Fun times in Shelly Bay

Over the weekend there was an open day at the the old air force base at Shelly Bay - the air force has long since left but their buildings remain and are now occupied by a whole bunch of artists and art related businesses.

When we decided to head to Shelly Bay we didn't realise there wasn't a bus service and seen as we don't have a car we had to walk about half an hour to the old air force base.

But that was fine as it was an absolute stunner of a day - just look at these views! Cold but so beautiful.

 You have to love the street art above! Cut along the dotted line.

Rich found a whole lot of sea glass - its so pretty.

The main reason we decided to visit Shelly Bay was to check out Westside Studios - they are a company that does props for TV and movies and also hire out all kinds of weird bits and pieces for events.

Here's just a few of the things we saw in our visit - there was so much more "stuff" and I am sure heaps more that wasn't even being displayed for the public.

As I'm sure you all know by now - my most favourite things are always the creepiest things!

If I had a big house and loads of money I'd love to hire some of these props and have the biggest and most awesome halloween party ever! One day perhaps...

Also this has to be my most favourite photo of the whole day - new facebook profile picture perhaps? What do you think?

I also got to meet a friendly dragon whilst we were there - he was sitting outside in the cold though - poor thing.

I kind of look like I'm glowing next to my dragon friend - note I'm not actually touching him - there were signs everywhere saying do not touch the props, but it seems most people can't read. I really hope that the visitors didn't break anything in the studio. 

When we finished up at Shelly Bay we decided to head to Miramar and have a bite to eat at La Boca Loca which is one of the places that the cool kids go for Mexican food in Wellington. I do love Mexican food and I have been wanting to try this place out for the longest time.

One of the nice things about this restaurant was that it served Mexican brunch too - as you all know - Mexico is a heck of a long way from Wellington and we don't have too many Mexican restaurants and most to lunch and dinner. So I was excited to have the chance to have "Huevos Divorcidos" something I have wanted to try FOREVER!

It looked really pretty and it tasted really good and it may look small but two eggs and ALL those beans - well that was plenty to keep me going until dinner (although after this we actually went to a friends house to watch a movie and eat popcorn).

Rich has the quesidilla but he wasn't really that impressed - he said it was cold on the inside and I have to admit that I though radish was a weird choice of garnish.

I still think we'll stick to our old favourite Mexican place in the city for now Viva Mexico - plus one of the guys that works at Viva Mexico looks like Machete which means they get bonus points for being badass. 

Hope you all had a super weekend xoxox

The Happiest Country in the World - Part Three - Mele Village

Whilst we were staying  at Hideaway Island we had the opportunity to take part in a few different activities, one of the activities was a village tour. Hideaway Island (obviously not its original name) was home to the Mele tribe for a long time, but there was a tsunami that hit the island approximately 30 years ago. When that happened the Vanuatu government decided that the Mele people should leave the island and be relocated on Efate.

Most of the people who work on Hideaway Island now are from the Mele tribe and they are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, and whilst we were staying on Hideaway Island we had the chance to be shown around their village.

The above building is the tribes meeting house.

There were SO MANY pigs in the village! For some reason this guy was in a cage (I have the feeling he may have been dinner) but most of them were running free.

There were a number of weddings in the village in the upcoming weekend, so they were putting down some hangi (underground earth oven). Actually we call it a hangi here in nz - they had another word for it in the village.

There were actually quite a few local stores in the village, we visited one store that was a co-op owned by all the people in the village.

These are yarns drying - I was really puzzled when I saw them!

The local payphone - although everyone seems to have cell phones anyway.

I'm not too sure if I'd want to travel in a "bus" that says "oh no!" in the front window.

We got taken to one of the village kava bars - it had a dirt floor and was very basic. I really don't like kava!

Cupcake decorating class

Last week Emi and I took part in another Wellington Pink Ladies event which helped to ease the pain of returning to the "real world" after a weeks holiday in the sun.

The event was a cupcake decorating party by a local business called "Cupcake Sweeties". I am a pretty darn good baker (if I do say so myself) but to date my skills in decoration have been a little "limited". For this reason, I was pretty excited to take part in this class to learn some things about decoration.

When we arrived we each had a little mold each and also some fondant - during the evening we swapped molds and fondant to make all kinds of pretty things for the top of our cupcakes.

We also got to try our hand at molding chocolate, which isn't quite as malleable as the fondant - but it tastes a WHOLE lot better!

Above is my first ever attempt at piping frosting - I liked the front two but the back two were a little bit rubbish so I tried again. I also decided that I didn't want four cupcakes with pink frosting when there were three different types of frosting to choose from!

Next up was time to add the little decorations that I'd made to the cupcakes - I wasn't really sure how to add them as some of them looked a little bit too big for the cupcakes, but they turned out alright (I think).

Below are my favourites from the six I decorated - they are also the most simple - I guess there's a lesson in that somewhere.

As you can tell from the photos above we finished up with edible glitter - which I MAY have gotten a little carried away with - but it's glitter you can eat! That's pretty awesome.

Here's all my cupcake pretties together - what do you guys think? It's much better than my previous decorating attempts that's for sure.