Back to where it all began....

Seventeen years ago, two bright eyed and bushy tailed young kids met and fell in love whilst working at The Museum Hotel - you can read the whole story in the posts called 'The Original MNM's - how it all began'. It was my first job out of university after finishing my Japanese degree, and Mark's 'year-out' getting some practical experience whilst studying for his travel management degree at the University of Brighton.

We worked not even six months together in the end before Mark's time was up and he had to head back to the UK. It was at this point that we both realised that we had fallen for each other big time and that despite the fact a long distance relationship was a big ask, we were prepared to give it a go.

So when we thought about a last hurrah couples night out in Wellington, we could think of no more fitting place to go than Hippopotamus - the acclaimed restaurant that is now part of the Museum Hotel.

We knew the owner Chris Parkin well back in the day when working there, and even back then he had grand visions for what he wanted the hotel to become. Although it took some years to get there, I'd say looking around he has more than achieved that dream now.

The hotel is sumptuous and eclectic, sprinkled with very unique works of art all around the lobby and throughout the hotel. Hippopotamus has been a Cuisine magazine finalist of the year and with their experienced French chef and attentive waiting staff, it is certainly a cut above the rest in terms of even some of the nicer restaurants in Wellington.

We had thought of doing the degustation menu but with Mark not a big fan of seafood and my tummy doing who knows what?! we thought it might be safer to eat off the a-la-carte menu.

From the moment we arrived, we felt as if we were the most important people in the place. With super attentive waiting staff who explained everything to us and also brought out some superb complimentary aperitif choices to clean the palate in between our courses.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the most delectable food we have ever set our eyes and bellies on.

My starter:

Beetroot cured Atlantic pickled scallop's, wasabi caviar, lemon snow and butter milk gel

Mark's starter:

Duck liver parfait with caramelised onion sablé, baby poached pear, duck ham, mulled wine 

My main (an adventurous choice but it all tasted A.M.A.Z.I.N.G: 

Deboned rack of lamb, confit lamb neck, sautéed sweetbread, tempura brain, Berbere flavoured labneh yoghurt and harissa sauce

Mark's main:

Silver Fern Reserve eye fillet, beef cheek cannelloni, garlic cream, glazed short rib, sautéed bone marrow and cèpes jus with truffled creamed potato

 My dessert (even that striped disc was made of edible chocolate!)

Kalamansi and vanilla mousse, raspberry and dark chocolate crémeux, raspberry sorbet and coulis

Mark's dessert (the most spectacular specimen of a creme brûlée)

Crème brûlée served with rhubarb financier and lime sorbet

It was a super special night out. I almost can't believe we've never been here before but in some ways I'm glad we saved the best till last. It's an occasion that will linger on in our memories long past the moment when we no longer call this fabulous city home.

The things we do for love...

I'm the first to say that I'm blessed to have a very patient hubby.

One who doesn't mind going out on hare-brained photography sessions in all kinds of weather for a start.

Like on this night when it was blowing an absolute gale - but you wouldn't know it from the smile on his face as we slid down the steep sand dunes to Back Beach.

It was rather therapeutic - the black sand underneath the top layer that had been warmed by the sun was rather chilly under foot - it felt rather like an ice cold bath for the toes!

I'm not sure exactly what he was thinking when I took this shot of him holding onto my tripod so it didn't blow away in the fierce wind but I think it probably went a little something like this.....

That being said...I'm sure he would be the first to admit that he does get to see some spectacular sights for his efforts tagging along as my chief photographer assistant and bodyguard.

Sights like this for example!

We've been to Back Beach twice now for sunset - both very different experiences. On this particular night the heavenly rays were out of this world.

Illuminating the darkening beach in the purest of light.

And although the sun setting over the horizon wasn't quite the epic sight as last time, it still took the time to peek through the thick bank of storm clouds as if to say 'Hey don't forget about me....I'm still here'.

It was a most unusual sight to end to the night to be sure.

Much as I sometimes love the solitude of an early morning session when I'm alone with my thoughts in a spectacular location like Lake Rotomanu, there's also something rather special about sharing a sight like this with your loved one to really top off a great day!

The Amazing Anniversary Race: how we raced around the world without even leaving Wellington

It's no secret that hubby and I love travel. Sure, settling down and having two kids has made it a little more difficult to gallivant all over the world but we do still manage to get out and about and see new spots around NZ these days on a regular basis - which is still travel - it's just closer to home!

I decided to spring a little anniversary surprise on my beloved for our 11th wedding anniversary on 21 Feb. This year it fell on a Saturday night so it worked out well to be able to incorporate some activities together around Wellington as well as dinner out. We are also big fans of the Amazing Race TV series and I thought it would be fun to jog his memory and let us reminisce about some of our more memorable travel experiences around the world.



He thought we were going to Taste restaurant in Khandallah and he knew I had something planned beforehand but he didn't know what! As we drove down the street and around the corner, I pulled in and handed him his first Amazing Race card. If I'm honest, he wasn't overly thrilled to begin with. I think he thought I might be planning on making him do things out in public that would embarrass him which I definitely wasn't intending! Anyway, after a bit of a rough start to the night, it gradually got better as we went along. So off we went:

Clue 1: Find and drive to the place you might go if you wanted to get a visa to visit the country where we saw elephants and turtles in the wild.


This was of course Sri Lanka - Mark had been working for Kuoni Travel in the UK in his first job out of university, and the top sales person after their first three months on the job was up for a holiday. Mark and his mate Dan were neck and neck all the way to the last week - so they decided that no matter who won they would take the other person on the holiday and pay for the partners to come along too. So as it turned out the four of us had the most amazing week or so away in Sri Lanka and the Maldives in May 2001.

We drove to the Sri Lankan Embassy at 32a Izard Street Khandallah - which was the most unassuming embassy I've ever seen - a normal house with a Sri Lankan flag flying outside - where I handed him his next clue.

Clue 2: Drive to the place that's just around the corner that has the name of the country we visited at the same time.


Which was of course Maldive Street and turned out to be pretty easy to find.

Clue 3: Now find and go to the place that most reminds you of Santorini in Wellington.

This is the Greek Orthodox Church on the same street that Mark's office is on back in the centre of town. We visited Santorini in July 2004 for our honeymoon - it was the most incredible place for sunsets - and warm - at nearly 40 degrees - although it was a dry heat with a constant meltemi wind blowing to cool things down. The sunsets there are to die for - how I wish I knew then what I knew now about photography to capture them!



Clue 4: This very nearly got us into big trouble in Perth. Where around here do you think you could buy it? Go there and find it.

When we moved back to NZ in 2002, we spent an amazing 3 weeks in South Africa and then a short stop over in Perth on the way home. However, we didn't think to declare the biltong we had planned to bring back home for my brother and then once customs found that and the wooden giraffes we also had in our luggage we very nearly got a $10,000 fine! Eek! So the biltong was duly found in New World where I handed him his next clue.

Clue 5: While you're here find something that's named after an island we visited in 1999.

This was Kos (although I wanted him to find cos lettuce). Our trip to Kos was our first holiday abroad together in late September 1999 and it was my first taste of the magic of the Greek Islands - we also later visited Keffalonia in 2001 (inspired by reading the book Captain Corelli's mandolin) and of course we also visited Santorini in 2004.

Clue 6: There's a restaurant near here that has the name of a place we visited in Amsterdam as part of its name.

This one had Mark stumped for a while - and so he had to resort to good old Google - he knew it was Heineken (we'd visited the Heineken factory whilst on a city break in Amsterdam) but he wasn't sure how to relate it to somewhere in Wellington - I'm not surprised as I also had to put my thinking cap on to get the association when I was making up the clue - but it turns out that St John's Bar is actually called the St John's Heineken hotel. Once he got that we headed there for a drink. My plan had been to have dinner here (as we have been here before on at least one other anniversary) but unfortunately they were booked for a private function so I'd had to rethink the whole route mid-week after I thought I had the whole night sussed - never mind!

When I handed Mark his next clue it took him a while to figure it out and I needed to give him a few clues - it was a little obscure as I don't think the Lovelock Bridge in Paris was probably even famous when we were there back in 2000 - but I knew Wellington had one and that it was only a couple of minutes walk away.

Clue 7: Near here is a place that's a smaller replica of a much more famous place in a European city we visited in 2000. What roadblock do you think we need to complete here?

But once he'd figured out the location - he knew exactly what we were planning to do. During the week I'd scoped the bridge out and put a padlock - the famous thing about the bridge in Paris is that couples put a padlock on the bridge and then throw away the keys - symbolising their eternal love.

Back in our earliest days when we were working together at the Museum Hotel in Wellington , we used to use 'Ma' and 'Me' as a short form of our names when signing off on things so it was only fitting we use the Ma and Me for our wee symbol of love here.

We had to be a little surreptitious as I'm pretty sure you're not meant to actually do this so while no one was looking Mark dropped the keys into the water while I clipped the padlock to the bridge!

Clue 8:  Head down the road to a shop that sells something we did in late 2001.

This was the snowboarding shop on lower Cuba Street - and was a memory of our snowboarding trip to Switzerland in December 2001. Originally we'd been planning to go to New York but then September 11 happened and we decided it probably wasn't the right time to go. So we headed off to a little ski-field called Crans Montana not far from Montreux and had an interesting week of sightseeing and a little snowboarding - I say a little as it was really much too early in the season for good powder so we had a fair few frustrations trying to find a good place to board with chair lifts (as I found the T-bar lifts nigh on impossible to manage!).

 



Clue 9: From here we're going to a place that's named after an impressive mountain we've seen.


And this was of course the Matterhorn - we went to Zermatt and ended up doing a day of sightseeing here and then came back later on in the week for another day of snowboarding - it was no small feat to get to from our little village - nearly 2 hours and 3 different trains to get there.



Wellington's own Matterhorn restaurant is another place we'd been to for another anniversary some years ago - although it had pretty bad memories as I ended up with one of my 'sore tummies' afterwards and the walk home from the restaurant was anything but fun. Mark got so fed up that at one point he told me I was like a 'bulldog chewing on a wasp' at one point - a funny memory that has stuck with us ever since.

Clue 10: And now it's time for tea!


So it was definitely time to lay old ghosts to rest and have a much more enjoyable Matterhorn experience this time round. Which we most certainly did.

Clue 11: Where close by can you get one of our favourite desserts from a country we've visited twice and haven't mentioned on this adventure yet?


For the last clue of the night, I wanted Mark to guess tiramisu and then give him the choice of a couple of restaurants nearby that I knew served it on their dessert menu. As it turned out, he chose Scopa which was only a short hop up the road from the Matterhorn.

We got a takeaway serving and walked back through the night market where we managed to scrounge a couple of spoons and then ate our tiramisu at the top of the cable car watching the city's lights twinkle below us.

 

On the way round as Mark had ticked off each clue I'd also given him a puzzle piece at each stop which when he put it all together at the end read:

  

It was definitely one of our more memorable anniversary evenings - it was very fun to plan and gave us the opportunity to relive some of our funny, awkward and awesome memories of the past 17 years together!

Just the two of us....

A couple of weekends back, Mark and I had the rare opportunity to ditch leave the kids with some friends for 24 hours so we could fly up to Rotorua to attend our friends' wedding. Thankfully they didn't mind the kids turning up just after 7am for the drop-off so we could make the early morning flight!

We were extremely lucky to even make it out of Wellington as it was such a windy morning and lots of flights were cancelled all around us. I learnt something new that day though - apparently the ATR propeller planes despite being bigger aren't equipped to fly in strong winds but the Q300 planes are - luckily enough that was what we were flying on so we made it out......just.

I remember sitting in the terminal watching 2 Boeing 737 planes take off before us and watching their wings dipping side to side as they struggled to get airborne in the 100+ km/hr winds and thinking...'hmmmm this is gonna be interesting!' 

We'd both already had coffees while waiting at the airport and I'd enjoyed seeing the airport looking all festive as we wandered around with Wheelie Bag that I'd received from Stuck on You earlier in the year. Our Grabaseat flight allowed a small piece of cabin luggage only - so it's amazing to think we managed to pack in both our wedding outfits and everything else we needed into the small bag for the night.

As soon as we took off the plane started bouncing around and there were a few 'lose your lunch' moments and nervous laughter throughout the cabin but luckily it only lasted a couple of minutes and then we were up into clear skies and the rest of the flight passed uneventfully.

Upon landing at Rotorua airport, Mark said 'don't freak out but I have a surprise planned for you'. Now anyone who knows me well (and Noah is just the same) know I don't usually go in for surprises so it was hard not to quiz him about what we were doing but I decided to try and behave myself and just go along for the ride. I knew we were heading for Mamaku (we'd plugged it into the Sat Nav but that was it).

We headed through Rotorua (man I'd forgotten how stinky the town is in places!) and out the other side towards popular Rotorua attractions like the Agrodome and Zorbing. I couldn't help asking 'will my footwear be suitable?' as I'd only brought sandals and heels for the wedding and Mark fended this off with a suitable reply that left me none the wiser.

We carried on out into the wop wops and I recall saying to Mark 'oh it's a shame we didn't think about catching up with Mum and Dad since they're only an hour away' and Mark replied 'oh yes a bit silly of us mind you we'll be seeing them in 3 weeks for Christmas anyway'. I'd been doing the math and had a sneaky suspicion that as Mamaku was in the direction of Hamilton it might have been a possibility but I also didn't want to get my hopes up in case that wasn't the surprise.

Eventually we arrived at The Blueberry Cafe in the middle of nowhere and I was too busy taking photos to notice a white car parked slightly out of sight. My overachiever of a bladder as always needed the restroom first but then as we walked into the cafe, Mum and Dad were waiting!

It was simply the loveliest surprise I could have asked for that day - I'd had a pretty rough week at work and I had some big decisions still hanging over me, plus we hadn't seen them for 4 months so it was just wonderful to be able to set eyes on them, give them a big hug and wile away a lovely hour together before we had to head back to town to get ready for the wedding. And the food - practically everything on the menu was blueberry in some shape or another - was pretty darn tasty too!

After a quick stop in at the hotel to get ready, we headed down to the lake to the Lakeland Queen paddle steamer which was the venue both for the ceremony and reception. After a short but lovely ceremony, the bride and groom went off to get their photos done, returning in time for a 5pm cruise out into the harbour over dinner.

I think we ended up with the most raucous table of the lot - we knew one of the couples very well as Aaron and Lucy are old friends of ours (Mark works with Aaron and used to work with Lucy too back in the day) and the joke of the day was how many table centrepieces (jars filled with Eskimos or Fruit Puffs) could we steal from other tables without them finding out?! And then there was the 'Westside' poses - I cannot even remember why we did this only that it was hilarious at the time - I guess you had to be there?!

It was such a lovely and relaxed low-key wedding but Lizzy had still done an amazing job on all the table settings - from the Eskimo centre pieces to the little gift boxes painted in blackboard paint with little chocolates inside and the bunting hanging around the room - all delightful understated elegance.

The rain that had set in on the cruise stopped in time for the hills to take on a salmon tinge as the day slipped into night, and we slipped into bed early at 9pm with the thought of a 7.30am flight ahead of us the next morning.

It was a lovely day out to celebrate our friends' commitment to each other and also a time to reflect on our own vows to each other nearly a decade ago now.