Happy New Year!

Yay, it's 2014! I like even numbers. I thought I'd be really original and do a New Year's post about what I did in 2013 and plans for 2014.

Things I did in 2013

Celebrated the first moments of the year on our rooftop in Manila surrounded by fireworks in every direction
Did regular outfit drawings for awhile
Created a small ready-to-wear collection that I'm still pretty proud of
Got married (obviously this was the major highlight of the year!)
Travelled a lot - to Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and lots of places around the Philippines such as Boracay, Bohol, Baguio and Palawan.
Re-designed my website
Made more costumes for Rollergirl Promotions
Made some awesome sixties bridesmaid dresses
Changed the focus of my business to custom made bridal wear
Started experimenting with watercolour illustrations
Made some bridal samples
Came home to Australia for Christmas
...and just because I like to keep track of these things, I reached my goal of reading 45 books this year (up from 42 last year).

Things I plan on doing in 2014:

Make lots of bridal samples
Start making bridal accessories - sashes, veils, headpieces etc
Create a custom made wedding dress for an Australian bride
Go to Japan
Move back to Sydney
Attend the Blogcademy
Blog more consistently
Paint regularly
Read at least 48 books

I realised in looking back over the year that I don't take nearly enough photos of the fun things we do. I take plenty of photos for instagram during my work day, but when I'm not working, I hardly ever think to take photos for myself. I'm proud of myself for knowing how to live in the moment and have fun, but I always find myself later wishing that I had at least one photo to capture the experience. Last night we spent New Year's Eve at an amazing house with a perfect view of Sydney Harbour, watching the fireworks and all the beautifully lit boats. Great photo opportunity, right? I didn't even think to get my phone out all night. I was too busy enjoying the view! So this year I'm going to work on finding the balance between documenting the fun stuff, and still allowing myself to enjoy the moments properly.
Happy 2014!

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.

Wedding inspiration: Ten 60s celebrity weddings

It's no secret that I love the sixties. I've blogged before about sixties style, hair, dancing, guys, boutiques, and even how to have a sixties Christmas.

Now, here's some awesome sixties wedding photos for you to enjoy and possibly take inspiration from.

Audrey Hepburn & Andrea Dotti, 1969

Cilla Black & Bobby Willis, 1969 (She wore the amazing feather trimmed dress to her church ceremony and a red velvet mini with white tights to the registry office).

Elvis & Priscilla Presley, 1967

Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, 1968 (her dress was blue lace!)

 John Lennon & Yoko Ono, 1969

Lulu & Maurice Gibb, 1969

Mia Farrow & Frank Sinatra, 1966

Patti Boyd & George Harrison, 1966

Pete Townshend & Karen Astley, 1968

Raquel Welch & Patrick Curtis, 1967

(Not) guilty pleasure - royal splendour

I have so many 'guilty pleasures' that I don't feel guilty about them. Why should you be ashamed of the things you like? I could pretend that I watch hours of Say Yes to the Dress and Project Runway for 'research', but the truth is I just love those shows and I'm happy to admit it. So I figured I'd share some of these 'not guilty pleasures' on the blog from time to time to celebrate some of more random things I love.

The first not guilty pleasure I'll share is my love of all things royal. Tiaras, horses, insignia, diamonds, tiaras, corgis, traditions, tiaras, jewels, hats and... yeah, mainly the tiaras. This interest is completely indulged by an amazing blog, The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor, who features all of the above in abundance.



I'd say my #1 royal is of course Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She's got the best jewellery and she's so careful about choosing it - the brooch she wears almost always has a connection to the event she's attending. She wears bright colours so that people who have stood outside for hours to see her can actually see her, she's a dog person, and she's always got sensible shoes on. I love finding rare footage of her in a more casual setting - I think my favourite video is this one of her taking the grandchildren out with the horses at Balmoral. My only complaint against Granny Liz is that she has a huge collection of amazing tiaras and lots of female relatives to share them with, yet she hardly every holds any tiara events. What's the point of being royal if you don't get to wear a tiara to a glittering party every evening?

This brings me to another favourite, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. If you want tiaras, the Swedes have got plenty. Not only that, they actually wear them. That's Victoria in the photo above attending the Nobel Prize ceremony in a Napoleonic era tiara that her mum found in a cupboard (!) at the palace. That dress is also incredibly beautiful - this woman knows how to dress like a princess! Victoria also wins royal points for putting her adorable daughter, Princess Estelle, in a tiny baby-sized royal order at her christening.

Speaking of adorable babies and royal christenings, I can't write a post on royalty without mentioning the Cambridges, can I? Kate's dress at Prince George's christening was the best demonstration of mother-son outfit co-ordination I've ever seen. Unfortunately Kate doesn't seem to be much of a jewellery fan, but she does love a good winter coat so it's all ok.

I'll wrap up this rather random and rambling post with Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, originally Mary Donaldson from Tasmania. Her wedding dress will always be one of my favourite royal wedding dresses and she (or someone at the palace) has a special skill for always choosing exactly the right dress to show off her impressive jewels and orders.

I indulge my love of all things princess-like on my Pinterest board, 'Princess Things'. Starry Diadem is a great pinner to follow if you love tiaras and jewels!