QT Museum Art Hotel – Wellington – New Zealand – February 2017

Another long weekend away in Wellington

Last weekend, I travelled to Wellington for a friend’s 50th birthday.  I met my friends Hamish and his wife Nicola in Beijing and we became very good friends, so when they invited me over for the special birthday, I booked my flight the same evening as I receive my invite.

I was wondering where to stay and Nicola said to me that the QT Museum Hotel was close to where she was staying and then I remembered when I visited Wellington last October that I had gone to the restaurant located in the hotel (Hippopotamus).  So again, immediately reserved that for three nights.

I booked a room with a balcony as I wanted to have Hamish and Nicola over for drinks on the Sunday night and what better way to do this than on a little balcony overlooking  the water (well it was a fair way off but it was there).  And when I arrived close by was a great supermarket where I was able to buy champagne, cheese, dips bread and biscuits for the event.

 The hotel is amazing, it’s pretty dark all throughout and has a really strange piece on the huge table just as you are about to register…it’s a skull, a gun and a bullet that looks like it has left the gun and about to hit the skull…interesting!!

My friends kindly picked me up from the airport and we decided to have a drink at the hotel bar prior to going out to dinner.  The bar was so lovely and if you join the rewards club of the hotel (free) then you receive a complimentary drink…excellent!!

My room was on the first floor and as I left the lift I immediately saw two fabulous chairs and artwork in a glass case…pretty cool!!!

And so I knew which door was mine, there was a very interesting door knob…actually everything in this hotel was interesting!

Downstairs there is a museum which I strolled through one afternoon…lots to see…

And all around the hotel are wonderful older pieces of furniture displayed with contemporary pieces of art…again all with the mood lighting so it makes the whole floor just that little bit more special when walking through.

I didn’t eat at the hotel this time, as my friends and I ate out at great restaurants (posts to follow), but I did have breakfast one morning and it was delicious…fresh home made hash browns, grilled tomato, fresh orange juice with toast and scrambled eggs (no photo but really delicious).

As the hotel was so close to the water, I walked every morning and got to see all the fabulous homes overlooking the water (again post to follow).

Another great long weekend in Wellington!!

Rubicon Restaurant – Canberra- ACT – Australia – November 2016

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ACT, Australia, canberra, Fine Dining, Rubicon Restaurant

Dinner with some visiting South Korean colleagues

In one of the outer suburbs of Canberra there is a lovely Italian restaurant called Rubicon and one night a friend and I took two of our international visitors there for dinner.

It’s a quaint little place that’s been around since 2000 and has four small dining rooms including a terrace which is lovely for small parities.  I have eaten here a few times and on this occasion, which was a Monday night, it was pretty quiet.

I don’t usually eat a great deal on week nights so ordered a lovely salad of fennel, orange, radicchio and hazelnuts; delicious.  I really love fennel.

For entree our visitors ordered the gruyère and chestnut twice cooked soufflé with tomato kasundi and labneh which they shared.

My Aussie friend Jon ordered the scallops and confit chicken with bacon jam, apple and calvados [which I now know is an apple brandy from the Normandy region in France].

So far the meals have been delicious.  Then our international guests ordered the chargrilled Wagyu rib eye with miso onions, boulangère, gentlemen’s relish and horseradish which again they shared.  I really have no idea what ‘gentlemen’s relish’ is…or why it’s called that but they loved their meal.

Jon ordered the duck breast with pickled blood plum, salt baked celeriac, beets, black eye beans, kale and duck brick…he loved this too…but again no idea what a ‘duck brick’ is….some restaurants just have strange names for things I think!!

Of course there were the obligatory fries with the meal….I would love to say I didn’t have any but I did have a few…

It was a rather quick meal as we had been out sightseeing all afternoon and I was a bit tired [getting too old to stay out late these days], but a lovely meal and the main thing is our international guests enjoyed themselves.

Annecy & Paris – France – 2008

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Annecy, Eiffel Tower, France, Paris

Two more places I visited whilst in France

Even though my friend Sandy and I only stayed in Annecy for about four hours in 2008, I fell in love with the place.  We actually stopped there to change trains on our way to Chamonix-Mt Blanc from Lyon so took the opportunity to have a quick look around.

We thought we could leave our luggage at the station but couldn’t find lockers so we trudged around with our suitcases; at least these days they have wheels.  We took a walk around the lake which was just beautiful and it was autumn so the leaves on the trees were such fabulous colours.

I just wished we had more time!! But the other city I love is of course Paris!!  This was our last stop before we returned home to Australia and Sandy and I spent about four days there, staying in a small hotel where we could walk to the sights along the Paris streets.

Of course our first day we went to see the ‘must see’ sights.

The Eiffel Tower; both during the day and at sunset…

The Arc de Triomphe…

As well as many others but mostly I enjoyed walking along the river and though some beautiful grounds…

 

 

I loved the French architecture as I have mentioned in my other posts on France and the buildings in Paris were no different…just lovely!

 

Two places I had to visit during my stay were The Louvre and The Rodin Museum; both I loved.  We arrived at The Louvre when it opened and ran to see the painting of Mona Lisa then onto see Venus de Milo and some of the Impressionist paintings. What a spectacular place The Louvre is.

Then next stop was to see the sculptures and gardens at The Rodin Museum – this has been on my Bucket List for ages!

 

 

Walking around the streets of Paris is wonderful; so much to see; the many shops, interesting people and great French bakeries as well as the famous Maxim’s where obligatory items were purchased.

 

But lucky we were walking as otherwise where on earth would we have parked our car???

A great trip…maybe I can return someday!

 

Wharf Road Restaurant – Nowra – New South Wales – Australia – December -2016

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Australia, New South Wales, Wharf Road Restaurant

One of my favourite things – dinner with friends (overlooking the river)

Just before christmas last year, four of us from Canberra travelled just over two hours to the south coast of New South Wales for a weekend away at our friend’s home.  We decided to have an early dinner at a local restaurant overlooking the water about half an hour from our friend’s home…

The restaurant is really lovely and pretty relaxed with a lovely view through open doors and windows.  We sat in the large dining room which has a modern and light atmosphere with  wooden tables overlooking the water.

We were immediately seated at our table and I was one of the lucky ones to have a view of the water.

Unfortunately that is where the quick service stopped!  It took quite some time for our waiter to return to take our drink order then even longer for those drinks to arrive.  Some of my friends ordered beers, others including me, wine and someone else a cocktail which I had a sip of and was quite refreshing.

Whilst we waited (and waited) for our drinks, we chose our entrees and main courses to ensure we were ready for when our waiter returned with our drinks.

My friends started off with several serves of oysters natural with lemon and sherry vinegar dressing, also a plate of the tiradito of ocean trout over crispy tacos with a yellow chilli dressing and then the new season asparagus with pecora dairy goats curd and a fried egg dressing (a lot of dressing actually).  Two of my friends absolutely loved the ocean trout on the tacos!!

I wasn’t that hungry so I didn’t order an entree and had the summer salad with witlof and  blood orange pomegranate for my main course and some of the communal hand cut chips with two different sauces.

The menu was great for my friends as it has fresh local seafood as well as Wagyu beef.  One of the specialities of the restaurant is the alpaca from nearby farms which is dry-aged on the premises in a custom Himalayan salt brick cool room. Interesting but definitely not for me; I like alpacas (or any animal) running around paddocks not on a plate.

My friends ordered the pasture feed local wagyu beef with roasted beetroot and smoked carrot puree and the zucchini flowers with spiced ricotta, preserved lemon risotto and quinoa crunch.

Also the hot smoked blue eye trevalla with a white bean puree, broad beans, parsnip chips and an anchovy crumb, the linguini with mussels, clams with yellow chilli and lemon and finally the barbecue prawns with tamarillo salsa, smoked eggplant and lime.

All of the friends I was at the restaurant with have been there before and love the food.  For me, it was a nice evening but it’s another restaurant with some vegetarian dishes but each one had some sort of cheese accompaniment or included in the dish…so it was a limited menu for me (lucky I wasn’t hungry).  Views were lovely though as was the company of my good friends.

Victoria Harbour – Hong Kong – 2010 & 2011

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Boat Cruise, Harbour Cruise, Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour

A day and night cruise on Victoria Harbour

When I lived in Beijing, I would travel to Hong Kong regularly, sometimes for work and other times just to get out of the smog.  One weekend I booked a cruise on Victoria Harbour which not only went around the harbour but also a little further out to the container port and the Kap Shui Mun bridge.

Once on-board we got a good view of HK Island and Kowloon especially the Island’s skyline albeit not on a particularly clear day.

The cruise lasted about an hour and along the way we sailed past the Kwai Tsing Container Terminal, which is the fourth busiest port in the world with Shanghai as number one.

(source: Google images)

Then we arrived at our turning point; the Kap Shui Mun Bridge, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world that transports both road and railway traffic, with the upper deck used for motor vehicles and the lower deck used for both vehicles and the MTR.

And on one other occasion, a friend and I took the harbour cruise in the evening on a red sail Chinese junk boat.

This cruise also lasted about an hour and we sat on lounges looking at the city skyline and at 8pm, as happens every night, we watched the ‘Symphony of Lights’, Hong Kong’s famous evening light show.

Hong Kong has quite a few harbour cruises on offer and they are definitely worth the time.  There is one cruise I would like to do and it’s to see the pink dolphins.  A friend has and said it was wonderful to see these beautiful creatures up close.

(source: Google images)