NZ 2018 Day 3: Weta Workshop and Wellington Zoo

We woke up around eight on Thursday for what was quite possibly the busiest day of the trip, wedding day included!  Be warned, this post is going to be very long with lots of photos ^__^

Our first stop was breakfast at the Beach House & Kiosk, which was about fifty metres down the road from our Airbnb. It was a bright, clear morning, and we were lucky enough to be greeted by a rainbow over the ocean as we wandered down. I really like rainbows, and it felt like such an auspicious start to the day.

The Beach House was an adorable place. The male waiters were both bearded and wore denim aprons, it was really cool. And the food, oh my goodness, the food. I had the mushroom stroganoff on toast topped with a fried egg and was in heaven.

James also fed me some of his streaky bacon so I didn't miss out on my beloved bacon either. We ordered a side of duck fat potatoes as well because they sounded so good, but we couldn't make our way through them. We were able to get them put into a takeaway container though (but to tell you the truth, they ended up in the bin because New Zealand just kept throwing good food in our path).

Full of food we trundled back to the Airbnb and into the van, with Luke behind the wheel this time. We were off to our first scheduled thing - the Weta Workshop tour! It was nice seeing a bit more of Wellington in nice sunshine-y weather, it's a pretty city. We got to the Weta Cave at Miramar...and had to drive past for quite a ways to find street parking. They did warn on their website that parking may be difficult to find but wow, we had to get pretty far off! We were running a tad late, which made me stressed, but we parked and got to the Cave before the tour was scheduled to start...and we were the first people there so all was well.

In the end our tour group was the four of us, a couple from Brazil, and our lovely tour guide Zac. Which was fantastic because we got to take plenty of time and look at all the things in a lot of detail. And there were a lot of things to look at!

I had thought the tour would be more of a "backstage" affair, but instead it was more like a series of museum exhibits though we did get to peer through a window to see one of their blacksmiths at work on swords for the upcoming Mulan live action movie. We also got to see lots of props and costumes close up - I was mostly excited for the Lord of the Rings and Narnia things, but there were so many amazing things to see. Even a operational Warthog from Halo which a Weta employee apparently borrowed and showed up to his wedding in.

Best of all though, in the second last room we were able to touch things! Lots and lots of cool things. The room was set up like a series of workbenches for different Weta technicians so there were lots of bits of costuming, electronics and all kinds of things. It was very fun.

Throughout the tour Zac told us titbits of how things were working for Weta, and anecdotes about the work they did on various films. Because our group was so small we also all got to actually chat to him as a person, not just as a tour guide and he was very nice and very knowledgeable.

After the touching room we went into the last room where we could take photos...and pat some guinea pigs! I had to check first that they were real, and not some kind of animatronic that'd do something weird when I touched it. But no, they were real, and a lot of the room we were in displayed a large numbers of guinea pig hutches. That is, if you can call a miniature cathedral, castle or manor house a mere "hutch".

It turns out that when there's a lull in movie work, some of the Weta sculptors work on making these elaborate guinea pig houses for the owner's pets. And fantasy guinea pig sculptures...and illustrations...

And in the guinea pig paradise we met a sculptor named Kim Beaton, who was delightful and entertaining and taught us the marvel that is using aluminium foil as a cheap base for sculpting (Nat has already put the lesson to use in building miniature terrain). Kim showed us pictures of some amazing sculptures she had made with that method and they were just impressive! It turns out she has a dragon sculpture at the Wellington Zoo (which we got to see later) and all in all it was really great to meet her at the end of our tour.

Zac also did something special for us all here, which is secret, but I'm mentioning it so I don't forget ^__^

Of course, we also took a few photos here. Just sharing one here though!

After we wrapped up in that room we headed out into the real world and straight onto a bus, because we were doing the combo tour and part two was a few blocks away. This tour I didn't know much about, but it turned out to be very, very cool! It was a tour of the miniature sets that Weta built for the new Thunderbirds Go! series and given that I knew nothing about either the original series or the remake I found it a lot more epic than I expected.

It was really great to see the miniature sets up close, and we got to take photos, so rather than rambling too much have a couple of my favourite pictures.

Once we were done with the tour we got back on the bus and went back to the Weta Cave. We had a browse and all bought some things. I got a massive book on Peter Jackson and the making of LOTR, because I am a nerd. The Cave itself had a really cool ceiling.

James and I finished our shopping first, so we had plenty of time to take lots of fun photos with the trolls outside.

So sexy ^__^

Once we were all done, it was back in the van and straight on to Wellington Zoo, because we had a very important appointment coming up with some delightful furry bois. We found a parking space and headed into the entrance to get our close encounter passes. We were given our lanyards and maps with instructions on where to meet. At this point we still had about an hour to go before we had to meet up, so we decided to sit down in the café for a while before entering the zoo proper. Everyone got a drink, and James got a cupcake, but me being me I got some proper lunch. We had a nice dinner planned so everyone was “saving room” but I always have room for food!

James and I were starting to get pretty worn out by now, so while everything at the zoo was marvellous it was tinged by tiredness the whole time. Just saying it now so I don’t have to mention it as an ongoing thing. Being sick and sore and exhausted really does make jam packed vacation days a bit hard!

Anyway, we wandered into the zoo and the first animal I saw was the capybaras, who were getting fed. “Capybaras!” I squeaked excitedly, pointing. It was kind of amusing having a half-lost voice when I was excited, because when I’m excited I’m high pitched and the upper registers are what I lost. So I squeaked breathlessly a lot at the zoo.

But the capybaras (which were a bigger animal than I expected) were quickly forgotten when we could see the otters! They were stupidly adorable, all squeaking and cuddly. I could have watched them for ages.

However, there was a whole zoo to see so after spending some time with the otters we moved on. I don’t remember the exact order, but we walked by several primate enclosures and also entered a dark, red-lit indoor environment where we saw a kiwi! Well, the beak of one, greedily gobbling down grubs, at least. I really enjoyed getting to see a New Zealand icon while we were there.

We wandered into a theatre area which was playing an informative video on a loop, then headed towards the meeting place for our close encounter. We passed an enclosure with beautiful birds and golden marmosets on the way, they were lovely.

We had a bit of time to hang around at the meeting place as the zookeeper was a little late, so we looked at some nearby frogs and reptiles and took so more fun photos.

James's photo thing is to ride any large animal statues ^__^

And then  it was cheetah time! A zookeeper came and introduced himself (but I don’t remember his name, or anyone else’s, including the cheetahs...though I looked those up!) and led us to the cheetah enclosure, explaining a little about the experience as we went. How the cheetah close encounter works is that up to four guests enter an enclosure attached to the cheetahs main pen along with three handlers. The cheetahs, Cango and Kunjuka, are used to the routine and are made comfortable by their handlers being there, and stimulated by the different activity. So it’s good for the cheetahs as well as for us! The cheetahs also aren’t pressured at all – they come into the other enclosure because they want to (and they got a couple of treats). They aren’t brought to us and in fact one of the two (I don’t remember which was which) just lolled around a few metres away the whole time. Fortunately the other boy liked coming over for lots of pets and attention. So it’s a very humane way of doing it and all the while one of the zookeepers was telling us all kinds of information about cheetahs, and another one periodically took our phones and snapped photos for us.

It was a really wonderful experience getting to spend time with the cheetahs. Their fur was rough and thick, and their purrs were so deep and loud and powerful. They were really graceful creatures and it was a real privilege to be able to get up close and personal with them. James wore our GoPro for the whole thing, which was great, and the zookeeper caught some purr video for me on my phone as well.

After the cheetahs we wandered the rest of the zoo, but unfortunately James and I were flagging something fierce, so we didn’t enjoy it as much as we otherwise would have. I also think we hurried Nat and Luke along a bit, oops. Though I’m making it sound like we just left, we still spent quite a bit longer at the zoo.

Next stop was the meerkats, who were ridiculously adorable and photogenic. And they squeaked so cutely! It also must have been breeding season as there were lots of min-meerkats running around, being all clumsy and adorable.

At this point, my phone ran out of space so I stopped taking photos. James had his proper camera and took lots of pics, but in the interests of keeping this very long post a tiny bit shorter I’ve decided not to nab any from him and will just quickly share a bit about what else we did.

We walked over to the chimpanzees (I’ve come to realise I don’t care much for primates) then through an Australian section. There was a cute sleeping kangaroo and Tassie Devils remain ugly yet cute. After that we went past the baboons (who started fighting only after James and I had walked away – missing a great photo opportunity). Then we looked at the giraffes, who were bigger than I somehow thought they were going to be, and passed some deer/antelope things. We reached a fork in the path and decided to head towards the lions, and on the way there we passed some beautiful chickens just roaming free. We actually encountered them a few times.

When we got to the lion enclosure a zookeeper was midway through a talk about them, but I didn’t have the headspace to listen properly. The lions (well, lionesses, I don’t recall seeing a male) were very cool to see up close (the zookeeper was tossing in treats to bring them closer to the listening visitors) but after having petted a cheetah I think I have a firm favourite in the big cat category, and it’s not them! However, still cool.

We then went back to take the other path, tried and failed to see the sun bear in it’s pen, and barely caught a glimpse of the tigers. We walked through a domestic animal area (with kunekune pigs!) and arrived at the kea aviary. Keas are smart, with very pointy beaks and a mischievous, destructive nature. Their aviary had an airlock style door system where you had to locked the first door before you could open the second. And they were adorable birds, who gallops along the ground and seemed adorably tubby. One came super close to James and I as we sat down for a bit (Nat and Luke are more bird people than we are, so we had some time to rest) which was cute…but also mildly terrifying because of the wicked beak!

The keas where the last animal I really remember on the way back out. We passed the primates from the start again, but it was all just a bit of a tired blur for me. Once we got to the front of the zoo we handed back our lanyards and gushed about how amazing the cheetahs were. Then we browsed the gift shop, where James and I finally found a cute, clear umbrella for the wedding, and then James went to sit in the van while I grabbed us some juice and Nat and Luke spent more time in the gift shop. I joined James in the van, where I discovered I’d accidentally bought “juice drink” rather than juice…they were watery and gross. It was a bummer, but the others joined us soon enough and Luke drove us back to the Airbnb, where we rested for a little bit.

But not too long! In the lead up to the wedding Nat had said she wanted to take me out to get my nails done beforehand, then due to the move it never happened. So when we found ourselves with a few free hours I decided to call up a nail place and got manicure bookings for her, me, and also James! Luke did not want to join us, but managed to book himself a massage instead.

So we called a taxi, since none of us wanted to drive that night, and went back into Wellington city. After we got dropped off we had a bit of trouble finding the salon (and Luke said his massage place was also hard to find!) but we made it and then had to make the hard decision of what colour to get our nails done! In the end I went with a wine that was a perfect match for my wedding dress, James chose a colour shifting bronze-gold to pink to green one, and Nat went with a green to black to purple holographic colour. I’ll admit, I was a bit jelly of their fabulous shiny nails even though I totally made the right choice for mine!

Honestly, I’m not a massive fan of getting manicures (or haircuts, or any personal grooming stuff really) and this was only my second one, with the first also being for a wedding when I was a bridesmaid. But it was still fun to do it with James and Nat. We finished up and went out into the brisk evening, where I promptly ruined my left thumbnail trying to get my phone out of my handbag so I could navigate to the restaurant where we were going to have dinner. I was a bit bummed about it, but it wasn’t too bad. That was one of the best things about being totally relaxed about our wedding, things like that didn’t really matter.

We found the restaurant, Charley Noble, soon enough and went inside. You can’t make reservations here, but their website suggests waiting at the bar until a table becomes free, so we did. Luke’s massage was taking longer than our manicures anyway so it suited us fine. We all ordered a cocktail and sat around chatting. And oh my goodness, my cocktail. It was a house special called Adventure to Wonderland and I ended up snapping a picture of the description because I loved it so much. It was sweet and light and fruity and so very, very yummy.

After a little while we were taken to a table and shortly after that Luke arrived and we prepared to feast! This dinner was a special one, as it was our wedding dinner since we were going to part ways in the evening after the wedding the next day. It turned out to be the perfect restaurant for us, in an art deco building with a industrial, yet luxurious interior. Totally what I love in terms of décor.

Terrible photo, but it gives you an idea of the vibe.

And of course, the food was amazing. Everything was super delicious and so we ate, drank and were merry! I did take some shots of my food, but it was dark so they turned out badly. But everything was delicious. I ate the seafood chowder and then the duck breast, two things I don’t normally touch and through I discovered I don’t really like shellfish I still have chowder cravings. Everyone else’s dinners were also really good, but sadly none of us had room for desert!

After a truly delightful meal (also, our waiter Liam was an absolute delight and we said so when we paid) we headed back out to hail a taxi back to the Airbnb. Once back, we relaxed for a little while, took our showers, and went to bed not too late, as we had to get up on time the next morning for the big day!

NZ 2018 Day 2: Food, shoes and a museum

As predicted the night before, we felt much more normal when we woke up. At 11.30 after around twelve full hours of sleep. I honestly could have slept longer because I was still sick (and remained sick for the whole trip, and a while afterwards as well), but even so it felt so good to finally be there. We were in New Zealand, we were settled in, and all was well. Most importantly, we had bought milk the night before so we could get up and have a cup of tea while admiring the sea view and the pretty garden in the wet, grey morning.

I like wet, grey mornings.

But the sea view. My goodness, the sea view. Nat and Luke were up before us (and even sent a “Are you guys alive in there?” text which we slept through) and had noticed that a flock of gulls were clustering at a particular point on the rocky shore. They would only do that for a reason, and they soon spotted what it was. A seal was having a merry feast of fish and squid, alone out in the water, so we all got dressed and James grabbed his camera so we could go take a closer look.

Even without the seal drawing our interest the coastline was lovely. It was windy and wet and beautiful. Not only was seeing the seal just amazing and unexpected, it was really good that it drew us out of the house and onto the rocks. Because we probably wouldn’t have gone out otherwise – it wasn’t raining at the time but it was still not a typical “let’s clamber on the rocks” kind of day. But out we went, and James and Nat quickly drew ahead of Luke and I (they’re the more outdoorsy types and besides, I was sick and slow and getting distracted by all the rockpools and such).

Luke soon found a good vantage point for seal watching and I joined him, while James and Nat went even closer. I wasn’t able to get any good photos of the seal but it was so fun to watch him stun a fish or squid then toss them in the air and gobble them down.

After watching for a while Luke and I headed back to the shore, and I enjoyed getting distracted by everything. At one spot someone had laid driftwood against a rock in a way that with more wood or another covering would have made a very makeshift shelter, or as is would have been a great thing for kids to play with. I love it, it took me back to being a kid myself, reading adventure books and imagining surviving in the wilderness.

Then for a while I frolicked around the patch of beach, picking up all the pretty and interesting things to show James, who had started to come back with Nat from closer to the waves. I actually really liked all the things I found, and was amazed to find a rib bone! We ended up taking the bone and the shell pieces back to the Airbnb, the garden of which was already filled with beautiful shells which we just added to.

We all headed back into the Airbnb to plan the day. Before we went I put together a detailed itinerary, but in the end we didn't stick to it too much, though we did do most of the things we wanted to. Also at some point either we had breakfast (toast with jam for me) – not sure if it was before or after our seal expedition but it happened, even though it wasn’t really morning by the time James and I got up. Nat and Luke had taken care of their feeding requirements while we were still slumbering.

Our plan for this day ended up being very vague; we were just going to go and check out Wellington. Due to the weather and the size of the van, we decided to order a taxi rather than drive ourselves, which was a great idea because our chatty taxi driver (who had actually lived not too far from us in Australia for about fifteen years!) asked what we wanted to do and picked a good place to drop us off – right across the road from the Capital Market food court. Because it was lunch time now!

We entered the food court, which was kind of cute and retro and reminiscent of a street food market, and had a browse. And to my surprise, we found one place that was wholly gluten free and another where half the menu was! That's without looking at literally every place too. I’ll say this now – New Zealand is so much better than Australia at catering for gluten free people. Nearly every restaurant or café we went to had about a third of their menu gluten free already, or could be made gluten free. Sometimes even more than that. It was so good, because so often in Australia you get one or two choices in a menu and that’s it. So it was great that James go to pick from a proper range of food no matter where we went. I mean, part of our reason for staying at Airbnbs rather than hotels was so we could cook…but the most cooking we did was making toast for breakfast, and we only did that some days!

Anyway, we all got food from different places and everything seemed so good I wish I could have eaten more! As it was, my eyes were too big for my stomach and I bought a red bean bun and a pork bun that were larger than I thought and still got to sample some of James’s popcorn chicken with chipotle mayo. And on this day we started what became a bit of a trend on this trip, James taking photos of me being very happy about food.

After our stomachs were satisfied (I got an iced chocolate as well when James when to get a desert cupcake from the wholly gluten free store, I ate so much food over this trip and have no regrets) we headed out in the streets to take a wander. I forget who picked the direction we went and why, but we just enjoyed having a wander and looking at shopfronts.

Fairly soon we passed a nice shoe store, and James and I ducked in to see if we could find him some new wedding shoes. Nat and Luke meanwhile popped upstairs to a gaming store a couple of doors back. James tried on a lot of shoes and in the end bought a pair of dark cherry red Doc Martens. It was like perfect serendipity, because even though the shoes that got left at home were great and worked really well with his outfit, the Docs were the shoe he originally wanted but couldn’t find locally or online. Then here in Wellington we found them after all!

We headed out and went to meet Nat and Luke in the game store, where they were (naturally) engaged in giving some D&D pointers to a teenage boy. I almost bought some Sailor Moon manga and figures, but resisted. I'm trying to to buy too much "stuff" these days, and downsize what I have. I'll buy clothes and books galore, but I'm not really a manga lover and don't need for figurines so I stayed strong.

From there we headed out to find a shopping centre which contained the Warhammer store, which Nat and Luke wanted to visit. Once we got there we split up since James and I wanted to go into a chemist to find some cold and flu medication, longer socks so he could break in his Docs, and make-up for me for the wedding (another thing we couldn't find before we left, or at least it was easier to buy new makeup than hunt out the old). James changed his shoes, we took some of our meds, and met up in Warhammer.

Soon enough we drifted out of the store and the shopping centre, and realised we were quite near the Te Papa museum. Since this was a place we had intended to visit in our initial itinerary, it was an easy decision to head there now.

We went in, checked in our bags and coats, got maps and discovered (to our sadness, as it was the thing we really wanted to see) that the area with the colossal squid was closed. But still, we were here and wanted to see what we could see. We decided to split up into couples again, since Luke wanted to see the Gallipoli exhibit and neither James nor I had any interest at all in a war themed exhibit.

In the absence of the colossal squid as a starting point, James and I just headed upwards. The view of rainy Wellington city and the harbour was really pretty outside the windows, and we both took photos...James of the view and me of James!

Isn't he cute in his shiny new shoes?

When we finished our walk up to the highest floor we found ourselves at Te Marae.

From there we wandered through some of the Ko Rongowhakaata: The Story of Light and Shadow and Mana Whenua exhibitions. Everything was fascinating, especially finding out about greenstone, but we were both so sick and tired that we didn't look much and soon settled ourselves at a cafe for some tea and juice. As we sat there, we realised we weren't really up for more museum touring (which was a pity since it was a wonderful place) so decided to text the others and agree to meet up at a cafe we had passed outside, the Green Parrot, when they were done with seeing what they wanted to see.

We did, however, get distracted by the gift shop on our way out. Our wonderful friend Mel was house-sitting for us while we were gone, and we wanted to get her a little thank you present. Then we got distracted by buying more things for ourselves as well! What was wonderful is that when we were picking necklaces James asked for my opinion between a row of them for himself. I picked the shape I liked best, and when he read the description of what that shape symbolised, it was about representing the journey of two becoming one throughout life. Accidental romance for the win! As well as each picking up a necklace we bought matching rings (as if we wouldn't be wearing new rings the soon anyway!) and James bought a pretty name pen.

I took a picture of our little haul at the Green Parrot, sans rings. 

I ended up giving the bracelet pictured to my friend Jayne ^__^

Once we left the museum we figured the others would probably be a little while, so we went past the Green Parrot in search of an umbrella (since the forecast for our wedding day was rain, and Nat had suggest a clear umbrella would make for cute photos if it was going to rain) and some better socks for James, since the ones from the chemist were proving uncomfortable. We found a discount store where we got the socks and some makeup brushes for me, though no luck on the umbrella. I checked my phone as we left, and it turns out the others left the museum not long after us and saw us heading away from the Green Parrot! Oops! I quickly texted back to explain and in a minute we met them at the Green Parrot, which was a super cute vintage style cafe.

We all ordered more beverages...except me. I ordered apple pie as well as a milkshake, because food. James took another happy Roli with food pic, which is honestly one of my favourite photos of me right now, because I look so genuinely happy lol.

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We also started a bet on this day - how many times would I drop food on myself during this trip? The final tally was 11, Luke guessed 12 and was the closest. I dropped apple pie on my front twice here and that was the start of the bet.

While we enjoyed our good things and relaxed, we discussed dinner plans and settled on visiting a grocery store before hailing a cab to go back to our Airbnb, and getting some stuff for a grazing kind of dinner - bread, chips, dips and cheeses.

It was really nice wandering through Wellington in the wind and wet as night fell and the city lights came on. I mean, it was cold and I was tired and just wanted to get warm and cuddly, but it was still really nice.

One thing I also enjoyed doing on this trip was taking lots of selfies, so while we paused for Nat to check directions James and I took some cute pics together.

Soon though we were in a New World supermarket, grabbing food and some necessary toiletries. James and I spent way too long at the candy section (but only walked away with some crocodile lollies, rather than literally everything, so there's that). Nat also decided to pick up a bottle of wine to celebrate us being there and getting married, which was sweet of her. Laden with bags, we found a taxi and went back to our temporary home.

Our evening from there was spent just relaxing, playing games and checking social media on our phones or tablets, watching some inane TV show about gold prospecting in remote Australia, and of course eating nommy food. We made a toast; to all of us being there, to James and I marrying. We made some plans and a booking for the following day and retired to bed not too late; we had big plans for the next day!

NZ 2018 Day 1: Flying to Wellington

As you may have read last year, things got a bit hectic for me in the latter half of 2018. I've been intending to blog about my wedding trip to New Zealand ever since I came back and in fact, these posts have been sitting in my drafts since I think October. But it took me a while to get around to adding photos and doing a proper proof read so here we are,  six months after the fact. Oh well!

I still wanted to share this awesome experience on my blog, to have as a memory and also to tell you about all the fun things I did (and gush about getting married, of course). It's not lolita content - except for my wedding outfit - but I still hope you enjoy and if not, we'll be back to my usual lolita posting soon enough! I'm going to post these at a more rapid pace than I normally do and I hope you enjoy reading something a little different from me ^__^

So, let's go back in time to Tuesday 28 August 2018...

We woke up a 4AM to get ready for our 4.45AM airport shuttle pick up. James and I had slept 20 minutes, tops, after finalising our move from our old house at 11PM then packing (which involved a lot of not being able to find things, including James's wedding shoes, which were never found until after we came back). Nat and Luke probably got an hour and a half of sleep, lucky things.

I am not a morning person but surprisingly once I dragged myself out of bed I didn't feel too bad! We were finally going. The move was done and though it has been stressful and we were sick and sore and tired it was over and we were off to get married!

Our shuttle driver pulled up a little early so we all scrambled out with our suitcases and other bags, made sure everything was locked up, and off we went in the pre-dawn darkness. After about ten minutes driving we pulled off into a parking lot where we transferred to another shuttle that already contained a mother and her toddler (who was adorable, and only shrieked a little). Then we were well and truly on our way. Despite running on no sleep James and I were pretty alert and happy and chatted the whole way at the back of the minibus, while Nat and Luke dozed in the seats in front of us.

After another hour and a bit the shuttle pulled up at the airport and we got out, in my case a little nervy and awed. This was my first international trip after all! After double checking we had everything we entered the hall and made our way to the check in screens. For us, it was a fully touchscreen process, which was a bit confusing at that time of morning, but we go through with only a few issues. We sent off our bags, again with some issues but nothing too terrible, and were ready to go!

I'd been informed by one of my work colleagues that a lot of the immigration and customs was automated to go to New Zealand, and so it was. We had to walk up to a turnstile machine, scan our passport, step through the gates and have our faces scanned. Biometrics amaze me...we are totally living in the future. We were then allowed through to the usual security bag and body scan. James got selected for a more thorough body check, and Luke set off the bag scanner because he had foil MTG cards in his backpack!

But then we were through, it was done, and we had lots of time to spend in the airport before boarding our flight. And of course, the most important thing was breakfast. Followed by second breakfast, because I'm a hobbit at heart.

The food court roof was high and decorated with these interesting flags.

A ham and cheese croissant for me to start and a frittata for James, with tea and juice. Then after sitting around our table and being on our phones and tablets like the millennials we are for a while, a quick fruit salad to share (which we never finished, but hey, we at least ate a bit of healthy food!). And then some McDonald's, hash browns for James and some breakfast burger monstrosity meal for me (which was honestly not that great).

But the Maccas was so cool! The kitchen was upstairs and sent orders down by a conveyor thing, I found it so fascinating! I'm a big kid at heart and am pretty easy to amuse, and when I'm tired I'm even more so, so I really enjoyed waiting for our food.

After quite a while of sitting around we decided to split up and meet back up at the gate. Nat wanted to get a foundation match at a make-up store, and James and I needed to get some New Zealand cash. So we went our separate ways, collected some foreign cash, found a toilet, then meandered over to the gate, browsing shops a little on the way as we wanted to see if we could find a new micro SD card for my phone (which we couldn't). At the gate we all met back up and sat together.

James took this snap on our way to the gate, it was exciting to see all the planes!

I spent a while on the phone with the NRMA to organise travel insurance. We had tried to do it the night before online but their website kept crapping out at a certain point so we hadn't been able to. But after not too long on the phone we got it all sorted. We didn't end up needing it, which was good, but we wouldn't have wanted to travel without it!

Our boarding was delayed a bit but after a while we were able to head down to our plane! It was really exciting heading down the tunnel to get to the plane, which was decorated with all kind of interesting travel imagery. Once on the place we found our seats, decanted the necessary things from our carry on bags, and settled in for the three hour flight.

I was immediately very excited by the little TV in the back of the chair in front of me – it even had some games, including a silly version of Minesweeper, which I played for all of one minute. They had Infinity War in the movie selection, so my entertainment plan was set for the flight. Soon enough, the plane was full and we started heading down the runway.

I’m not a massive fan of flying, as I tend to get a little motion sick and especially suffer on descents. But the take-off was fun and the views over Sydney as we left were pretty cool. As this was my first time travelling overseas James made me take the window seat on both flights, which was really sweet of him. There’s not too much to say about the flight. We were given breakfast, which was tasty. Since James needs to eat gluten free I had specified that in his booking and he received his meal early, and I was jealous! But when I got to pick my meal I got basically the same thing so all was well.

I just really like food, okay?

For the duration of the flight I watched some of Infinity War, tried and failed to nap, played a match three game on my phone, and filled in our arrival cards. I was pretty out of it because I was so sick and tired. But when we started to head down I was very awake, because I got a terrible earache, ugh. I had bought some eucalyptus drops from a chemist at the airport because I used to get this problem as a kid and back them sniffing eucalyptus oil helped, but the drops didn’t seem to do anything. So that kind of sucked.

However, despite feeling pretty rotten then descent into Wellington was beautiful. The approach is low over the water, with mountains rising from the island and it was just stunning.

And then we were there! Once the Captain announced we could turn our phones off flight mode my mobile immediately asked me if I wanted to enable international roaming, which I did, and our clocks jumped ahead two hours. The “we’re in a new country” feeling was hitting hard. We were some of the last passengers to disembark, which is fine by me, and soon we set foot on foreign soil. It took us a little time to get past the passport check and then through customs with all our bags but everyone we spoke to was very nice. And there was a cute sniffer dog too. James and I spent a while chatting to a young lady at customs who had amazing tattoos about our upcoming nuptials…one of the things they asked is if your bags contained only your own belongings and we both had to answer “no” since the carry on suitcase I was holding held all our wedding outfits, and James’s had our combined electronics. And of course, once we explained what was in there, we had to gush about the wedding and experience firsthand the friendliness of the Kiwis.

Once we were done with all the official business and were free to go we picked up our rental car, a minivan, and were on our way. As Luke was not confident being the first driver in this new country, and James was in worse shape than I was, it fell to me to be the first driver! Which was moderately terrifying, but I got used to the van and the different road rules soon enough. Unfortunately the Airbnb address we were given didn’t include the suburb and our GPS sent us to the wrong place, so it took us around an hour to get to our Airbnb instead of twenty minutes.

However, already I was in love with the country. Everything was so pretty and the drivers were so nice compared to Aussie drivers! The architecture was so varied. I was losing my voice at this time so while I was driving I kept hoarsely squeaking “look at that fucking insert thing here” be it a particular building, tree, landscape or something else. Kind of funny.

But eventually we made it to the Airbnb, found the lockbox, and let ourselves inside.

This first place we stayed at was in a suburb of Wellington called Island Bay, and was right on the water. The house itself was really nice and the location was superb. However, by this point we were all a little too tired to appreciate it much. We got settled, more or less, then James and I went to get groceries while Nat and Luke ordered in some pizza. Honestly, unfortunately this first night kind of sucked because we were so wrecked. We had done a lot on no sleep while quite sick and neither James or I were feeling good at all. So I went to bed feeling pretty down but knowing that a good night’s sleep would help a lot.

AYWI30C #11: Inspired by a character

It's really weird how timing works out, with me getting up to this prompt so soon after the LBC topic of creating a coord based on a book. And it's a topic I actually rather struggle with! But in the end I came up with something I think suits the character I chose, and is pretty cute as well!

I decided to take Makoto Kino aka Sailor Jupiter as my inspiration for this outfit. She has a tough exterior, but is very sweet and romantic, and like baking and flowers! So I thought I had the perfect dress for her...which also happened to be green!

Ta-da! Honestly, I thought Teddy Chocolatier was a perfect match for her. Given that she's not shown as being as fussed about her appearance as some of the other Sailor Moon characters, I kept the coordinate fairly simple in both colours and style, with a big, practical bag and chunky shoes.

But simple doesn't mean boring! I actually love pairing these chocolate ankle socks with this dress,a and have done so before myself.

A nice necklace brings a bit more sweet detail to the coord, and the bolero I chose is also quite intricate up close. So though I've chosen to not go too heavy on accessories, the pieces I have chosen are still pretty detailled.

A beret and single bow are all I chose for headwear, and a set of wristcuffs and some bead bracelets finish is off. Now, I'm going to be a bit pretentious, but I have a new phone and look at the artsy pictures I can take now!

Isn't that just pretty? I really love taking super close ups like this ^__^

I also love that, challenging as this prompt was for me at first, I still ended up creating a coord I really like and that I do feel does draw a lot of inspiration from the character I chose. Even though it's taking me a good long while to get through this prompt challenge I've made for myself it's been great so far!

Lolita Blog Carnival: The item I wish I had more of

My lolita wardrobe, you may have read me mention a time or twelve, is pretty well rounded. I have a good amount of everything and have multiple varied coordination options for each main piece I own. But there is one item type in particular I do wish I owned more of - headbows.

I don't deny that I do own a decent number of headbows. The problem is that I don't necessarily own the right ones. Given that I also love to wear berets and hats and clip-on bows it's not necessarily a problem, since any colour I'm lacking here I definitely have elsewhere, but sometimes I find myself reaching for a headbow that I just don't own.

For the purposes of this post, I actually went through my wardrobe to figure out exactly what other colours of headbow I'd like to add to my collection.

• Dusty pink
• Ivory/offwhite
• Lavender
• Red
• Black x red
• Mint
• Tan brown

At the risk of sounding like a snob, I also think I want to get more brand headbows in future. It's just that I find myself loving the shape of the brand ones I own more than any of the offbrand ones! I also enjoy the few headbows I own that actually match a main piece, so that also may be something I keep an eye out for.

I think this quote unquote problem has really only cropped up in the last year or so since I am a. wearing lolita more often thus want more options and b. have been broadening the colour palette in my wardrobe. Really, the only colour I don't own now is blue! And orange and yellow, I suppose. But I'm no longer in a position where everything matches best with black or brown, nor do I always want to be coordinating with those colours.

This prompt was actually very helpful in figuring out what gaps I have in my headbow collection. I'm also starting to think I need to do the same thing with my OTKs, since big as it is it's feeling a bit lacking at the moment.

Read more from other bloggers:

Cupcakes and Unicorns
In Love With a Dream
Petite Tomoyo

AYWI30C #10: Pick a substyle

Ahem. Once again it has been way too long since I did one of these! I hoping to be more regular in future and post a couple of these a month but well, I'm not making any promises ^__^

Anyway, today's Around Your Wardrobe in 30 Coordinates topic is to coord in a particular substyle. I don't want to do anything that I've done before so that rules out so of my immediate favourites like bittersweet, mid-00s OTT sweet, and steampunk. So I was thumbing through my wardrobe and then my fingers landed on Dramatic Rose - it was fate! My substyle was going to be hime lolita!

Hime is not something I've ever worn, nor will I probably ever do it outside of a really fancy meetup or an equally luxurious photoshoot. But now that I've come up with this coordinate, I really want to organise some suitable time for me to wear it because it is gorgeous!

Just wow. How lush is all the lace?! I really wish I had some fancy lace tights to go with it, but even with just patterned OTKS this coordinate is really detailed and decadent. Serisouly though, jsut look at this close up!

To match the OTT laciness of the JSK and bolero combo, I puled out the canotier headdress as well as another floral and pearl chain accessory. I still honestly don't like the matching headdress much, but even so it would look amazing nestled into a big, bouffant hairstyle.

Then for added decadence, I added flowers to everything and stacked up a load of glittery bracelets. It's also not very visible in the photos but I paired this looked with my simple Liz Lisa ribbon choker - I feel it was the best aesthetic match.

I mean, clipping flowers to things is not new to me, but it works. It just gives a little extra detail. Why buy fancy floral shoes when you can just add flowers to your existing ones?

I just have to say again how much I utterly love this outfit. I kind of didn't expect too and I'm so happy I discovered a wonderful new outfit combination by doing this challenge!