Into My Snow Globe

I've always thought it doesn't matter what sport you watch, if you watch it live you are guaranteed to get swept off your feet by the excitement of it all. Alley-Oop!

It feels like wherever PIC and I go, we always end up with a few favorite haunts. And this is normal, right? I sincerely believe we are innate creatures of habit. Unfortunately, couple that with my OC tendencies and you're in for a habit on overdrive. Homemade Baked Tahong that remind me of Fave Haunt #1 -- Dampa! Mmm baked tahong and butter garlic prawns...

The closest I ever got to rugby was playing tag rugby in Ireland. I was mediocre at it plus my team mates found it hard to pass the ball to me given my height. Whenever the taller ones did, it was almost always WAY over my head and I've had to leap up with a 50-50 chance to get the ball. So there were very few tries in my career plus one solidly embarrassing attempt that wasn't counted as it was a touchdown vs a valid try (hard lesson to learn in a tight game after a breath defying dash across the pitch and a celebratory jig over the try line). I guess I was more a "tagger" than a "tryer" you could say. Our Invite So when PIC rang me to ask if I wanted to see a real life Rugby game from the Vodafone Warriors' lounge, I said, "Hey sure, why not?".

I finally managed to spit out this last instalment of our Taupo excursion. Huka Prawn Park  is actually located in the same compound as the Huka Falls Jet office, literally just next door -- which is why it was so hard to avoid. VERY hard to avoid...

OK, so I'm still faffing about on all the meaty stuff but this is so much more important! Hello my lovelies... For those of you who know me, Ted Baker was a favourite resource of mine for office wear and party dresses while I resided in Dublin, Ireland. So imagine my excitement when I saw a "Coming Soon" sign at a yet-to-be-opened shop on the ground level of Britomart here in Auckland, with Ted's much beloved logo plastered on it. With my poor unassisted eyesight, I literally spotted it from at least 10 feet away and went sprinting closer to the glass panes just to confirm that my mind wasn't playing tricks on me. PIC barely knew what hit him. So August is now upon us and the store has opened. As anticlimactic as it sounds, it took me almost two weeks before I found my way to Mr Baker's Kiwi abode. It was lovely, but tiny, and an average of 30-40% more expensive than they are in the UK. There were a few items I'd scoped on their online store tha...

Ok, so I know I have a gajillion posts in backlog, but here I am again sharing bits of fluff.  Due to the popularity of my earlier "Cities" post, I thought you guys might be equally interested in PIC's own list of Top Ten Cities to visit. So here goes - On some random plane to some random place :P Tokyo Moscow + St Petersburg Berlin + Munich Monaco + Zurich Athens Rio de Janeiro + Argentina Barcelona Phnom Penh Beijing + Shanghai Morocco Now, despite being an auditor you might notice that Maths isn't exactly his strong suit. Neither is following directions. He also wanted me to mention that he's also interested in seeing Egypt, Seattle, Bangkok and Poland just in case he can still squeeze those in. Funny how there are at least 455 cities in the world with populations of over a million people but we still come up with the same five cities in our top ten (or in PIC's case -- expanded top ten) list.  I do have to say that with each year we see...

@ Schipol Airport Tokyo, Japan Barcelona, Spain - 2 failed attempts  Toronto, Canada Maui, Hawaii Dubai, UAE Monaco, French Riviera Zurich, Switzerland - 1 failed attempt Cairo, Egypt Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Crete or Athens, Greece Compared to most of our well-traveled friends, PIC and I are probably the least traveled. Looking at this list and seeing the number of cities I've missed from the European contingent is simply disheartening. Anyway, I'm having one of those moments where I sit in a corner dreaming I had just won the lotto and am now plotting how to spend my riches -- hence the list. One of these days I should get PIC to give me a list of his top 10 and post it here so you can compare. In the mean time hope my list and this  inspires you for your own next Top 10.