Kim suggested we go ages ago and we had been waiting for a warmish night when something we actually wanted to see was on. The answer? LABYRINTH. So many shots of David Bowie’s crotch and none of us had actually seen it before!But I’m getting ahead of myself XD Here’s a pretty bike James saw on the way…

We had tea and dinner at Hanaichi before the movie.

And did the exchanging of Christmas gifts, of course Kim’s were much better wrapped than mine ;_; Such cute packaging!

After that it was the LONG trek up to the top of the building for the movie.

The session was completely sold out so it was pretty busy, we decided to stake out our seats early so we had a good view.

Tell you what, the view was pretty damn good!

There were rows of comfy deck-chairs and even though the forecast was fairly warm it got chilly very quickly

We of course were dressed for Summer >_<

We were there so early that we sat around taking photos for quite a while before the movie started, everyone else was over at the bar XD

There was a burger stall next to the screen who delivered to your chairs, so cute! The fries we had were SO good.

Obviously I can’t show you any of the movie but it was aaaawesome! We kept a tally of how many shots of David Bowie’s crotch there were. The first half of the movie was much more crotch heavy with 15 shots while the second half only had 4.

We were so cold though, at half time we rented some blankets to snuggle under but the wind just came right in the back of the chairs. I think I was an icicle by the time the movie was over.

The cinema was even prettier after dark though!

So conclusion? Labyrinth is a hilariously awesome movie. I loved the rooftop cinema and definitely want to go again but next time I’ll wear warmer clothes and ignore the forecast XD

The pretty lights were still out on the way home too 😀

Oh hai there.

Skipping ahead in the timeline to New Year’s Eve!

James LOVES NYE, I’m pretty indifferent but I’ll go anywhere he likes so we usually do something involving watching fireworks!

We took a tram down to Docklands to see the 9:30 kids fireworks and it was completely packed. Of course the tram was like 15 minutes late so we got there half way through.

Traditional kiss at 9:30 sounds so much lamer…

The harbour was so pretty even if the boats were all trying to outdo each other with their horns *_*

I take a lot of photos of the same thing but then I can’t decide which one is nicer… I need to get better at that.

But so pretty!

Docklands was packed but there wasn’t actually anything to do there so we left right after the fireworks. I don’t understand why places like this don’t have market stalls and things to actually do? Between the 9:30 and 12am fireworks the only other thing I could find there was a stage with terrible music.

So after that we came home for a bit then decided to walk to Southbank to see what they had.

There weren’t really any markets here either but they had my all time favorite busker playing! His name is George Kamikawa and he is so talented! It was a pleasure watching him until the late fireworks ^_^

There were a lot of people dancing out the front too, it was adorable!

The fireworks were a lot bigger here and we were right under one of the buildings so they were pretty loud!

And this time we did the proper kiss at midnight but I was too busy filming to get photos haha!

So much fun! I really enjoyed both nights ^_^ Next year is my turn to think of something to do for NYE so I’ll have to find something suitably explody but with something fun for me to do too!

As it turned out, the rain started right as we arrived and then stopped until right after we got home. That afternoon/night was one of the biggest storms Melbourne had seen all year, it was pretty crazy!Last year I bought snow leopard ears from the gift shop but this year I had special pretty cat ones which were given to me by Petticoats and Gallantry!

You can see the details in a lot of the other photos in this post but they are long white faux fur with light blue lining and little blue bows covered in diamates. I LOVE them. I was worried they wouldn’t stay in my hair the whole day but the metal clips are very strong and I didn’t have to adjust them once. The quality of them is absolutely lovely and I the details are really cute. I’ve always held off buying cat ears because most of the ones you see are really terrible quality but these ones are so well made and detailed that I would definitely recommend checking out some of the other styles available too. They’re not on the Petticoats and Gallantry website at the moment but they are available at the VnV Boutique or just contact for more information etc. When I was at the store they had a whole display of different themed ones, some pink and fluffy and others gothic and dark. All of them looked too cute though! Definitely love them!

Anyway back to the other cute fluffy animals 😀

The first stop of the day was the meerkats, they were really shy because of the rain so only one of them came out to say hello.

I think the rest had the right idea and were huddled up inside their burrows!

The one that was out was quite sleepy looking too, maybe it wasn’t time for them to wake up yet XD

There was a lot of “spot the meerkat” going on because of it’s awesome camouflage skills XD

The flowers were in bloom all over the zoo and it was so pretty!

For once I actually took more photos than James haha!

One of the first animals we spotted out and about was this peacock and her babies.

The fairy penguins were all bobbing around like bath toys XD

We had breakfast at the Meerkat Manor, I had a spinach and ricotta roll which was nice but James’ muffin had rotten berries in it so he replaced it with a chocolate one *_*

The rain cleared up after that so it was just spitting a little bit, it was actually nice because the heat alone was horrible.

The otter family had a baby! It was adorable but the poor thing had a big bump on its head 🙁 The other otters were really protective of it.

We saw the tigers but missed the feeding this time. None of them were very close so I didn’t get a good look.

I spent as long as possible in the butterfly house because it made for such pretty photos. The humidity ended up driving us back into the outside heat though XD

The butterflies kept landing on James’ head and he didn’t like it at all. He’s actually really scared of moths which I think is adorable!

This butterfly seemed to have face planted in the food. OM NOM NOM!

The colours of some of them were so pretty and they weren’t shy at all!

We did a brief stop at the spiders but only long enough to snap a photo of how icky they were!

We found the male peacock wandering around near one of the food areas and he jumped off the top of a building while I was watching.

Later on James found one of his feathers on the ground as a present for me 😀 Best souvenir ever!

More beautiful flowers…

All of the giraffs and zebras were being fed when we came through that area.

And for no reason, here’s a zebra butt.

At James’ insistance, this year we made it through to the Australian animal exhibit. The Australian part is a walk through area where the animals are partially allowed to roam free. James didn’t like this part because when he was a kid he was at a park and a kangaroo was trying to get to a baby and it’s grandmother and he went over to help and it put it’s arms around him like a hug, but then kicked him in the stomach *_* Australian animals are mean!

The laziest kangaroos in the world…

An emu which creeped me out by following us along the path.

A sleeping wombat who looked a lot more dead than asleep *_*

Echidnas which are so freaking cute because they waddle everywhere!

And a koala’s back… which contrary to popular belief are not cute or cuddly but are actually mean and very smelly. I might be slightly biased because when I was a kid I went to one of those “hold the koala” things at a zoo and it peed on me. But bias aside they really aren’t very nice animals at all, I’d take those delicious koala chocolate candies over a real one any day!

We went to the Great Aviary next which was so peaceful and relaxing.

I couldn’t get a good shot of this bird but it totally had the same hair as David Bowie in Labyrinth 😀 It spent the whole time preening itself too!

This duck the with a blue beak was being a total jerk, all of the other ones were sleeping and it went to them one by one and woke them up!

This one was the weirdest but most intriguing bird I’ve ever seem. It looks so bored… but somehow really awesome!

And of course I had tot take a photo of the only pink bird there 😉

We found another meerkat enclosure when we were walking back to the other entrance and this one had much more active animals in it.

SO FREAKING CUTE!

Before we headed home we also went through the aquarium section. My feet were pretty tired at this point so we sat and watched the seals for 20 minutes to rest.

I finally got a good shot of a sea horse too!

The seals mostly seemed like they wanted to nap XD

The fairy penguins seemed to be planning some kind of coup, they were all taking orders on which way to face from the one up top, it was adorable!

We saw some of the big cats but I didn’t get very clear shots through the bars. The lions were so sleepy, I felt the same way in the heat!

The snow leopard and all of the other small cats were napping too.

I don’t think I got to see the bear last time but he looked so cute and scruffy!

The last thing we saw before heading home was the lion’s feeding time, even when they were being fed they were so sleepy!

We left a lot earlier than last year because of the heat and came back to the city for some bubble tea. We had planned to get dinner from a fast food place too but almost everything was closed *_* I was really surprised considering how many people were out and about!

For dinner we ended up with some Hungry Jacks and 7/11 sandwiches then lots of candy and chips for dessert 😀 It was such an awesome day, I had a wonderful time at the zoo and I can’t wait to think of what we’ll do next year!

How did you guys spend your holidays? Did you just chill out with family or did you have something big planned? Any suggestions for what I should do next year?

It’s stocked with a lot of Hello Kitty stuff in there too so there’s a lot for me to drool over!Can you imagine a Bergamot done in this style? Completely deco? I totally want to make one!

The Christmas displays were so cute, if I ever become rich and decide to change my tree I think I’ll stick a little Billy Idol head to this one:

Argh just drool everywhere so much bling!

Bling pens!

And the coolest anti theft system ever, the rings are attached to bling weights under the counter *_*

Best part though? GIGANTIC DIAMANTE COVERED CHAIR! I need one of these for at home!

I love going in there so much, the staff are always so friendly and never pushy. In fact the lady that was serving us that day was so nice that I wrote to the manager to give good feedback about her (I think good service should be rewarded!). To say thank you for saying thank you they mailed me a trinket box *_* That is just so… nice! And I had to write back to say thank you and it ended up being a big circle of thank yous that become quite confusing hahaha!

I can’t believe how nice that was! And just from that one attendant being so helpful they now have a very loyal customer in me. I think other Australian retailers could learn a lot from good in store service like that because (generally speaking) the retail service in Aus is very much below the rest of the world.

Now that I’ve gotten my current obsession out of the way, let’s revisit an old obsession: Melbourne Architecture!

Melbourne skyscapes will never cease to amaze me.

There have been butterflies absolutely everywhere at our apartment the last few months. I don’t know where they’re all coming from but they keep getting stuck inside our windows and it’s adorable.

So pretty but there have been bees too which seem to think the stars on the windows are flowers *_*

Silly bees, these are flowers!

This is one of my favorite buskers at the moment, his little skeleton is a puppet who sings old classic songs and dances too. So cute!

Ice chocolate at Koko Black, I never thought I’d say it but I think I’m sick of stores like Koko, I’m much more interested in trying smaller out of the way places. When we have some more money James and I want to start exploring the city every week and going down all of the alleys we miss when we’re in a hurry then ending each trip at a small cafe. I think that would be such a nice way to spend a weekend.

I could take my sketch book and paint while we sit.

And we could take more photos around town, I’m really starting to enjoy photography with my new camera. This is my favorite photo of James ever.

Realistically I think we’ll just end up doing more of this…

Hope you enjoyed the snapshots, what have you all been up to this week?

The bathroom toiletries at the airport get more hilarious every time I go back!

I didn’t have much else to do on the plane because I was too sleepy to work so I entertained myself by taking photos of the pretty view.

I started illustrating Bergamot’s story on the way too but I didn’t get very far.

It was so cold that little ice crystals formed on the window, hilarious considering it’s the height of summer!

We arrived and went straight to James’ Dad’s golf store to do some work and have some lunch.

I spotted these cute polishes that came with diamante rings at a shop near by!

I can sniff out claw machines in any state!

I continued taking wanky artistic photos in our room 😀 Sepia makes everything look artistic!

Deep fried crumbed camembert for dinner=win!

While James enjoyed the Foxtel I spent my time taking photos of Bergamot with various creepy Christmas decorations.

Kris’ (James’ brother) friend Courtney made us cupcakes to eat on the drive up!

James ate them while wearing two hats for some reason.

We drove for ages to find his favorite burger place was closed down and turned into a fish shop. Much crying was done ;_;

I found Bergamot a pretty necklace in the parking lot so it wasn’t a complete waste!

I also spotted the worst costume idea ever at Spotlight. “Going Snookz”?!

The drive up was long but we found ways to entertain ourselves… like this.

We stopped at some particularly scenic lookouts though pretty much every direction I turned looked something like this.

I took more wanky sepia photos… like a lot of wanky sepia photos.

We drove to the wrong hotel and spotted a kookaburra who was waiting for his dinner. When we got back in the car to find the right hotel James was attacked by a grasshopper or some kind of bug, I screamed, he slammed on the breaks and we both got some pretty intense whiplash *_* WHY DOES NATURE HATE ME?!

Finally we made it to our cabin!

Ours was suspended above the trees on polls which freaked me out a little bit.

Did I mention that I took a lot of artistic photos? The roof of our cabin was very pretty.

The bed and spa looked directly out onto a view of the valley.

That night we went to James’ Dad’s birthday dinner, here’s the guest of honour!

SO MUCH DELICIOUS FOOD.

These table decorations show that even classy food cannot make James classy.

James took my camera for most of the night and played around with the settings. Kris looks like he’s having a fantastic time XD

He also didn’t eat most of his food (other than the steak) preferring to make it into some kind of crazy monster smoking a carrot cigar. Yes.

Birthday boy doing his best to camwhore!

James and his Mum looking over some of the photos.

Poor Bergamot drank a bit too much wine and was seeing stars all night mwahahahaha…

When we got home to the cabin we sat around with Courtney and Kris talking and the lights suddenly turned off. As it turned out they cut the electricity for 6 hours to install a new transformer. We made do with our emergency candles!

The next morning we decided to give the spa a test out and had the most hilarious experience of the weekend *_*

Whoever had been there before us didn’t leave it particularly clean and there were dead bugs all over the spa, also spiders everywhere. James cleaned it out and we started to relax. After a while we turned on the bubble jets and the bubbles on top started to disappear… then I noticed the water was full of dead bugs and we were sitting in dead bug soup! IT WAS DISGUSTING! They had all come shooting out of the bubble jets *_* SO YUCKY, I think I’m scarred for life!

After that adventure I thought it best to stick to showers XD

The view was stunning though and it provided lots of fun opportunities for testing out the new camera.

James also spent most of this time with a camera glued to his face.

We explored Montville and it’s handicraft shops and I met the loveliest ladies who were making the items in the store.

The lady in the middle made the earrings I bought, so cute!

Flowers were in full bloom everywhere!

Of course for some reason we were almost magnetically drawn to the candy shop in town, it was called “Fudgyboombahs” mwahaha!

They had SO many fudge varieties all with hilarious names.

We took quite a few varieties home and they were all delicious!

On the way to Mooloolaba we stopped to take the obligatory Montville tourist shots at the lookout. Of course it was raining so the view was completely obscured!

Such cute little houses!

We visited Underwater World for the first time since I was a kid and it hasn’t changed at all, I even remember half the exhibits! By this point in the day both of us were sooooo hungry so we had lunch there and I ate the WORST “gourmet” burger I’ve ever eaten. Seriously it was so dry I can’t even describe it.

We finished lunch just in time for the seal show, it was SO cool!

It had some hilariously adult jokes too XD They got a volunteer from the audience (who was totally working secretly for the show) and she got to feed the seal, then it was supposed to kiss her on the cheek but it pushed her in the water and stole her pants! The other seal was supposed to give her pants back but it kept sticking its head under water to sneak a peek instead! Dirty seals!

This one totally reminded me of Pilot from Farscape 😀 😀 😀

This lobster had a really beautiful colourful shell…

But all I could think about was how delicious it would be 😀

James’ favorite animals here (and at the zoo) were the otters, after seeing how cute and lazy these ones were sun baking I had to agree!

Rub their tummies!!

We got a private show from one of the seals who wanted some attention. She came right up to the barrier to pose!

James and I had slightly different reactions to the shark teeth.

But he was also childish as ever -_- It DID say “Canal Cruise”.

The storm as we drove on the way back was insane. It chased us all the way home but was so beautiful.

We had a pizza party that night in the cabins and James and I fell asleep pretty much as soon as our heads hit the pillow.  He did try to start a fire but that’s a story for tomorrow’s post. Part one finished and part two tomorrow! Hope you enjoyed as much as I did taking them 😀

We’ve known each other online for years so when Glo-w and her husband decided to take a trip to Melbourne, I made sure to clear my schedule so we could hang out!
I’m always worried when I meet people I know online for the first time because you can never really tell people’s real personalities but it was like Glo-w and I had known each other all our lives. Her Hubby Ben was super awesome too and he and James found their mutual love of videos game haha! Oh and large steaks, they are both definitely carnivores so we had lunch at Grill’d 😀

After lunch we wandered down to the claw machine place and played pachinko 😀

I’m totally saving all of my pachinko points for this Hello Kitty frying pan 😀 😀 😀 So pointless but awesome!

Glo-w *coughcough* also won a friend to take home as a souvenir! I wonder if she named it yet!

While we were there we did some purikura too! God I love that place, everything fun under one roof 😀 I love that in half of them we were totally unprepared for the shots. And Ben seems to have a koala backpack!

We showed them around some of the pretty buildings in town and were totally subtle about convincing them to move to Melbourne >:D

So subtle in fact that the conversations went like this…

Ben: That’s a cool building.
James: If you lived her you could see it all the time >:D
Glo-w: I love the horse and carriages!
Violet: If you move here,  I will reward you with a ride around the city in one >:D

James and I = subtle like a brick.

We went to the Melbourne information center for tourists to get some pamphlets and stuff and there was a display advertising Dracula’s which is a horror themed cabaret restaurant and it had the creepiest rabbit I’ve ever seen in my life. You have been warned!

Back to nicer things…

All of the Christmas displays were out… this would have made a lot more sense to actually post before Christmas but I guess you can all reminisce XD Anyway, all the christmas displays were out so we took the opportunity to have fun with them!

This area had some kind of motion detection thing which played creepy children’s voices. It was very disturbing and a lot like something out of a horror movie. I was worried the creepy children were going to jump out of the bushes *_*

This busker was so funny, he’s a statue and here’s a little kid practising his martial arts moves in the slowest moving battle ever XD

We stopped for some snacks and bubble tea… food was kind of main theme of the day haha!

There were little sparrows all over McDonalds stealing people’s fries, so cute but so evil!

For dinner we met up with Glo-w and Ben’s cousins and headed for Korean. It was my first time eating Korean food and it was soooo good, I want to try more things!

Bergamot enjoyed the tea, I can’t remember what flavor it was supposed to be but it tasted *exactly* like popcorn…. in a good way.

At dinner Ben told us the saddest story ever about working as a doctor and so he was forced to buy us crepes to make up for it! He was such a good sport XD I think that’s going to become a regular thing, anyone who makes me sad has to buy me a strawberry and green tea crepe to make up for it. It’s impossible to be sad when you’ve eaten a crepe!

We all sat outside on the grass to eat and enjoyed the afternoon. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so full in my life, so much delicious food!

Thanks so much for making time to visit James and I on your trip guys! We had such an awesome day, it was lovely to hang out with you both and hopefully you can come back again *cough*for good*cough* or we can come visit you in Malaysia!

We had to stop and pick up groceries on the way home and I spotted these pretty Christmas lights, I’m so obsessed with pretty lights XD

I want to cover our house in fairy lights like this.

Before I get back into delicious cake type things,  I believe I have found the most unclassy/creepy pizza advertisement ever. ‘Nuff said.

Back to classy, respectable things 😉

Just before Christmas we went to morning tea with my Mum at Hope Toun tea rooms. Every time I’ve walked past I’ve really wanted to go visit because the cakes look amazing in the window.

I don’t know if anyone could walk past this and not want some…

The place is decorated traditional Victorian style and it’s quite stunning.

The details are just lovely.

The tea was quite nice and it provided lots of opportunities for Bergamot photos XD

The breakfast I had of avocado, salmon and eggs on toast was really delicious. Best breakfast I’ve had in ages actually even though James spent most of it making immature jokes about the shape of the eggs and caviar.

Unfortunately the cake was quite disappointing 🙁

While they all looked fantastic, each of us noted that they were quite dry. Even the cheesecake was quite crumbly!

Quite nice with the cream on the side but there wasn’t enough of that for the whole slice.

As pretty as everything was I don’t think I would buy cake here again. I would get breakfast again but skip the cake next time!

Hope you’ve all had a wonderful week and you’re having a great weekend!