First day on the Gold Coast

Ross and I slept in until 10 this morning - it was wonderful! John and Caz had headed out so we called them to meet up. We headed out to the Tweed Heads shopping center (in NSW) to run a few errands. I needed to post some Christmas cards, get my mobile up and running and get some money.

We had a coffee and wandered around a few of the shops before heading back to the apartment. From there, we walked down the street and had lunch at Grilled - a gourmet burger place. I had a chickpea burger - yum! We wandered on to a pub and played a few rounds of pool while having a beer (score check - Cherie and Ross 3 vs John and Caz 1).

We headed back up stairs to get changed and then walked across the road to the beach to go for the swim. It was a bit chilly initially but once you were in it was quite nice. We floated about for a bit before I got to cold and headed in with Caz.

We got back in time to shower and change before catching a taxi up the coast to go to Dracula's dinner theatre. We had VIP tickets and lined up with a few others before the venue had opened. Once inside, we gathered with a whole bunch of other in the foyer before being allowed through the crypt door into the house. We had a glass of champagne and looked around while waiting for our ghost train ride to the theatre. About 20 minutes later, we boarded the train in couples.

As predicted, it was pretty lame but there were a few scary moments where they either snapped photos or took video of us. Once upstairs, we found our seats and ordered a drink. Our appetisers arrived pretty quickly and we were entertained by the 3 piece vampire band for a while before the main meal came.

The performers finally came out and did some introductions etc. Then we had our dessert - yum! We ordered more drinks and then settled in for the show. It was the longest build up to a production I had ever been a part of!

The performers came out and performed Vampirates which was basically a bunch of skits with no real plot but mostly they were pretty funny. The waiters also kept us entertained. About 10 the show finished, we settled our bill and then headed out to find a taxi home. We got back to the apartment about 11. It was a good night out although it was a little random and definitely dragged on a bit.

Last day in Port Dickson

This morning we slept late and then went to have breakfast. The guy at the desk told us that our friends were on the 4th floor so we walked up to the ballroom on the fourth floor but found no-one. We couldn't be bothered changing locations so we had breakfast upstairs. Julia, Lewis and Phil joined us a bit later.

After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and organized the bill before heading to the pool. Again, we lazed around and chatted. Before we knew it, it was 12.30 and Ross and I had to head off to the spa for our treatment. We said goodbye to the others and walked to the spa which was in a beautiful building built over the water.

We started our treatment with a steam and a milk bath - a relaxing way to start our three our couples treatment. Afterwards we had tea on the little balcony overlooking the water while the therapists changed the room. When we went back inside, we were ready for our hair treatment. They massaged jasmine oil into our heads for half an hour - incredibly relaxing. Next up was our body scrub. I am not too sure what they used but it did smell like cinnamon and other spices.

After the scrub, we showered then prepared for our hour long massage. It was amazing! The perfect balance between strong and relaxing. After the treatment we went back to the balcony for more tea before heading out of the spa. What a great way to end a fantastic long weekend.

We drove back to KL and surprisingly the traffic wasn't very bad at all. We drove straight to KLCC to have an early dinner at the new Irish bar, Malone's. The food was typical Irish food but really good.

Back at home, we dropped off all our stuff and then pretty much got into our PJs. I was in bed super early as I was exhausted after such a relaxing weekend!

Off to Port Dickson with friends

This morning I woke up about 8.30 and started getting organized while Ross slept in for a bit longer. Once he was awake, we finished packing and then headed to Delicious to meet up with Phil, Julia, Lewis, Brian, Sonja, Emma, Maddie and Ian. We enjoyed breakfast together and then headed off our own separate ways to the Avillion Resort at Port Dickson.

The traffic was pretty busy. It seems that everyone wanted to leave the city for the Eid long weekend. Ross and I got to the resort first and by the time everyone arrived, we had sorted out the rooms.

We dropped all our stuff off in one of the rooms that was ready and then headed to the adults pool while the kids headed off to the kids pool. The rooms were really nice and were on stilts over the water. The bathroom had an open to the sky shower.

We spent the afternoon by the pool and gradually people drifted off to their own rooms. Ross and I relaxed, read and showered in our villa before Sonja and Brian came over for a drink. They left and Phil and Julia came over shortly after.

We all walked up to the restaurant together and had a seafood BBQ dinner. After dinner, the kids amused themselves while the adults walked down to the little beach with some booze and some music to while away the night chatting. Ian came down with us too and played a few tunes on his guitar.

We headed back to the room about 12 and fell asleep. A great first day to the long weekend.

FRIM and fun in the sun

This morning started with FRIM then breakfast at the Blue Cow. From there, Sonja, Julia and I headed back to Julia's place to relax in the pool. We spent a couple of hours chatting and floating about before I started feeling a bit crook.

I drove home and spent the rest of the afternoon laying on my bed watching TV and napping. My throat was really sore and I wasn't feeling too good.

Ross came home just after 5 and we were supposed to go to our golf lesson together but I decided to stay home.

Today's photo is of the girls laying by Julia's pool - gorgeous!

Back to the old routine

This morning, I met Sonja downstairs and we made our way out to FRIM. Julia is on the Atkins diet so her energy level was a bit lower than normal. Instead of doing the canopy climb, we did two laps of the less steep path.

We went back to the Blue Cow for breakfast. I went all out and had poached eggs, bacon, mushrooms and hash browns - yum! By the time we finally got home, it was almost midday. I had a bit of lunch before heading back out to Julia's place to spend the afternoon with her in the pool.

We lazed around for a few hours before heading back to her place where she got organized and we drove back into town where we were going to meet up with Phil, Ross, Sonja and Brian and go out for dinner.

The boys came home about 6 and Sonja and Brian dropped over shortly afterwards and we had a drink together before walking over to the Pavillion for dinner at the new German restaurant - Brauhaus.

The manager came over and talked us through the dishes. The restaurant had only been open 10 days. We all enjoyed our meals, except Ross' ribs were a bit light on for meat. It was great to be back with the 'gang' again!

We walked back and then Ross and I drove Julia and Phil home. A great day with great friends.

A great day with friends

This morning Sonja and I walked around Lake Titiwangsa. We walked for over an hour and ended up doing 2 1/2 laps around. Afterwards, we drove home and I parted ways with Sonja. I showered, had a smoothie and then did a couple of things around the house.

Julia rang about 11am to say that she was here. We had arranged to meet up for lunch and a swim. The pool was in shade when she arrived so we walked over to KLCC to have some lunch at The Apartment. It was pretty hot but we still sat outside. After a nice lunch, we walked back to Stonor again and were happy to see the pool was now in sun.

After a sweaty walk back, we were happy to throw on our togs and head downstairs to float about. We stayed in the pool for a few hours, chatting and soaking up the sun before getting too hot and deciding to go upstairs. We thought we might walk to Delicious for some tea but just as we were about to go Sonja rang and invited us to her place.

We spent an hour or so over at Sonja's drinking tea and chatting. About 4, Julia left to pick up Phil and I walked back home. Ross came home from work and we made some fajitas for tea. By this time, I was as red as a lobster! Not happy! I spent the rest of the night applying aloe vera on the burnt bits.

I also managed to do some beading. I had bought a kit from the beading place to learn how to make "chain mail" jewelery. The photo is of the completed pair of earrings. The kit included Swarovski crystals so it really looked nice when it was finished. The kit also included a matching necklace but I decided instead to make a bracelet.

Back to normal

Today started like any other day with Ross heading off to work. I woke up about 8 and got ready before heading out to beading class. Today we began working on another brooch, this time a flower and also made a star shaped pendant. The brooch was pretty fiddly wire weaving where the pendant was pretty easy.

From beading I dropped into IKEA and picked up some new cutting boards (exciting stuff huh?!) before heading home. I got home about 3, dropped my stuff, put my togs on and headed down to the pool again with my book, a couple of mags, my iPod and lilo.

Today it was just me floating about in the pool. As soon as I got downstairs I realised that I had forgotten my key - bugger! So I floated about reading for about an hour and a half before I felt I had had enough of the sun. I buzzed up to Sonja's place and luckily she was there so we chatted for an hour or so before Ross got home from work.

I got changed and Ross and I headed back to Low Yat to return the universal remote (the number 5 button didn't work!). Afterwards, we walked across the street and had dinner at Bangkok Jam, a nice Thai restaurant. We grabbed ourselves a gelato for the drive home.

I spent the evening grimacing in pain as I tried out my new epilator. Ouch! But it does do a good job and works on really short hair. I'm sure I can bare the pain once every few weeks and it is certainly better than shaving every two days or becoming scary hairy woman for waxing!

A great last day to the holiday

This morning, Ross and I had breakfast and then headed out to Great Eastern to do some food shopping. We picked up some lunch from O'Briens, a cappuccino from Starbucks and then headed home. We ate lunch, did a few things around the house and then Ross headed down to the gym while I headed down to the pool.

Down at the pool, I caught up with Sonja, Brian and Maddie who were also making the most of the last day of the holiday. We floated about waving at Ross while he was sweating in the gym (see photo, I am lying on lilo next to Sonja and Maddie in their rings). About 5, I decided to head back up stairs.

We had made plans with Sonja and Brian to meet up to go eat somewhere along Changkat Bukit Bintang for dinner so at 6 we met downstairs and drove up there. We ended up trying an Argentinian restaurant called Pampas that none of us had tried before. The food was really good as was the atmosphere as we sat outside enjoying the beautiful night with some laid back tunes playing as we sipped our margaritas.

We left Sonja and Brian after dinner and walked to Low Yat to do a couple of things. From there we walked back down to Changkat Bukit Bintang to our favourite Thai massage place and indulged in hour long foot massages. What a fabulous way to end the long weekend!

Getting back in the swing of things

This morning I woke up with Ross and managed to drag my lazy butt out of bed and into my gym gear. I did a few things around the house this morning before heading to the gym about 9. I jumped on the elliptical trainer with all intentions of doing 35 minutes but was so knackered after 25 that I had to press the cool down button! :-( After the cardio, I headed to a few weight machines to do my chest, lats and triceps. After some stretching I hit the showers (put on my dress :-)) and felt pretty pleased with myself despite the short cardio time - gotta start back somewhere I guess.

I headed up to Starbucks for a muffin and a coffee and to catch up on things online. I got back home about 12 and spent some time with the cats before going down to the pool armed with my lilo, book, bottle of water and iPod in water proof case. I floated about for a while reading my book in the sunshine. I got a bit too hot so I jumped in the water to cool off and decided I should probably make the most of it so I did 10 laps of lunges and 10 laps of side squats before the clouds came over and I decided to head back upstairs.

I'm getting right into my book at the moment (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts) so I drew the curtains, put some chill-out music on and laid on the couch to get further engrossed. Of course, I knew where this was headed and sure enough within a half hour I was asleep on the couch. I slept for an hour then got up and checked on Blue who was outside before crashing again on the bed in the spare room for another hour. What a great way to while away an afternoon :-)

I woke up about 5 and read my book again. Ross came home about 6 and headed straight to the gym while I got busy transforming the lamb chop and veggies from last night into a pasta sauce with a tin of tomatoes and half a glass of red wine. It turned out really well. I added some fresh mint and parsley from the garden too. Not bad.

After dinner, we relaxed and watched Ross' favourite show, Wipeout. Kinda like the old 'It's a Knockout' but a lot worse! Every time Ross watches it he ends up in tears laughing at people getting knocked senseless by the various obstacles. Watching him laugh always cracks me up!

Today's photo is off the ceremonial robe from Hanoi that we hung on the wall yesterday.

Day 2 in Langkawi

This morning we woke up in time for breakfast to be delivered to the villa. After breakfast we relaxed in the villa and lounged around outside in and out of the splash pool. Finally we headed to the main pool for a while before getting hungry again and heading back to the villa for room service lunch. Just as we stepped inside it started to rain so we were glad to get at least some sun. After lunch, we tried to watch a movie but both fell asleep before the end.

We woke up a couple of hours later and remembered that happy hour started at 5.30. We showered, dressed and rang for the golf cart to take us up to the lobby (we didn't want to get all sweaty on the walk up there :-)). At the bar, we enjoyed our complimentary cocktail and canapes before we headed down to the restaurant by the pool for a light dinner before our spa appointment.

We shared a great beef Caesar salad and some duck rice paper rolls then walked down the beach to the 'Heavenly Spa' for our ‘Mahsuri & Darus Romance’ treatment. The treatment was in one of the rooms at the Heavenly Spa Villa - a private beachfront property specially reserved for couples. The website describes the treatment better than I ever could:

"The treatment honors the legend of the love affair between Mahsuri a beautiful maiden and Darus, warrior and the son of the headman of the village and Chief of Langkawi. The three-hour experience includes a vigorous soap scrub that is given upon a stunning outdoor heated marble plinth inspired by the Turkish Hammam tradition. Included are sensual soaks made with fragrant flowers of Water Lily and Hibiscus and the Mahsuri Massage that is a strong yet soothing warrior style massage that comprises of traditional martial arts techniques."

So three hours later (and at 10.30pm) , Ross and I floated out of the spa and wandered back up to the bar for a night cap. Ross ordered a chocolate martini while I had a Capriyanha cocktail and we watched the entertainment (three female singers with a bloke playing a synthesizer - they were pretty good!) for an hour or so before we got too tired and went to bed. What a relaxing day!!

Off to Langkawi

This morning Ross and I were up early to start our journey to Langkawi. We left the house by 7 and wheeled our suitcase down the road to the Traders Hotel to catch a taxi to Sentral Station. At the train station, we boarded the Skybus to go to the airport. The flight was pretty painless and uneventful and in an hour we landed in Langkawi.

A short taxi ride from the airport and we arrived at the Westin Resort and Spa. It felt hotter and was definitely sunnier than KL. While we waited for the paperwork to be completed, we went to the bar for a drink - a good start to the holiday! The view from the bar was amazing (see photo). The front desk staff brought over our rooms keys and we jumped on the golf cart to take us to our villa.

The villa was stunning! Lounge/ dining room, small kitchenette, king-sized bedroom, massive bathroom and dressing area. Outside was a 4ft deep splash pool - also a desent length - two sunloungers with an enormous umbrella and a gazebo with a day bed. The view looked directly out to the beach, ocean and islands. We were gob-smacked!

We ordered some lunch and spent the afternoon in the splash pool. We moved to the main pool and whiled away the afternoon with a cocktail or two while looking out at the ocean watching the boats go back and forth through the islands.

By about 5 o'clock, we were well and truly pruned so we left the pool and headed back to the villa, walking along the beach. We spent the evening drinking white wine in the gazebo, ordering an amazing Indian pizza (with banana, tandoori chicken, mango chutney) and lazing in and out of the splash pool. We fell into bed exhausted but so happy to be in paradise!

Dress fits!

We slept in after getting home early this morning. We drove over to KLCC to put Ross tux and my dress in for dry-cleaning and I also tried on my dress for the ball next weekend. I didn't have high hopes after the debacle of the other tailor who completed screwed the dress up.

I tried it on and it fitted! I was relieved and happy but I could see that the dress didn't sit as smoothly as I would have liked. I went back and forth with the tailor for a while and finally she decided to take in a couple of darts at the back to smooth the folds out at the front. I think it will turn out fine and no-one will really notice except me. I am just so happy that I can wear the dress and that we didn't have to go all the way to 1 Utama to return the dress.

We went to Dome for breakfast then did a bit of shopping before heading home. It was a sunny day so we headed to the pool to float about for a couple of hours. I finished my book while Ross read the Weekend Australian. By about 2.30 we were both cooked so we headed upstairs.

We whiled away the afternoon watching sport and relaxing. I rang a store in PJ that offered jewellery making classes and tried to arrange to start the beading foundation classes. Hopefully I will start on the 27th. This inspired me to sort out the bags of beads that I hadn't looked at since we moved. During the move, they got completely mixed up so I started sorting them into colours to make it easier to find what I wanted (as you can see from the photo). I am excited to get into something creative!

We made a Weight Watcher's chicken tikka masala for dinner with brown rice and ate it out on the balcony watching the towers and the lights change colours on the Oval.

We headed to bed for an early night after last night.

An enjoyable day

I woke up at 10am (after Ross rolled in at 1am!), had some breakfast and headed straight to the gym at Pavillion. I did some cardio and weight machines for an hour and a half. I toweled off the sweat and did a quick deodorant spray before going down to the Benefit Beauty Bar at Parkson's to get my eyebrows waxed. I figured while I looked a wreck, I might as well go the whole hog!

At home I made a salad for lunch then headed down the pool. I floated around in the sun reading my book for about and hour or a half.

After a shower, I tidied the house and waited for Ross to come home so we could watch American Idol. After seeing Danny get kicked off, I used the leftovers of last night's salmon to make a salmon and asparagus pasta for dinner.

Ross was having a shirt made for his dinner suit so we headed to Great Eastern Mall to pick it up. It looks great with his bowtie! So we are all set for the ball tomorrow night.

(Blue is making an appearance in today's photo)

Friends in Adelaide

The weather is starting to get hot here in Adelaide. Ross and I headed over to our friends Stan and Kate's place to see them after a year and a half and also to make use of their pool! :-)

The photo is of their lounge room which has undergone renovation since last time we visited. We love the wallpaper and the slick black leather lounge teamed with the lilac wall behind. As Kate said, it takes a while to focus on the TV when you first sit down as the pattern really attracts your eye.

We spent the afternoon drinking bubbles and eating fresh summer fruit by the pool before having a BBQ and then watching the Australian Open Tennis. Another great Aussie summer day! So great to catch up with good friends again.