New Zealand - the "OMG LOOK AT THE KIWI" edition

Previously, I flew to Wellington to stay with Kim, and there was much rejoicing.

The day after we went to Te Papa and to see Thor: TDW, it rained. Like, a lot. All. Freaking. Day. And not even the kind of summery rain where it's still warm enough that you don't object to walking to the bus stop and going to do something indoors. Nope, the wintery kind where the rain is horizontal and it's freezing cold and all you want to do is curl up on the sofa under a blanket. Obviously, we stayed home, played Lego Marvel and ate an awful lot of junk food. We may also have watched an episode of Agents of SHIELD and mocked it for being terrible and contrivance-ridden.

My last full day in Wellington, luckily, featured no rain at all. Instead, it featured sunburn. Because when we left the house, it looked like it was about to pour with rain, so I put sunscreen on but didn't bother to take it with me. THEN THE SUN CAME OUT. Sigh...

Anyway, we caught the bus into the city, picked up some sandwiches, and walked the 4-ish kilometres to the zoo. We started out with a visit to the otters and the penguins, neither of whom were anywhere to be seen. So we headed up through the kiwi enclosure - also nowhere to be seen, but this was probably due to an extremely loud small child. Luckily, some of the teeny monkeys were more accommodating:

From there, we went to a display by a red-tailed black cockatoo who was zooming all over the arena and who could do little puzzles with stackable cups and things in order to get treats. Sadly, there was a VERY screamy small child present who desperately wanted to steal the cockatoo's toys and kept running across the floor towards it. This made the cockatoo and the zoo keepers very nervous, but apparently small child's parents had no fucks to give because they basically did nothing...

Our ears needed a break after that, and it was almost time for the chimpanzee talk, so we headed up to the top of the hill to eat our sandwiches and hang out with the chimpanzees and a great view of the city for a while:

We were basically the only ones there until about 30 seconds before the talk started when an entire class of unruly grade 1 kids turned up and swarmed all over the place. YAY... Luckily, the chimps getting their lunch was entertainment enough to shut them up a little. Said lunch consisted of the keeper tossing out pieces of fruit one at a time and the chimpanzees having to catch each piece. And let me tell you, those chimpanzees were EXCELLENT at it. They could easily play cricket with catching skills like that!

Other highlights of the afternoon included my all time favourites, the red pandas:

And the sunbear, who looked incredibly shocked about something:

We also saw a moronic 20-something guy banging on the glass of the baboon enclosure, causing a lot of the juvenile baboons to hurl themselves at the glass with their teeth bared. He thought it was hilarious. I'm still convinced that one day, he's going to wake up at 3am to find a baboon ripping his face off, because they were NOT impressed...

Eventually, we headed back to the kiwi house for the keeper talk. And it was FABULOUS. The kiwi that they had out only has one leg because he got stuck in a trap meant for feral cats (I think...) and it broke his leg so badly that it had to be amputated. They made him a prosthesis, but apparently he prefers to hop, which is basically the cutest thing ever. If you're interested, you can read more about Tahi here. Anyway, he was about a foot away from me and he was so stinking adorable that I probably could have watched him all day. So if you're ever in Wellington, you should go to the zoo and check out the kiwi keeper talk!

Also, you should go to the zoo because they have FABULOUS signage:

After a detour through the gift shop where I bought a kiwi shaped cookie cutter and a stuffed toy kiwi with wonky legs (I bought him for Little Miss A, but ended up keeping him myself because REASONS), we caught the bus back into town, grabbed ourselves a couple of scoops of ice cream, and walked around to Oriental Bay to sit on the beach for a little while. In keeping with my curse, there was naked New Zealander there, although this one was at least a small child rather than a creepy grown man...

We wandered back through the city and took a few obnoxious selfies on the way, because OBVS.

My flight the next day was at around lunchtime. It was insaaaaaaaaaaaanely windy so walking down the hill to the bus with my suitcase was a rather interesting experience - rather like being dragged along by a very enthusiastic dog... Still, we made it to the airport in plenty of time and, after getting rid of my suitcase and checking in, we headed to Donut King, because of reasons.

Stolen from Kim's Tumblr.

And then we sat there listening to flights being cancelled because the wind was reaching insane levels... Fortunately(??) for me, they were only cancelling the propeller flights, not the jet flights, so my flight wasn't cancelled. Takeoff, however, got a little bit interesting. Especially as I was trapped in a middle seat and the woman on the aisle demanded like 14 sick bags "just in case"... O.o

Eventually, I made it to Auckland, found my luggage, walked the million miles (read: 1km) to the international terminal, checked in, had lunch, abused the free wifi as much as possible, and flew back to Melbourne. THE END. And only four months after my trip ended! ;)

K xx

Marvel vs. DC - the Lego edition

I make absolutely no secret of the fact that when it comes to superheroes, I am one thousand percent a Marvel fangirl. I've never found Batman or Superman even remotely interesting in any format and, as discussed previously, I've mostly found the recent crop of DC movies to be far too serious and as a result, a little bit shit.

Last year, my brother C got me an XBox for my 30th birthday. And one of the games that he got me was Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes. I played it, and it was fun and all. But there always seemed to be something missing for me. It wasn't until Lego Marvel Superheroes came out that I was able to put my finger on exactly what it was. Obviously, I vlogged about it.



And I'd like to once again thank Youtube for offering me a selection of delightful screencaps - two in which I had my eyes closed and one in which I looked like I was about to sneeze... Some day, decent screencap, you will be mine. SOME DAY...

Have you played these games? Would you agree?

K xx

New Zealand - the flailing with excitement edition

Previously, Ness and I hung out with glowworms in Waitomo.

The day after our great glowworm expedition, we were on the road bright and early because we had an almost three hour drive to Auckland ahead of us, and planes to catch. After some slower-than-intended travel due to crappy weather, we made it to the airport with enough time to have lunch - at 11am! - before heading to our respective flights. Ness was bound for Christchurch and the south island, while I was heading for Wellington and Kim(!!!!).

The flight was relatively unexciting, which is interesting because apparently Wellington landings can be a little on the...unexpected side. But ours was pretty chilled. I met Kim at the airport with much excited squealing and hugging. It was something along these lines:

Source

After a quick detour through the terminal to see the giant Gollum, we headed out to the bus and back to Kim's. Once there and prepared with copious quantities of snacks, we spent the afternoon snarking our way through the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special, which was even more terrible than either of us had anticipated. Thanks a lot, Moffat... Then we decided to watch Captain America as a palate cleanser.

That was followed by a few levels of Lego Marvel Superheroes, because we're cool like that. And because we're nerds awesome, our playing went something like this:

Me: Who am I? Oh, I'm Tony. Okay. Whoa, I can blow things up, wheeeeeee!! *flies around randomly*
Kim: Shit, I accidentally turned back into Bruce. HULK OUT, BRUCE, YOU LITTLE SHIT.
Me: I'm stuck in a corner. Why am I stuck in a corner??? Oh, because Abomination breathed on me and his bad breath knocked me across the room. Okay. Sure.
Kim: Oh my God. I just made Cap twerk. I'm just going to stand here twerking for the rest of the level, okay?
Me: Ugh, Reid Richards, nobody likes you. OH MY GOD. KIM. KIM. KIM KIM KIM.
Kim: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. WHAT IS THAT???
Me: I think he just turned himself into a pair of pliers. I AM DEAD.
Kim: Of COURSE Clark Gregg is the voice of Coulson. Of COURSE.
Me: Oh shit, I just shot Clint's hair off. Aaaaaand he fell off a cliff. Whoops?

So yeah. It was awesome, basically.

The next day, we headed into the city and wandered around the shops for a while before heading to Te Papa. We started out looking at the creep-tastic giant squid and the other natural history stuff before heading upstairs to the special exhibition of Aztec awesomeness, which of course is now coming to Melbourne for the Winter Masterpieces. (It's awesome, you should go) Then we wandered around the rest of the museum, looking at art and cultural stuff and a small child who had light up gumboots that we both immediately decided we wanted.

And the sun decided to come out for approximately five minutes YAY:

On our way out, we went through the gift shop where I found this rather spectacular Christmas decoration. I was half tempted to buy a whole bunch of them, but ultimately decided that would be overkill:

We headed back to the city centre to buy tickets to see Thor: The Dark World (because OBVIOUSLY. Also because Tom Hiddleston), and then ended up at a pub/brewery/thing on the waterfront with a few drinks and a highly nutritious dinner of chips and wedges. We met one of Kim's friends from work there, who hadn't seen the movie before. Which is how we ended up spending a lot of the movie laughing over all of her reactions to the things we knew were coming. It was magical, and someone needs to hurry up and invent teleportation before Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes out so that Kim and I can see it together.

Next up, the rest of Wellington, featuring noisy children and a lot of kiwis. (The birds, not the fruit)

K xx

Turning 30? It's pretty great - Part 2

So. I already told you about my actual birthday. But I didn't tell you about the rest of the extra long weekend of awesomeness because I was a dirty slacker at the end of last week (aka I spent every night playing Lego Batman on my shiny new XBox and totally forgot that I had other stuff to do. Whoops?). So I shall rectify that now!

FRIDAY:
Got up stupidly early and headed into the city to meet Nikki. There was a small degree of excited flailing before we jumped on the train and headed down to Flinders Street. From there, we took a wee jaunt across the river to the Eureka Tower. Once we'd laughed ourselves stupid at how ridiculous the "look through this tube to see the thing we're talking about" viewers were (half of them need to be updated as new buildings are now in the way, and one was for the tram restaurant. Which moves...), we headed over to Crown to marvel at the hideous atrium. Sadly, I didn't time our visit properly so we didn't get to see the fountains in action.

From there, we hopped on the City Circle and up to Melbourne Central for a spot of lunch, before heading across to the State Library to ogle the La Trobe Reading Room and visit the exhibitions. Then we headed up to the Royal Exhibition Building, down to Elizabeth Street and Minotaur, and then home via Royal Arcade. The evening was spent playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean on XBox because we're cool like that.

SATURDAY:
A slow start, followed by heading off to see Iron Man 3. It was completely phenomenal, and it's possible I ate an entire box of Junior Mints during the course of the film... That night was my proper 30th, which took place at a Mexican restaurant in the city with 22 of my bestest friends. It turned out to be happy hour when we arrived, which was very welcome news. It also led to one of the whopping TWO photos taken that night:

Yup. That happened. Also, mmmmmmm, daiquiri...

Dinner was delicious nachos, followed by fajitas, followed by churros. Om nom nom nom nom. Dinner was an absolute blast, and it meant I got to catch up with a bunch of people I don't get to see very often. Which, WIN. And because I'm totally geriatric now, we were home by just after midnight.

SUNDAY:
The morning started with a jaunt around the Tan, which took longer than it usually would on account of Little Miss A was with us, and she wanted to stop for hot chocolate/biscuits/a wander around the children's garden. After a wee sojourn at home with Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (because we're cool), we headed into the MCG to see Hawthorn play North Melbourne. I'm pretty sure Nikki was HORRIBLY confused, but it was a pretty great game. It was much less of a walkover than I'd expected, for starters! It pretty much came down to the final siren, so that was fun. Plus, there was a very vocal Hawthorn supporter behind us who kept yelling her advice to the players every couple of minutes. Hilarious.

MONDAY:
Nikki's flight back to Sydney wasn't until 8.45pm, so we headed into the city and went to the Hollywood costume exhibition at ACMI. It was AMAZING - definitely worth the money it cost to get in. It included costumes from The Wizard of Oz, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Braveheart, The Dark Knight Rises, Gone with the Wind, Gladiator, The Addams Family Values, Fight Club, Brokeback Mountain, The Queen, and Pirates of the Caribbean. And not costumes from the extras or anything. Costumes from the main characters - costumes that you recognise in a split second.

Personally, I thought the sound spill in the exhibition space could have been better controlled, but it was still complete and utterly incredible. Although Nikki and I did nearly die laughing when we realised that the mannequin they'd put Mel Gibson's Braveheart costume on had lady legs. How could we tell? First of all, they were very shapely. Secondly, they were doing that weird pose that's meant to make your legs look thinner but which mostly makes you look like you need to pee. You know, the one that actresses do on the red carpet all the time. Basically, picture Taylor Swift's legs on Mel Gibson's body. Yeeeeeeeah... We even went back to all the other male mannequins with exposed legs to check if they had lady legs too. And NOPE. Just Mel.

Then we had a wee spot of lunch on Degraves Street and headed for home, where we spent our last few hours of pretending we didn't have a million assignments to do playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Because OBVIOUSLY. We also learnt that it's possible to kill someone through a jail cell door in the game. When you're a dog. (Sorry, Nikki.......)

So there you have it. I think I planned and executed a kickass 30th birthday pretty damned well, don't you?!

K xx

Turning 30? It's pretty great

#92 on my 101 in 1001 list was to plan a kickarse 30th birthday. I think I not only planned but executed said kickarse birthday in fine form. I mean, it pretty much went for five days, so how could it not be totally awesome?!

THURSDAY:
My actual birthday. I had grand plans for sleeping in, but some butthead down the street decided that 7.30am on a public holiday was an excellent time to use an angle grinder. FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. So I wasn't particularly impressed about that. But it improved dramatically from there. After breakfast and presents (including the shiny new toy I showed off in yesterday's vlog), we headed down to St Kilda for lunch at Donovan's.

If you haven't been to Donovan's, you really have to. But for a special occasion, because it's not even remotely in the category of cheap. It's worth every penny though, because the food is AMAZING. While I neglected to take any photos of me hanging out with my favourite people on the planet, I *did* take quite a few photos of the food. Because OBVIOUSLY.

My entree - tomato, caramelised onion and goat's curd tart with balsamic reduction

My main - chicken and mushroom pie

Some kind of potato construction of awesomeness from Paulie's main course

The cake we brought with us

My dessert - jaffa fondant

The platter they put together for Em's little sister with no notice

The inside of my fondant. AMAZING.

And in the course of lunch, my little brother C gave me my birthday present, which came with a card that said "I hope Mum and Dad don't get too annoyed at me giving you this......" I opened the present to discover an XBox!! *flail* And then Paulie gave me a bunch of games for it. So obviously, once we got home from our over FOUR HOUR lunch, I set up the XBox and spent the night of my birthday playing Lego Batman 2. Because OBVIOUSLY.

Aaaaaaaaaaand now that I've made you all incredibly hungry and exposed just how much of a dork I secretly am, I think I'm going to split this into two parts or this is going to end up thesis length!

K xx