My favourite Sydney pubs, in watercolour form - Part 1

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the things we've missed most about Australia is being able to go to the pub for a good meal and some relaxed drinks. I've always loved the look of Sydney's older pubs and decided to paint some of my favourites. I'm going to make this a two part series (or maybe more) because it takes a long time to paint these and I keep thinking of more pubs I like. 

Cooper's Hotel, King St Newtown

 I have to admit I've never been to the downstairs area at Coopers, we always head straight upstairs to the beautifully re-done bistro area. They basically demolished half the upstairs area but left the facade, so it's created a great walled-in courtyard above King St. They have nice pizzas here and a delicious Angus steak. I don't think the pub name has anything to do with Cooper's beer, but they do serve it so it seems like a good place to enjoy it. Also, Tranny Bingo on Monday nights! (I'm yet to experience that one).

The Courthouse Hotel, corner of Australia St & Lennox St, Newtown

Extremely popular for a good reason. The beer garden with its long tables and big frangipani trees is perfect on a summer afternoon and pretty good in winter too. Although the Courthouse always seems crowded, you can almost always find a table because there are so many different areas to sit. Food is good and the Courty burger is very popular.

The Erko (Erskineville Hotel), Erskineville Rd, Erskineville.

This was a 'new' discovery on this last trip and I'm putting it straight up into the top five. I don't like a lot of fanciness in a pub and the Erko is just the right kind of relaxed environment where it looks like they've made an effort, but you'd never feel underdressed or not cool enough to be there. We also met one of the nicest bouncers I've ever met, who did everything he could to make sure our group got a good place to sit. I haven't tried the food here yet but I've heard good reports.

The Hampshire, Parramatta Rd, Camperdown

I've ended up frequenting the Hampshire because it's a good midway point between our place and my friend's place in Annandale. It's also close to RPA where a couple of our friends work so it's a convenient meeting spot. There's not really anything fancy about the Hampshire but, as you can probably tell by now, that's the kind of place I like. The bartenders are always friendly and it's always quiet enough that you're pretty much guaranteed to win the meat raffle on a Friday night. They also now have a beer trio taster thing where you choose three beers to try and get a pony (a little baby beer glass) of each for $7 - good way to try some of the local beers they have.

Kelly's on King, King St, Newtown

Kelly's is yet another pub that has become a favourite purely by convenience. For three years it was the closest pub to our house so we went there a lot, and still do out of habit. I can't think of any unique redeeming feature apart from the fact that it's open very late and you're quite likely to be the coolest person there.

Our Secret Paradise on Palawan

I finally got my film photos developed from our trip to Palawan! I love how they turned out. I even got an accidental-but-really-cool-looking double exposure:

We stayed at Secret Paradise resort, which was like enjoying all of the good things about camping and none of the bad (well, some of the bad - we were attacked by mosquitos a lot). Can you see the 'resort' below? look closely, where the beach meets the jungle, towards the left of the picture... see the little huts? that's Secret Paradise! You can also kind of see in the water that there's a reef under there... the cove has two reefs that you can literally walk out to for snorkelling. It's full of beautiful fish, including lots of cute clown fish families and there are often turtles hanging around! I only saw a turtle from the shore, but my friend ran into one when she was snorkelling.

They have these cute little outrigger canoes for guests to borrow and paddle around the cove - there are other little beaches to visit, all owned and protected by the resort.

This is our little hut - note the small lake behind it! We arrived in a typhoon and the area behind our hut flooded. This is probably why the mosquitos were so bad, they're probably better in the dry season.

We took an island hopping trip one day on this beautiful boat. It was by far the best day of our stay and the best thing about Secret Paradise. All beach resorts offer island hopping trips, but most of them involve stopping at the same islands as all the other tour companies, rigid schedules, and mass-produced lunches. Small resorts often hook you up with other resorts so you form a bigger group. This trip was just Jess, Caitlin and I, the two guides, and we hardly saw another person all day. We saw a group of around 8 tourists when we stopped for lunch, which just made us appreciate our tour even more - our lunch was cooked freshly for us by the guides (it was delicious!) and they'd brought lots of cold beer for us, which the other group was a bit jealous of!

The day involved a short walk to a secret waterfall. We passed through a beautiful little village along the way.

At the bottom of the waterfall (below) was a perfect little pool to swim in. It was cool, clean and we had it all to ourselves. The guides let us stay as long as we liked and we enjoyed every minute of it. It was beautiful.

At the end of the week, Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan hit and our blissful getaway came to an end. I wrote more about the typhoon situation here.

After spending two days shut inside a Puerto Princesa hotel, I've never been so happy to get back to Manila!

I had more posts planned for this month, but I'm using James' laptop and it doesn't seem to like me so I'm not sure when I'll post again - I might have to give blogging from the iPad a try. We're flying home to Australia tonight and staying for the next few weeks. I am SO excited. If I don't get time to post again before Christmas, have a lovely Christmas or just a great Wednesday, if you don't celebrate Christmas. OK, I'm off to pack!

Hong Kong: Reasons to go and things to do

I've decided I should try to make my travel posts a bit meatier, so instead of just posting photos I'll give a few recommendations as well. Not a comprehensive travel guide by any means, but just some things I liked about Hong Kong. 

Reasons to go:

• It's a beautiful city - the most well known images of Hong Kong feature the harbour at night, with jungle of brightly lit skyscrapers. It's a stunning image, but so are the amazing mountains around Hong Kong, and the various beaches around the islands.
• It has a big airport, so there are a lot of flights available which can increase your chances of getting a good deal.
• It's a great stopover between Australia and Europe, and the compact size makes it easily manageable for a short trip.
• Hong Kong is famous for its shopping. There really is something for everyone and I'd definitely recommend booking some extra baggage on the way home.
• You can geek out over specialty streets - businesses tend to cluster by type, so you'll find a whole street of just toy shops, or an area filled with aquarium shops. I've spent hours in the fabric/trims district and I've barely scratched the surface of it. Find what interests you and dive in.

Things to do:

Avenue of Stars

This is the boardwalk along the Kowloon side of the harbour, looking at the Hong Kong skyline. It's nice to go down there for a walk at night, especially if you find Deck & Beer, a bar where you can sit outside and have a drink while you watch all the tourists, runners and boats go by.

Hong Kong Disneyland

We went here for our honeymoon in March and I went again with my parents a couple of weeks ago. It's the newest Disney park and currently the smallest, so it's a good 'starter Disneyland' because it's easy to do everything you want to do in one day. It's also fun for overseas visitors because the local visitors generally prefer different rides to us - which means you'll wait forever to go on Winnie the Pooh or Autopia, but Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear are practically walk ons. Woohoo!
Unique to HK Disneyland is the new 'Mystic Manor' - an interesting twist on the Haunted Mansion as there are no ghosts! Designing a Haunted Mansion that was mindful of Chinese superstition must have been challenging but it's a really great ride. Other highlights include the Runaway Mine Cars, sort of like Rocky Mountain Railroad but with a twist, and the Festival of the Lion King which is a fantastic show.
If you want to go all out, stay at the Disneyland Hotel. It's not a practical location for Hong Kong sightseeing but if you're just there for Disneyland, you won't regret it.

Ocean Park

I can't tell you much about Ocean Park, because I haven't been there since I was nine. I'm putting it on the list though because everyone keeps telling us to go! Apparently the rides are really good.

The Peak

This is one of those standard attractions that people say you 'must do'. I say do what you like, but if you do want to go up to the Peak, I recommend the Peak Lookout restaurant for a nice meal or even just a drink. It's a really beautiful old restaurant with lots of outdoor dining space in a really pretty garden. Having hot chocolate by their fireplace was one of the only things I remembered from my first trip to Hong Kong when I was a kid. When James and I got up there and saw the mall and the Starbucks and the ice cream shops, I was thinking, 'This isn't what I remember'... and then I saw the restaurant tucked away in the trees. We had a beautiful lunch there and it was just as pretty as I remembered it.

Temple Street Night Market, Kowloon

This is your market for souvenirs, phone chargers, knockoff bags, the usual. If you want to do some market shopping, I think Stanley is better. It's the same stuff but more choice and the sellers aren't quite as pushy.
The highlight for me is Temple Spice Crabs, on the corner of Temple and Nanking Streets. It's your classic crazy busy Chinese restaurant with bossy waitresses, laminated everything and people sitting practically in each others laps. The food is delicious.

Stanley

Stanley takes awhile to get to, as it's on the other side of Hong Kong Island. Take a bus and sit upstairs so you can enjoy the scenery on the way - its a good quick tour of Hong Kong. Once you get to Stanley, you'll find a little mall, a nice waterfront area with lots of restaurants, some historic buildings, and a big market. The market is much calmer than Temple Street and has lots more variety - you'll find souvenirs, jewellery, handbags, silk products, embroidery, etc etc.

Sham Shui Po

If you're into sewing, head here. Take the MRT to Sham Shui Po station and head for Nam Cheong, Ki Lung and Yu Chau streets. There are so many shops that the best option is really just to allow lots of time, bring lots of cash, and wander around to see what you find. Have fun!

Ride Buses/trams

If you feel like sitting down for awhile, grab a bus and sit up top. You can have a rest while getting to see parts of the city you might not have otherwise found. When you feel like going back, get off, cross the road, and take the same route home. Ask at your hotel desk for bus information. You'll also need exact change (around HK$13) or an Octopus Card for your fare.

Weekly(ish) update - typhoons and travel

I've been taking a break from work lately because we've been entertaining visitors all month! What a tough month it's been... seeing friends, getting treats from home, eating out, beach holidays, city holidays, mountain holidays, Disneyland... oh wait, it's actually been a pretty great month for me.

Our first guests were my friends Jess and Caitlin - Jess and I went to uni together (she was also my bridesmaid) and Caitlin is her sister. As soon as they arrived in Manila, I attempted to take them to as many of our favourite restaurants and bars as possible - we ate a lot that first weekend!

The three of us flew to Palawan to enjoy a week of total back to basics beach time. We stayed at Secret Paradise Resort which is very much as the name describes. I still couldn't tell you exactly where it is because I have no idea. We drove for about three hours from the airport through farmland, jungle and along very bumpy, narrow mud tracks until we reached the tiny seaside town of Port Barton. We arrived during a typhoon (no, not that typhoon... that was still to come) so we sat at Port Barton for awhile waiting for the rain to die down enough for us to head out on our little boat. Of course as soon as we set off, it started raining again, but we were so wet by that point that it didn't really matter.

At least our boat had a bit of a roof!

The rain had stopped by the next morning and we had a few beautiful days of relaxing, swimming, snorkelling and reading. I took lots of photos with my film camera which haven't been developed yet, so all I can show you for now is one of the many sunset photos I took on my phone.

The day we were due to leave Palawan, Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan was hurtling towards the Philippines. Of course we had no idea, because we'd been gleefully frolicking around the beach all week with no internet or TV. We wanted to see the Underground River at Sabang so we arranged for the boat to pick us up at 6am. This was a stroke of luck because as we sailed away from the cove the sea was very rough and the heavy rain had just started.

Any later and we wouldn't have got out at all - a bamboo hut with no electricity is fun for a quick holiday, but not where you want to be during a natural disaster. We drove through pouring rain to Sabang, where a man greeted us at the car with 'You can't go to the underground river today! Don't you know there's a typhoon?!' If you're wondering why I wasn't tipped off by the crazy weather, let me explain. We're at the tail end of Philippine rainy season and big storms happen almost every week - sometimes it can be sunny one moment, then raining so heavily you can't see the end of the street, then stinking hot a few minutes later. So without seeing a weather forecast, the weather didn't seem unusual to me at this point. That is, until we got back to Puerto Princesa and accessed the internet. Messages, emails and missed calls popped up from our families and text alerts from the airline telling us that flights were grounded. We found a hotel and spent two days sitting on our beds watching America's Next Top Model with the volume turned right up to drown out the incredible torrential rain outside. We were extremely lucky in many ways. Lucky that we were staying on the west coast and not the east, where the typhoon hit most violently. Lucky that we got on that boat just in time. Most of all, we're lucky that we could afford to wait it out in a nice hotel and fly out as soon as it was over. As I'm sure you've heard, many people weren't that lucky, so please consider helping them any way you can.

After Jess and Caitlin left, my parents arrived fresh from a big European adventure. They were in the mood to relax for awhile (and so was I after the typhoon) so we spent the first week doing exactly that before flying to Hong Kong for a few days. Mum and Dad haven't been to Hong Kong since we went as a family in 1997 so it was fun for them to see what's changed. As with my last trip to Hong Kong, I spent a lot of time in the haberdashery shops around Sham Shui Po being overwhelmed by choice.

We also spent a day at Disneyland and got to see Mickey and Minnie lighting their Christmas tree! Totally magical.

Our next trip was to Baguio, a little city up in the mountains of Northern Luzon. James and I went earlier in the year and absolutely loved the place we stayed (The Manor at Camp John Hay). It's like a giant log cabin hidden away in a pine forest, but with a fantastic restaurant and wonderful five star service.

One of my favourite things about Baguio is the relatively cool temperatures - such a novelty after living in Manila! They also had the place all tizzied up for Christmas and that made me very excited.

Now we're back in Manila and Mum and Dad will be leaving soon so I'll be back to work next week. For now I'm doing that quintessentially Gen-Y thing where I regress into childhood while my parents do all my housework and make dinner for me.

Update - Samples & Cigarette Girls

It's been far too long since my last post so I wanted to check in and update you on what I've been up to since the awful day when I spilled water all over my laptop and killed the wi-fi (handy hint: don't do that).

In my last post I mentioned that I am taking Bell Street in a new direction, focusing on bridal and custom work rather than ready to wear collections. As a result most of my time lately has been spent on business planning, dreaming, designing and pattern making. I am currently working on some bridal samples and finished 'Maggie' (above) last week - she's very sweet.

As much as I want to focus on bridal, I also love doing costumes and will never say no to working with Rollergirl Promotions - those girls are too much fun! I made them these vintage style cigarette girl outfits for a corporate event and they looked amazing, as usual.

James and I recently went to Hong Kong for a quick break as it's less than two hours flight from Manila. We had a great time and loved the city, although we didn't get to see as much of it as we planned due to us both getting horrible sniffly colds. We didn't let it ruin our trip though, and hey - if you have to be sick in bed, better to be in a lovely hotel bed and have someone else clean your room each day!

I did manage to make it to Hong Kong's garment district, Sham Shui Po, and had a bit of a 'wahhh, why don't we live here?!' moment when I realised how easy it is to find and get everything you need. I got some beautiful ivory silk fabrics for bridal samples and stocked up on a whole lot of miscellaneous haberdashery (James' favourite word) that I haven't been able to find in Manila.

Manila is already in full Christmas mode, which I love! I'm in a very positive excited mood at the moment, because I have so many fun things to look forward to - and that's the key to happiness, according to my Mum (or a book that she read). In just over two weeks my awesome friend and bridesmaid extraordinaire, Jess, will be arriving in Manila with her sister and the three of us are going to an amazing beach resort called Secret Paradise. On the same day that they leave, my Mum and Dad are arriving! They're also keen to do some travel so we're heading back to Hong Kong (with a compulsory day at Disneyland) and then to Baguio which is a few hours north of Manila. It's safe to say I'm not going to get much work done in November. I'll be working furiously on a custom ball gown and more Rollergirl costumes in December, then it's back to Australia for Christmas and New Years - I can't wait!

Thailand & Hong Kong Disneyland

For our honeymoon, we just wanted to go somewhere nice and relaxing on the way home to the Philippines. We decided to go back to Koh Kho Khao, a resort in Thailand we'd stayed at a few years ago. We had a great time then and were really excited to go back. I'd been thinking about the food at their restaurant ever since! We also thought we should have a couple of nights at a nice hotel in Sydney before we left, and James suggested stopping at Hong Kong on the way back from Thailand. Of course, I turned that into a Disneyland trip. It was awesome.
I hardly took any photos of our trip because we kind of had photo fatigue after the wedding, and all the destinations were kind of familiar to us anyway. Also, who wants to worry about their camera while at the beach or on rides at Disneyland?
So, here's a very brief photo recap of our trip.


The view from Koh Kho Khao's beach restaurant.


We were upgraded to a little bungalow right next to the pool! We were actually upgraded at every hotel during the trip. Yay honeymoon!

 
We did an island hopping day trip to the Similan Islands. We even went snorkelling, despite my fear of scary things in the ocean. We didn't come across any scary sea monsters, only lots and lots of colourful fish, so I'm glad I did it. It was fun! I guess it's only in Australia that everything in the ocean can possibly kill you.


I think this was the island we stopped at for lunch.

In Hong Kong we stayed at Disneyland Hotel, which was perfectly lovely and fancy and magical, just what you want on a honeymoon! Here it is looking all foggy and mysterious in the morning.

We found a lovely card in our (upgraded) room, and Mr & Mrs Potato Head badges!

... which I insisted on wearing, of course! We got special treatment all day.

Minnie Mouse was particularly excited for us and gave me a big hug!

 
A concierge at the hotel helped us with directions in the morning, and noticed our honeymoon badges so he made us Mickey Mouse wedding rings out of pipe cleaners and proudly presented them to us the next day! It was so sweet.

We actually ended up having dinner that night with all the characters, completely by accident! I thought they only appeared at this restaurant at breakfast, so we figured we'd go there for dinner. We walk in and there's Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald... the whole gang! We'd left our camera and both our phones in our room so just ended up having funny non-verbal conversations with them all and kept eating our dinner!

We intended on spending the next day wandering around Hong Kong, but ended up spending half the day dealing with not-fun visa stuff. That was boring and doesn't even make a good story, but we will definitely return to Hong Kong again soon with more time to see everything!

Our next trip will be our first Philippine holiday, a trip to Boracay in a few weeks to celebrate James' birthday. I can't wait!