Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts

Honeymoon part 3 - Venice Simplon-Orient-Express London to Paris

Continuing on from part 1 and part 2 of my honeymoon series!

After taking the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE) British Pullman from London Victoria Station, we then arrived at Folkestone West where we were welcomed by a lovely band before boarding luxury coaches to cross the English channel. This was the slightly underwhelming part as there wasn't much to see however the coaches were extremely comfy and had tables and drinks service! We met a very lovely English couple who were well travelled and they gave us fantastic tips for Paris and Rome so it was lovely chatting to them on the coach.

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We reached Calais station at about 4:30pm where we met by the breathtaking VSOE. Seeing the iconic dark blue train restored to it's finest was an absolutely surreal moment for me. Having travelled halfway across the world to travel on it was a sight to behold and I was beside myself with excitement.

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Honeymoon part 2 - Venice Simplon-Orient-Express Belmond British Pullman: London to Paris

Following on from part 1 of my honeymoon series!

Traveling on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE) is something I've wanted to do since I was a child. An old English teacher introduced the class to Agatha Christie with "Murder in Mesopotamia" and since then I've been hooked on the workings of the little grey cells of the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. We were tossing up where to go for our honeymoon and first choice (for me anyway!) was Maldives but for the price of one week there we could do 3 weeks in Europe so it was Europe for us!

Now that we had decided, it was time to decide which cities we would visit and whether or not we would take the Orient Express. Its not the most economical way to travel by any means and would eat into our budget quite a bit. My hubby very kindly insisted we do the trip and so we planned our honeymoon around it and boy am I glad we took the journey. Today I want to share with you part 1 of the amazing train journey - if this isn't your thing then don't worry check back later! Warning: this post is PICTURE HEAVY.

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The Orient Express embarks on many journeys including within the UK to the more traditional Paris to Istanbul while Poirot travelled from Istanbul to London. We decided to take the London to Paris leg and then going onto Rome after that. We booked our tickets in December which began the countdown to our trip of a lifetime! About a week before we set off on our honeymoon, our travel journal arrived which contained all our information for the journey including details about the trains, passport and visa information, dress code, cabin information and information about travel destinations.

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A copy of my very battered old copy of Murder on the Orient Express and our travel journal and luggage tags

The morning of our journey started off early with packing, checking out of our hotel and heading to busy London Victoria station to check in at the special Orient Express counter for our journey. Me being very anxious not to be late we got there at 9am and were one of the first to check in!

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Honeymoon part 1 - London calling!

This post is super late but better late than never! A few months ago the hubby and I returned from our belated honeymoon to London, Paris, Rome and Hong Kong. We had the most AMAZING time and I really wish our trip could have been longer!! First stop was London which I have wanted to go to since I was a kid and it didn't disappoint one bit. This is going to be a long post so if you're not into travel check back another day ;)
Please note: THIS IS A PICTURE HEAVY POST.

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Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London

Happy Thursday guys! I hope you've all had a good week so far. It's been a busy week but on Monday I got the jaw dropping news that I had won a very coveted reservation at The Fat Duck Melbourne for next year. And a CHEFS TABLE to top it off OMG!!!!! I'm literally beside myself with excitement even though there's still 6 months to go. So I thought it was about time I caught up with posts and shared some pics from lunch at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in London from earlier this year. The husband and I treated ourselves to a splurge meal in each country we went to on our honeymoon and being the huge Heston Blumenthal fan I am Dinner was a must do! I would have loved to go to The Fat Duck but sadly we didn't have enough time to venture to Berkshire but luckily it's coming to us now woohoo!

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Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is located at the Mandarin Oriental in Hyde Park and is a 2 Michelin Star restaurant. We would have loved to stay at the Mandarin Oriental but sadly our budget didn't stretch that far haha. It's such a beautiful hotel and in such a great location too with Harvey Nichols and Harrods only a stones throw away.

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Our wedding day part 1 - prep

Earlier this year I got married and as promised I said I'd share the whole experience with you all. These posts have been a long time in the making but I've finally gotten them done!! I blame newly married life lol. I'll be splitting our wedding day into a few posts as there's just so much to cover so be prepared! And yes it's such a cliche but it truly was the most amazing and happiest day of our lives. We had such an absolute blast sharing our special day with our nearest and dearest family and friends. We got engaged in November 2011 and planned our wedding over an 18 month period which I think was fantastic as it gave us plenty of time to plan, organise and save up to make our day exactly how we wanted it.

Our theme for our wedding was "modern Asian" and we couldn't have achieved it without the services of our amazing vendors. I'll do a separate post on them afterwards but I have to give a special mention from the start for Anni Lam and her amazing team from Colour 18 Wedding (Shop 3, 431 Sussex St, NSW 2000) who were absolutely fantastic and went above and beyond to make our wedding amazing!

I hope my posts will be helpful for Sydney brides as I didn't really find all that much info relevant for Sydney brides when we were researching. Weddings can be so confusing with SO much stuff aimed at brides that is really quite unnecessary! We didn't follow those guides that say "Oh it's 6 months before your wedding you need to order your shoes" etc as we did lots of things out of order. But of course they're helpful to check that you haven't missed anything ;) I love love LOVE reading about weddings and I hope you'll all enjoy my posts =) If you don't it's all good and just come back tomorrow then!!

For my wedding series posts there'll be a mix of professional photos by our absolutely amazing photographers Joel and Renata from Tealily Photography and some pics my bridesmaids and I took (watermarked ones).

WARNING: THIS POST IS SUPER PIC HEAVY.

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Sepia Restaurant, Sydney

Hi ladies! A quick foodie post for you today! About a fornight ago the hubby and I took my sis to Sepia Restaurant to celebrate her birthday. We were a bit undecided where to go and we ended up deciding on Sepia as they do Saturday degustation. There's nothing like a loooooooong lunch! Sepia is a three hatted contemporary Japanese influenced restaurant (recently named restaurant of the year!!) which is a collaboration between seafood supplier George Costi and previous head chef at Tetsuya's Martin Benn.

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Inside the restaurant! The interior and decor is rather dark for my liking but nice all the same.

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Pambula Bay oysters with vinaigrette to start off with:

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I didn't feel like a cocktail and they didn't have any mocktails unfortunately so I went with teas for my degustation. How cool is this teapot!

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Amuse bouche of water chestnut, smoked salmon roe and crème fraiche:

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Sashimi of Big Eye tuna, steamed Japanese omelette, white soy jelly, dashi onion cream, puffed buckwheat, green apple and wasabi:

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Sashimi of bonito, flavours of roasted chicken, umeboshi, upland cress, green tea and nori:

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Yabby, seaweed purée, ginger, shellfish and blood orange emulsion and sorrel:

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Scampi, sudachi, parsley root, white miso, nori fried potato and white Linaria flowers:

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Bread and butter ball:

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Charcoal grilled wagyu rump, sea urchin and wasabi butter, garlic chive, sea vegetables and mustard:

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Seared Mandagery Creek venison, boudin noir, chocolate crumb, macadamia nut yoghurt, blackcurrant and shichimi pepper:

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Optional course of Aged Garrotxa goat chesse, sake and goat milk dumplings, celeriac cream, nashi pear and celery:

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Palette cleanser of Meyer lemon and lime butter, sancho and ginger bread crumb, sheep yoghurt sorbet, fennel and olive:

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Soft poached meringue, truffle ice cream, truffle and rosemary honey, hazelnut praline and malt:

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"Winter Chocolate Forest" - soft chocolate, hazelnut and almond, orange and thyme cream, sour cherry sorbet, cocoa brandy jellies, green tea, licorice and chocolate twigs:

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They were lovely and personalised my sister's dessert with a candle and message!

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Petit fours:

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All in all a lovely lunch! Service was impeccable and I'd definitely recommend celebrating a special occasion there =) Thanks for looking as always!

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OPI Langham Pink swatches and degustation at Galileo Restaurant, The Langham Sydney

A few months back I went for a fab dinner with Jade and A at Galileo Restaurant at The Langham. After dinner we checked out the gift shop and lo and behold came across an OPI nail polish created especially for Langham Hotels! I didn't even know it existed! Being a sucker lover for limited edition products and pink polishes of course I had to pick up a bottle of Langham Pink. We each bought a bottle bottle actually!

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Langham Pink was created in 2011 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Langham Groups signature pink which is used throughout their hotels worldwide. It's a gorgeous cherry blossom pink creme and just the sort of shade I love! Application wasn't pretty good and it was opaque in 3 coats which is pictured.

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Close up:

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Details: OPI Langham Pink is available exclusively at Langham Hotels for $16.95Aus.

The restaurant! Galileo Restaurant is located in the Langham Hotel (formerly the Observatory Hotel) in the city and the decor is just gorgeous.

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We had the degustation with all the trimmings (yes we got the cheese platter and also tea and petit fours!!) for a fantastic price because A got us a great deal!

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The food was excellent and service was fantastic too. We literally had to roll ourselves out of there afterwards lol. I'd definitely recommend going there!

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I love discovering new polishes when I least expect too!! Hope you enjoyed this post! Thanks for looking as always =)

Glam Corner online designer dress hire review

Back in March, D and I went to Bali for a week for his friend's wedding (you can peep my post about it here!) and besides organising the usual things like accommodation and flights etc the biggest dilemma was what to wear!  It's not often one gets invited to a destination wedding so I wanted something a bit special and out of my usual colour palette of dark shades.

I looked for ages but I couldn't find anything in my budget of $100-150 that I liked. I'd heard of online dress hire and as a last resort looked into it as our holiday was only a week away and I still didn't have a dress! There are quite a few Sydney based ones and the one I liked the look of the most was Glam Corner. I had a really great experience with them so I thought I would do a review!

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Glam Corner is an online designer dress hire site based in east Sydney and they stock gorgeous dresses from Aussie designers like George, Alex Perry, Camilla, Nicola Finetti and Wayne Cooper. I found their prices very reasonable and the dresses were my style!

So how does it all actually work?

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1. RENT - you can choose up to 3 dresses from their range to be delivered free of charge (standard delivery) to you on the date you choose. If the dress doesn't fit, you can send it back in the included pre-paid return bag within 24hrs for a new size or for a full refund if you don't like the dress.

You can also utilise their "Try On" option where you arrange with them to try 3 dresses for $30 which is then offset once you decide on a dress and they charge you the remainder of the rental fee.

2. WEAR - You keep the dress for 7 days! Included in the price is $100 accidental damage insurance which is SUPER important as I'll explain later!

3. RETURN - just pop your dress into the pre-paid return bag and drop off at your local post office after 7 days. No need to dry clean the dress beforehand as they do it all for you!

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I had a few questions before I went through with the order and the customer service from the word go was just fantastic! I emailed through my questions and they were answered promptly and very friendly. The dresses arrived quickly (and just in time before I flew out!) in this MASSIVE box at my work prompting lots of curious questions from my workmates lol. I opted for their "Try On" option as I was unsure of sizes and also style so inside were the 3 dresses in a garment bag, a pre-paid return bag, 3 large clear plastic bags and a note with care instructions for the dress. They also very kindly included a perfume sample and Glam Eyes false eyelashes for me too!! It was like Christmas opening the box up and seeing the beautiful dresses for me to choose.

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The dresses come dry cleaned, pressed and ready to wear wrapped in plastic in a garment bag. The included garment bag was fantastic to transport the dress in my suitcase!

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I ended up going with the beautiful George Darly gown which has an orange skirt and a stunning shell coloured beaded bodice with a racer style back. It was absolutely stunning and I felt so glamorous wearing it! I don't often wear such bright colours or maxi dresses! I teamed the dress with nude pink Miss Rosie heels from Peeptoe Shoes and a stack of plain gold bangles. I stuck to bangles as my wrist jewellery as I didn't want to snag the delicate netting-like outer layer.

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Photo courtesy of Glam Corner

Me in the dress and D! (reposted pic oops!) Now, remember how I told you the accidental damage insurance was super important? WELL. Not long after this pic was snapped I accidentally stepped on the delicate outer layer of the dress and TORE A HEEL SIZED HOLE IN IT. OMG I absolutely freaked out!! Maxi dress, grass and heels DO NOT GO let me tell you.

Straight after the wedding, I emailed Glam Corner to let them know what had happened and they reassured me about the $100 insurance and that they would send the dress off for repairs after I returned it. If the dress cost less than $100 to fix I wouldn't be charged but if it cost more I'd just pay the difference. After I came home I simply popped the dresses into the return envelopes they had provided and let them know I had sent them back. They kept me up to date with the repairs and lucky for me the insurance covered the damage!! Phew =D

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Overall: My experience with Glam Corner was absolutely fantastic and I am SUPER happy that I decided to hire from them! The customer service was wonderful and the whole process was easy as pie. I cannot recommend them enough!!!!! The dresses arrived on time and packaged wonderfully. The dresses themselves were just beautiful and I loved that there are no hidden costs and that delivery and returns are free. There are so many dresses to choose from as well!

When I first heard of dress hire I thought it was a bit pricey to hire a dress for just one week but there was no way I'd be able to buy something as gorgeous as the Darly gown for only $109. Alternatively if I had bought the dress from George it would have set me back $400+ since it was new season and for a statement dress like that I'd really only get 1 or 2 wears out of it max. So hiring a dress was the best option and worth every penny!! Plus there was no dry cleaning or repair costs (since I damaged it!) and it was delivered right to my door! I know that I'll be using them again next time I have a fancy do to go to.

I hope this has been helpful if you live in Sydney and need a dress for your next event!

Thanks for looking as always =)

I'm back!! Well sort of.

Hellooooooooo! Anyone there?!! It has been a VERY long time since I last posted! How have you all been? I hope you've all been well! I wanted to pop in quickly and say hello and give a quick update. So what have I been up to?

- I got back from HK in mid February where I ate WAY too much dessert

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- Work is mad so cake is definitely needed for afternoon tea lol

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- Caught up on wedding stuff and finally got our invites out

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- Flew off to Bali for a few days

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- We stayed in our own private villa with pool!

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- We attended the wedding of D's friend and OH MY GOD it was just amazing! I'll probably do a short post about it soon ;) It was too amazing not to share!

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I'm slowly getting back into things after so much madness but my wedding is very quickly creeping up so I am slightly starting to freak out!! I pick up my wedding dress next week and we had our engagement shoot the other day so it is all happening! I've barely polished my nails really since the start of the year except for a quick NOTD here and there. Life is just way too crazy. Also, Cosmetic Cupcake turned 3 in February! Proper celebrations for this little blogging milestone after my wedding!

Sorry for the randomness of this post but thought I'd just post some tidbits =)


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