Weekend in Manchester!

I gained a lot from my trip to Australia - confidence, life experience, a new perspective of the world, a thirst to visit new places and time spent with my aunt, uncle and cousins (and their adorable pets!). In addition to that, I made two friends who I am incredibly glad came into my life. The BUNAC group flight was a fantastic way of going about my trip, and I had a lot of fun with the entire group. In a situation like that, you are thrown together and bond quickly because of the intensity of the situation. You are travelling to the other side of the world, leaving your family, friends and comfort zone behind you, staying in hostels and getting to grips with new cities. It's easy to make friends because you need people while you are there, it's just too overwhelming to do it alone. My friendship with Gemma and Emily, however, wasn't like that - they quickly became real, proper, for-the-long-haul type friends. Sometimes you just meet people and know they were meant to come into your life, and I'm so very glad I met these girls.

Top Left - Hong Kong (2013), Bottom Left - Sydney (2013)
Right - Manchester (2014)

Okay, soppy nonsense over for now! Emily, Gemma and I have kept in touch by all the wonders of technology since I left Australia eighteen months ago - phone calls, texts, Skype, FaceTime and Facebook kept us connected, but we hadn't seen each other in person since we were together in Sydney. After months of saying "we have to catch up", now that all three of us were back home, a few weeks ago I booked a trip to Manchester and off I went for a long awaited catch up!

I got the train down on Saturday morning at the very early hour of 6am - this gave me pretty much two full days in Manchester. During the first few hours we completely lost track of time, spending a few hours just talking and catching up properly! We then headed to Media City, which I was so excited to see, and went for lunch in a cool, studenty place called The Dockyard. I ordered a burger and sweet potato fries, which were particularly good. I do love a sweet potato chip.

After lunch we took a wander over to the Imperial War Museum, which had a fascinating exhibition called From Street to Trench for us to explore. You weren't really supposed to take photos in the exhibition, but after that we headed up to the viewing platform where I got extremely snap happy! This sky high platform has an amazing view of Media City, and a slightly unnerving floor with mesh see-through areas to show just how high up you are! I've included a snap of Old Trafford here too - I'm not much of a football fan, but it would have been weird not to! Check out the Corrie set too!!

Then it was time to head home, chill out for a while and cover even more life topics with some snacks, before getting dressed up to head out for cocktails!

We went to three bars in total (the first of which I forget the name of!) but the others were called Apotheca and Hula. In Apotheca, Emily and I both opted for a delicious, strawberry milkshake-esque cocktail, which was amazing!! It was too dark to get any proper photos in Hula, but it was so cool - a beachy, Hawaii themed bar-come-club (there was a dancefloor of sorts, but it was more bar like in atmosphere!), with fruity cocktails that made you feel like you were on holiday, and an actual fish tank built into the wall!

Having finally got to bed some time after half past two, Sunday morning was a sleepy, chatty, tea drinking affair, sitting in our pyjamas as the hours disappeared, reminding me so much of the weeks we all woke up in a Sydney hostel together and planned what we were going to do with our day! The afternoon was planned in advance, and it involved cake - what could be better! We headed to a seriously cute little part of Manchester called Didsbury (forgive my total lack of knowledge of English geography, it might be much more famous than I'm giving it credit for!), which is full to the brim of cute little coffee shops and restaurants. Honestly, I could imagine myself living in Didsbury (not that I have any plans to move away any time soon!) - cute cul-de-sacs, tree filled parks, quirky cafes and vintage shops. Blogger paradise, basically.

We went to Art of Tea - it was what can only be described as the cutest coffee shop I've ever been in in my life! In addition to serving cake, milkshakes, an array of brunch items and an obligatory selection of teas and coffees, this place has a vintage book shop hidden at the back. I went for lemon cake and a strawberry milkshake. It was amazing.

colour co-ordinated shelves ♥

Next up was a walk in some of Didsbury's lovely parks, bursting with Autumn colours...

5pm came far too soon and it was time for me to jump on the train back home! I had the loveliest weekend, and really enjoyed Manchester - I'll definitely be heading down again at some point over the next year! Thank you Gemma and Emily, if you're reading this, for the best weekend! See you in Scotland in a few months!!!

Thanks for reading, hope you all had a great weekend!

Sydney Continued - The Chinese Garden of Friendship

One of my favourite places in Sydney was the Chinese Garden of Friendship. I had read about it before I even left Scotland and it sounded as if it would be right up my street... and I wasn't wrong!

Hidden away in the middle of an insanely busy city is this beautiful garden, complete with ponds full of koi fish, small temple-like buildings and gorgeous plants and trees. It cost us $6 each for entry, and then you are free to look around for as long as you like. We went on a Thursday morning, which seemed like quite a quiet time to go, and it was nice to just wander around and take it all in without having to rush for the sake of the people behind you!






















I think this is such a lovely idea!


We thought this would be such a nice place to get married!

The Chinese Garden of Friendship is just a five minute walk from Darling Harbour, and located within easy walking distance of Sydney's China Town. It's one of the loveliest, most peaceful places I've ever been and I highly recommend stopping in! You don't have to spend too long there to get great value for the mere $6 entry fee!

I'm now up in the gorgeous Port Douglas in Queensland and have some very exciting photos to show you all soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Thanks for reading, hope you are all well! :)

Sydney Part 3: Taronga Zoo!

On Monday this week Gemma, Emily and I set off on a trip to Taronga Zoo. It wasn't the cheapest of days, but it was definitely something we all wanted to see and so we splashed out (on the cheapest deal we could find!) and got a water taxi across to this beautiful Sydney zoo.


View of the Opera House from the water taxi!


Welcome to the zoo!


Cable Car up to the zoo!


Spot the Koala!


Hello little lizard


Feeding time for the Giraffes


A gorgeous Indian Elephant.


Me and my elephant pal.


The binturong (often referred to as 'bear cats')


One of the majestic tigers.

The zoo was absolutely beautiful, but if I could give anyone who is planning to visit it a piece of advice (or two!) it would be take plenty to drink with you and wear comfortable shoes!! The zoo is absolutely huge and a lot of it is uphill, so you need to have comfortable feet. I have been a total failure in terms of the footwear I have packed, and so by the end of the day my feet (which were in completely flat sandals) were killing me! In terms of taking juice with you, that is crucial both in tems of hydration and saving money - we packed a picnic for lunch but I seemed to forget about a drink and was charged $5 for a bottle of Sprite... that's right. $5!!! Otherwise I have nothing but praise for the zoo! The location is gorgeous, with a stunning view across the water to the city, and it has some amazing animals!


The view from the zoo to the city!

I really loved the nocturnal animals, which are housed in an amazing building you sadly (but understandably) can't take photos in. It is essentially simulated night time during the day, dark and with lots of night sounds (although we weren't sure if that was for our benefit or the animals!) and while the zoo is closed at night they light it as if it is daytime. The kangaroos let us down a smidgen in that there was only one out in the enclosure and it was lying down, refusing to face us, but the wallabys and koalas were in good form, and so cute! There was also an amazing sea lion show, which I totally forgot to take any photos of, but you can see some of it in my vlog from that day, which I'll link below!

My favourites though had to be the meerkats! I'm a huge meerkat fan, and they didn't disappoint!


Cheeky little meerkats!

All in all the zoo was one of my favourite touristy places so far - definitely worth visitng if you get the chance :)

Check out my vlog - which includes my trip to Summer Bay! - to see more of the gorgeous animals and more of the lovely zoo itself!



Thanks for reading guys, hope you are all well! :)

Sydney Part One!!

So, after an amazing three days in Hong Kong, we arrived in Sydney on the 11th March. It's hard to believe it's been two weeks now - so sorry for the delay in getting this post written! Be warned, this is a photo heavy post!

We checked into our hostel, the Sydney Central YHA, which kind of spoilt me for future hostels because it really was lovely. It even had a cinema in it!! When I say cinema, I mean a big room, with a big screen and some comfy chairs and bean bags, showing films that have been out for a while - but even that's pretty fancy for a hostel I'd say! And with breakfast like this, who could ever complain!



Day One we had out welcome presentation from Work n Holiday, the partner office for BUNAC in Sydney. With offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, I cannot recommend them enough - they were brilliant. They set up bank accounts for us, sorted out tax file numbers, got us each an international sim card and prepped us on job application and travel plans. We can use the internet in their office, either on their computers or our own laptops/iPads etc, and they have an amazing CV/Resume builder on their website which we have login details for, and it helped us get an Aussie ready CV together in no time.

Days two and three were the RSA and Barista course - while the RSA day was a little dry (six hours of theory, basically), it's definitely worth doing if you're considering bar work over here, and the Barista course was fun, but I was terrible at it! Apparently making fancy coffee isn't quite my forte!

Anyway, on to the fun touristy stuff!! A couple of days after we arrived, Nicole and I found Darling Harbour by accident on a late afternoon walk - it is absolutely beautiful!!




That weekend Gemma, Emily, Emma and I took a ferry out to Manly Beach - it was a gorgeous day and the beach is so lovely, and we had a great view of the Sydney Opera House on the ferry ride across!




After our stroll at Manly Beach we had a bite to eat and headed to Shelly Beach, a beautiful, smaller but busy beach just a ten minute walk away. We spent a lovely hour just reading on the grassy hill beside the sand and taking it all in before we got on the ferry back to the city - look at that view of the Harbour Bridge!



That evening we all went down to Darling Harbour to watch the Saturday Night Fireworks, which are a weekly event. They were absolutely spectacular!




So that's it for part one! Stay tuned for part two, which is going to include my trip to Summer Bay and the amazing Taronga Zoo!

Thanks for reading, be sure to check out the vlog version of this post too! :)

The Hong Kong Stopover - Part Two

After our trip to Stanley Market, we headed off for an authentic Chinese dinner - a little bit different to the Chinese food we're used to in the UK! We had a good chat about our adventure that day, and then headed off to get the ferry across the water to see the beautiful lit up Hong Kong city skyline at night!


The main road and city from the bridge to the ferry!


The view from the boat!

The sights were absolutely stunning, and it was such a great experience to see the city like that.

The next day, Emily, Gemma, Sarah and I set off bright and early to visit the statue of the Buddha and the monastery on Lantau Island. After a quick stop off to buy some makeup, (which I have shown in my Hong Kong Part 2 vlog) we made our way to the underground, and got ourselves just a tiny bit lost! Thankfully a friendly Australian woman noticed us studying our map intensely and pointed us in the right direction! After buying our tickets, we were on our way!


On the underground

Although it took a while, the underground was a great experience - we felt quite proud of ourselves for navigating it as it isn't the simplest of subways!

Unfortunately, by the time we reached our stop we didn't have enough time to go and see the Buddha - we couldn't believe it! The queue to get on to the cable car to get there would have taken 45minutes, and the bus took 40mins there and back. With the second part of our tour commencing at 2.30pm from the hotel, we just didn't quite have long enough, which was a real shame! But we had the chance to explore another little corner of Hong Kong, found an amazing shopping centre and had ourselves a nice little adventure nonetheless!


Sarah, Gemma, Emily and me after our little adventure!

That afternoon, we went on another amazing tour. We had packed up and left the hotel, which was such a lovely place to stay - our rooms were compact but really nice, with a lovely bathroom, comfortable beds and nice breakfast! Here's an obligatory snapshot of the room, and my little travel toiletries!!



First stop on the afternoon tour was the stunning Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon. This was breathtaking. There were statues of all 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac, so of course I posed with mine - the Snake (1989).



It was such a beautiful place. People were praying all around us, it almost felt like we were intruding on such a spiritual experience, but I absolutely loved it there.


Wong Tai Sin Temple

We then moved on to the Chi Lin Nunnery - I would DEFINITELY recommend this if you ever visit Hong Kong, it's stunning. Such a peaceful place in the middle of a busy city!



The Chi Lin Nunnery

After the nunnery we visited the Jade markets in Kowloon. Jade is considered lucky in this part of the world, so there were trinkets of all kinds available there! I bought myself a little frog made of jade to carry around with me - isn't he cute?!



So that's it for my Hong Kong posts - after the market, and a quick bite to eat, we headed to the airport for a 6hour wait for our flight to Sydney!

Hong Kong was an amazing experience, and I can't recommend it enough. I'm so glad we had three days to explore, rather than an hour long stopover, so having a whole week or so to see more of it would be incredible!

Now I'm here in Sydney, and the first post is coming soon - so keep your eyes peeled! I've also put up my first Hong Kong vlog, which is on my YouTube channel, and I'll embed it in the previous post too! The second video is coming soon and will be linked in this post once it goes up :) Thanks so much for reading guys!