Kelly Azuma

I had a really good weekend, the sad part is that it’s over too soon. :/

Yasu knocked off work early on Friday afternoon and we were going to go out for dinner with a friend but in the end she couldn’t make it so we stayed home and I made Cauliflower & Bacon soup from a new recipe book that I bought from the Country Women’s Association. The soup was really easy to make and tasted great too. Yasu ended up having 3 bowls of it!

Yasu had the weekend off and Saturday we went to his team’s home ground and he cleaned up the pitching mound – kind of important to him since he is the main pitcher for the team. On the way home we stopped off and got a thickshake and then Yasu made takoyaki for dinner.

Today we went back to the mound as Yasu wanted to have a training session – the baseball season is due to start here soon and he likes to start getting fit earlier than the other players. I decided to go along for the ride. It was a nice sunny day and I ended up helping him by being the ball-girl and we threw the ball and stuff, which was fun.

After that I asked to go to the beach, so we went to one about 5 minutes away. It was getting really overcast by then but it was really nice to smell the salty sea and feel the fresh air. I took a couple of photo’s, which I’ll put below.

On the way home we stopped for a smoothie and Yasu cooked dinner again – kara-age – it was yum! Then he ran a bath for me, which was a really nice end to the night. Not sure what happened but I’ve really enjoyed having him cook and do the dishes this weekend, and I’m so not complaining! :)

You’ve probably all been wondering where I disappeared to. Read more

This is kind of late. I haven’t even been able to get near a computer until around midnight when Yasu is in bed. The days have been so hectic! Read more

Firstly I want to start off by thanking everyone who left birthday wishes and congratulations, I was really happy to read all your comments and they are all appreciated, thank you! :)

Yasu worked Tuesday morning and came home about 1pm. I had already packed all our stuff into bags so we loaded it into the car and arrived at the resort just after 2pm after a couple of pit-stops on the way to get some drinks and snacks.

The resort was much more than I imagined, I thought I had stepped into Asia – it was designed like a beautiful rainforest with a boardwalk, water features, statues and ponds going in a zig-zag fashion around the hotel with koi swimming. It was so beautiful and relaxing.

Our door opened up onto this view

Found this cutie hiding in the greenery

Another cutie trying to hide from my camera

This struck me as being NZ'esque but not sure if it is.

The entrance to the resort

The entrance at night

Balcony

The pool looked gorgeous and was virtually deserted but we spent most of our time hopping in and out of the spa in our room and totally forgot about the pool! All those hours clocked up in the garden on the weekend called more for hot spa’s than cool water I’m afraid. :)

I had this for dinner on one of the nights - Chicken, Leek, and Lemon Risotto

We had lots of nice breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I had the above meal for dinner on my birthday at a restaurant overlooking the beach. Yasu really wanted to have this one too but he also wanted to try their carbonara, so I ordered both and we had half each. The carbonara was also really nice.

Tortellini Carbonara

One of the nights we also went to another hotel on the beach for their buffet of fine foods, it was delish, and the dessert bar was to die for. I forgot the camera on that night but I had pecan pie, puchi lemon meringues, puchi apple and custard pies, creme brulee that tasted like the custard in shuu creams and was heaven, um.. chocolate mousse, strawberry shortcake, brownies, cheesecake and fruit salad…oh and a cheese platter…my god. I really ate to my hearts content, diet out the window temporarily…but who could resist such a dessert bar! This restaurant is literally overlooking the beach and we could see the waves crashing on the shore, it was brilliant.

On the actual day of my birthday we went to Ikea and found a couple of things we want to get – we had no plans to buy anything but found some great furniture inside that we just fell in love with. We went to the foodhall for lunch and we had swedish meatballs – oh yum, I just love them so much!! I had a swedish almond cake for dessert, and a Lingonberry Soda, and Yasu had a Princess cake.

After we finished lunch we went to the Swedish Food Market and I bought a few packets of the sauce that go on the meatballs, some apple cider and some Ikea chocolate bars. There was so much to choose from in there, so many delicious goodies but we had to rush as we were going to see a movie.

We got there just in time to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was my first time ever to see a movie in 3D and it was amazing! We got given glasses to wear, not the flimsy paper ones with one red and one green eye – these are real glasses that just look like sunglasses. When you put them on the images look like they are in the space between you and the screen, not flat on the screen like on non-3D. I never got why everyone went on about 3D, but now I do! It’s so amazing! Alice was great, Yasu and I were totally swept up in the movie and the graphics were amazing. Even at the end of the film when everyone got up to leave, we stayed watching as the frame around the screen was 3D and was growing flowers and vines which were blooming in 3D. It was like I could reach out and touch them.

After that we went back to the resort and jumped in the spa again then sat on the balcony and people watched for a while. I realised that you see alot of interesting things when you have a balcony, things you otherwise might have missed. We looked down at the beach, the surfers, and people walking along.

We did a lot of talking and catching up, alot of relaxing in the spa and it was heaven, just what the doctor ordered.

We also went to the aquarium but I will write about that in a separate post as I have a million and one pictures to upload. All good things must come to an end, and so did our holiday, though neither of us really wanted to go home, and Yasu was umming and ahhing whether he could extend the stay for a couple more days but his boss really needed him to come back because he is the supervisor of a big project happening at the moment. I was hoping that there would be an outbreak of bird or swine flu that would make us have to be quarantined inside the resort for another week but no such luck!

We didn’t go home right away, we packed everything in the car and did some touristy things on the way home, and it was really hard to get back to reality today because the last 4 days have been SO perfect and the resort was just so perfect in every way. We are really thinking about when we can go back again..

We got up yesterday morning feeling like a truck had hit us both. All we really wanted to do was sleep in but we had to get up because I promised mum we would go down and see her for Easter. My sister went away with her family and my mum was watching the house for her and my sister’s house doesn’t have a phone, so it was impossible to contact my mum even if I wanted to.

Anyway, just as we left home the dark black clouds rolled in and it started to rain. Yasu forgot to take his jacket but couldn’t be bothered going back for it.

When we got to my sister’s house, my oldest nephew (sister’s son) was there – he had got back from doing a run down south to where my sister was because they had forgotten to take the tent poles so they couldn’t put up the tent… haha

Anyways, he took off to pick his girlfriend up from the supermarket bakery where she works and then we set off down to the foreshore. They had a carnival set up on one of the big ovals there – rides, clowns, showbags, dagwood dogs, hot spuds, corncobs on sticks, fairy floss and popcorn. All yum smells. It started to rain about halfway around and we had to hide under a canopy that had clowns – I didn’t have a go though because one game cost $5 (ripoff or what?)

After we had walked around – and managed to buy 2 shamwow’s – we went down to the foreshore and walked along all the different shops that were open. I fell in love with a Fairy water fountain which was just beautiful, but when Yasu inquired how much it was – $790 – we decided against buying it. Abit pricey.

We ended up having fish n’ chips wrapped in paper, and we ate it on the grass in front of the water. The seagulls pestered the life out of us – mum made it worse by throwing chips at them – even though there was a sign that said “please do not feed the seagulls”.

The dark clouds got darker and threatened to break open any minute, but didn’t. There were lots of families having picnics and there was a train that went past all down the boardwalk, and mini jalopies that you could hire and pedal along.

As the big shopping precinct was open, we ended up wandering around inside, and checking out all the Easter bargains – bought some storage boxes that were on sale – and an Easter mud cake.

We went back to my sister’s house and had a cuppa and some choccy mud cake, and caught the end of Braveheart on satellite. I hadn’t seen it before but I was pretty upset with the whole human race after that.

We ended up coming home and having a light dinner and crawling into bed. We both had a sore throat – (I always end up with one when I go to my sister’s house – not sure if her house is full of bacteria or what) – but I had some antibiotics laying around from the beginning of this year that I never took – so we self medicated with those and this morning we are both feeling better, sore throats are gone and possible tragedy averted (we go away tomorrow and definitely don’t need to be sick!)

Today Yasu is cementing the edging on our garden out the front (pictures to follow), and I am just doing a general tidy-up of the house. We are going away on our holiday tomorrow, you don’t know how much I am looking forward to that! (I’m not looking forward to turning 32 though)

Mum and Yasu