute drive out of Waikiki. Tickets were pretty expensive (if I recall correctly, $89 for the lowest tier, which we got), but there was plenty of food and two small alcoholic drinks included.

After arriving, you followed a 'puu' - a shell being blown into - around the site to see different attractions. Here a lady in her coconut bra dances to a man playing guitar. 

The beach was a small cove where you could go for a short canoe ride.

Colourful birds on display.

More birds.

Sarong tying demonstration.

Man climbing a tree wit a bag of flower petals clenched between his teeth for the 'shower of flowers', meant to welcome everyone.

The flowers being showered. This guy was pretty high up!

Man catching the fish for the dinner, apparently!

Casting the net into the ocean.

After the fish were caught, hula dancers and fire holders came out.

The chief of the luau watches over the kalua (pig in sand pit being roasted) while more dancers dance.

After the pig is pulled out of the pit, it is displayed to the crowd on a stretcher before being walked off to the kitchen, apparently to be pulled apart and served at dinner in a mere 20 minutes! While we were watching this performance I ran into a girl I used to work with - fancy the chances of sitting next to someone on the other side of the world in a crowd of maybe 500!

After a buffet style dinner (plenty of food and tasty) the show begun, with lots of dancing.

More dancing.

A fire twirler. Our seats were a bit farther back so my shots of this weren't great. However I don't recommend spending extra on the better seats, as some were just as far away as ours.

Dancing from different cultures.

Overall, the luau was an enjoyable experience. Everything was highly polished and I'm sure not at all traditional, but the entertainment, food, and activities were all well done and enjoyable. I'd recommend it as a one off if you haven't been to one before.

Have you ever been to a luau? Anything similar in any other Polynesian country? Or any other cultural ceremonies elsewhere around the world? Did you enjoy it or feel like it was a bit of a tourist trap?

Werribee Open Range Zoo...

Yesterday Derek and I took my two cousins to Werribee Open Range Zoo. It's free for kids under 15, which is a pretty good deal if you have or know kids. I haven't been to Werribee Zoo since I was maybe 8 years old so I couldn't remember it at all and was keen to go and see how it compared to Melbourne Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary. These shots were taken with my giant lens on my DSLR, which got covered in dust on the bus ride around the open range exhibits.

Many camels.

Close up of the camels.

Two giraffes. 

One giraffe going for a stroll.

Apparently giraffes give birth standing up, so the baby has about a two metre drop to the ground when it's born. Welcome to the world! 

Zebra with antelope in the background.

Rhinoceros from the back.

The folds in the rhino's skin are pretty full on!

Hippopotamus.  

Leaving the water.

Going for a walk.

The lion was behind glass. He would have been at least 100 m away from me so I didn't get too bad a shot, really. Also, the polarising filter on my camera meant no glass reflections in my shot!

The bus was good as it went driving through the exhibits and the driver gave lots of information, however the walking exhibits, which had animals such as lions, gorillas, monkeys, and meerkats, was quite small and quick to go through. There was also an Australian animal walking exhibit but there wasn't an animal to be seen. All up we spent just under 3 hours at the Zoo but this included about 20 minutes for an ice cream stop. It's a nice thing to do but I won't be hurrying back. The ewather was beautiful and it was super busy.

What did you get up to on your weekend?

Accessories Shopping and Spilling Drinks...

Today I went to Southland to do some accessories shopping. Next weekend we are going to a newsagency awards night as Derek works at a newsagency and his boss is president of the Victorian newsagency association. This night is at the Plaza Ballroom on Collins Street (Regent Theatre) so is quite a ritzy night! It sounds all a bit ridiculous but is their industry's night of nights, lol. Anyway, I decided that, rather than trying to buy a new dress, I'd buy something that would be easier to find and more reusable than a dress. I went shoe shopping. It's been awhile since I've purchased shoes in person (in Australia) - I usually buy online. Anyway, this is what I walked away with:

Zu Quo Evening Heels in Nude, $120 AUD

These shoes have a nice gold slight metallic material finish and are really interesting. Also the platform means they don't feel too high at all. I've never purchased Zu shoes before so I hope they're OK. I will be using Party Feet though! Of course, the girl tried to sell me the matching clutch, and I wasn't going to buy it (as I was going to borrow a gold clutch off my mum) but then she said it would be 20% off if I purchased it to match the shoes, so I thought it would be nice to have a matching clutch to the shoes. It's not like black shoes - you can match with any bag (or any black bag).

Zu Orpheus Evening Handbag, $80 AUD, down to $64 AUD

The clutch is a good size and has a few little pockets and a chain strap so will do well.

I then went to Portmans and purchased a gold belt to go with my new gold shoes and gold bag:

Portmans Oval Metal Stretch Belt, $24.95 AUD

I am teaming all this with a black dress so it should look suitably formal yet party-ish! After my purchases, I got some Party Feet at Priceline and then stopped off at Gloria Jeans for a Mudslide Mocha drink. This turned out to be a big mistake. I took two sips, got in my car, then came home. When I got home, I tried to put the drink on the coffee table but the lid was loose so it wound up slipping apart and out of my hands and all over the carpet. It took AGES to clean up. The carpet still has a chocolate hue to it. What a waste of $5, too, as it all wound up on the floor in giant clumps of frozen chocolate/coffee gloop. Ugh.

Where is your favourite place to shop for shoes? Do you notice that shoe shops can be especially rude - they either greet you and are over-the-top in trying to get you to try things on, or they don't even acknowledge your presence in the shop. There never seems to be a happy medium!