Melbourne - Part 1

We decided to go on a trip before I was due back for work (that was before I got my new job) and Melbourne was the destination! We love Melbourne - it's technically Bel's second time and decided it was a good time to go because of the weather. The last two times I got really sick... So Melbourne winters don't work for me. Here is a digest of our 5 days.

Day one

We arrived at 9.00pm, had an awesome taxi driver (taxi cost $56 from airport to city) and arrived at the Mantra on Russell.

We were hungry so went to a random Chinese place on Russell to buy congee and noodles. Was to hungry to take photos 😄.

Mantra on Russell 

1 bedroom apartment

++Awesome location++

30 seconds to Chinatown, QV.

5 mins to Melbourne Central, GPO, Elizabeth Street.

10-15 mins to Queen Victoria Markets

 

+ spacious lounge/dining area

- As with most Australian hotels, decor seems dated even thought the room is quite new.

- bathroom/toilets are an ensuite so if you have a 3rd person, they need to come into the main bedroom to use the bathroom

Day two

Nothing was open around our area but we managed to find a China Bar (chain store) in the Target Centre. Limited menu available but was a good start.

Market Lane Coffee

Prahran Markets

++ nice decor, nice cup of coffee

++ cupping is normally on fri / sat at 10am so we just missed that

++ lots of coffee gear available

Prahran Markets

Off Chapel St, South Yarra/Prahran

++ love this market. Heaps of fresh fruit and veges. 

++ my personal favourite market

Master Roll Vietnam

169 Toorak Road, South Yarra

++ maybe it was a super hot day but it was one of the best banh mi that I've had. 

++ fresh bread and pork belly was delish

-- the only that that could make it better is the pate

Einstein's Relative

1/9 Yarra St, South Yarra

++ freeman liked this coffee more than Market Lane Coffee

++ good cup of coffee - reminded us of our brother - in - law Francis' coffee

Melbourne Central

Melbourne CBD

Much of it has stayed the same, except now there is the Shot Tower building which is joined to La Trobe Building, which is joined to the Emporium, which is joined to David Jones. We didn't shop much but used the parents retreat on L2 the most. It's one of the best parents room I've been to. Lots of space for kids to play, ropes to climb on, tv, play kitchen, wooden train table, picnic table for families to eat on, spacious colourful breastfeeding rooms. It is definitely a retreat for parents.

New Shanghai Restaurant

Melbourne Emporium, CBD

++ Happy hour was great. You could choose a dish and drink for really good prices. Xiao long bao and drink was about $6 and fried rice and drink was $10.

-- not the best xiao long bao's but when you have a hungry kid with hungry parents it works out well. Plus it's cheap.

Christchurch - food and coffee

During our 1.5 day stay in Christchurch we tried to fit in as much coffee (and food) as we could. Here are the places that we went to.

Christchurch Farmers Market

Riccarton Bush (near Riccarton Mall)

After a bit of a walk, we found the markets in a very nice park. It could be the season but there wasn't much fresh produce as it had expected but there was a lot of food. German sausages, Gyoza, macarons, bread, fudge, Thai and Japanese food...

It was really nice to get out of the cbd and see how relaxed people are. Nice way to enjoy a sunny Saturday.

Crafted Coffee Company

Re:start mall, Cashel Street

Coffee is ok here. Food is nice. Nice decor, brings a bit of colour back. Great seating area.

Caffeine Laboratory

3 locations- Re:start mall, corner of Walker Street & Montreal street, New Regent Street

After walking to Walker/Montreal street from Central Station, we were a bit gutted that we couldn't find it. It was by accident that we found one of their stores in Cashel Mall (we were so happy). Turns out they have a small cafe on New Regent Street.. Which is right outside our apartments... and which we walked to in the morning but totally missed...

It also turns out that the Walker/Montreal street one only operates on Mon-Fri out of a black container.

Best coffee in Christchurch (or the ones we have tried). Seating is limited at both places but staff is very friendly. There is a great selection of food at Nee Regent Street.

Re:start Mall

New Regent Street

Sakimoto

Cathedral Junction

After having not a luck of finding recommended places to eat that was in close vicinity to our apartment.. We decided to head downstairs to this little Japanese place.

Food was great, fresh and well presented. Prices were pretty good too. Very yum Japanese food. Staff was a bit harder to understand. 

C1 Espresso

High Street

After seeing it on Campbell Live and have been told they have great coffee we decided to give it a try after dinner.

Great quirky place. Very creative use of items such as a sewing machine used as a water tap. The sliders were great $20 for a choice of 3. There were cabinet food as well. The menu for the morning is better with a wide range of breakfast items. Coffee is pretty good. 

You can sense that they have a very different perspective of Christchurch and their view on what is happening (or not happening) with the rebuild.

Black Betty

Madras Street

A very family friendly cafe - more like one we would see in Auckland. Great seating. Great food. Coffee is pretty good too. I ordered their Mac n cheese and was very delicious. It wasn't like a typical one where it was just Mac n sauce. Definitely a must go. Great selection of cabinet food and menu options too.

One thing to really commend the Christchurch coffee places is their ability to do latte art with soy milk. It's a rarity here in Auckland for me to not only have great coffee but also someone who can make nice art.. Instead of a blob that I always get. 

I can't wait until I go back to Christchurch again to try out some of their other restaurants... When it's not so cold!😄

Christchurch - a city of resilience

Our latest trip was going down to Christchurch for 1.5 days with my sister and brother in law. As with any trip, each experience has been amazing and left us with different feelings.

We often see news stories on Christchurch and the people who live there and I guess after 2+ years, we sort of got used to it.  Slow recovery, lack of engineers or people willing to move there, housing shortages, insurance battles, government battles, vandalism and the list goes on. It was only until we got there that we really felt what it was like.

The CBD was literally dead. Cafés and restaurants were open to the few tourists who were around.. And random parts of the CBD would have more signs of life like the Re-start mall. All you could see are damaged buildings, holes, rubble, fences and abandoned shops that still had stock or offices with their gear left behind. It was very heartbreaking to walk around and see this. The suburbs are apparently even worse with empty homes that were once filled with families.

However, it was encouraging to see that amongst all this, the people of Christchurch are trying to bring life back to the garden city. There is amazing artwork on the buildings, small interactive areas such as the sound mat where you can play your own music and it gets blasted on massive speakers, colour is everywhere, and there is a group called the Plant Gang (https://m.facebook.com/plantgang?_rdr) who go around empty sites and plant to make the city cleaner and more attractive.

Despite everything they have gone through, the people of Christchurch have found ways to bring life back, which for most of us will take for granted. It feels like the government has forgotten them but I think that there is still hope for Christchurch because it's not just the buildings and physical structures that make a city a city but it's the people who make a city a city and most importantly, HOME. Huge RESPECT for those living in Christchurch!

Christchurch is a garden city, a city of resilience, creativity, survival and hope. I pray that this spirit of community will continue to help them with whatever battles they have to face next. 

(Photos courtesy of my husband.. And me)

Parachute music festival

This is a long overdue post...

Each year, we always look forward to the Parachute music festival held at Mystery Creek, Hamilton. I think this must be my 7/8th festival that I've been to and over the years it has given me a lot of insights, encouragement and not to mention the fun we have over the weekend. 

This year was not only significant because it was Annabel's first one but also because it's the last Parachute Music Festival. We found out early this year that it wasn't viable for the festival to continue due to increasing costs and yet the ticket prices remained pretty much the same. We were all very sad about the news.

So looking back at this years festival, we were blessed to have Stan Walker there. He was one of my highlights as I've never seen him perform (except on NZ X Factor) but also his testimony was amazing. It really touched me on how he was abused, had a rough life with drugs, stealing and dealing with a miscarriage, he asked God to fix his brokenness, built a strong relationship with God and became who he is now.

MC Jin was another person we saw who had such humility in what he does. We saw him in the Village area with his crew and instead of them serving him, he served them but ordering and buying drinks for them. We also had a photo op with him and as I was taking the photo with him, my husband and little one, he also said "let's take another one, we can't leave out mum". Not to mention that it was raining at the time too.

So here's to Parachute Music - I pray that God will continue to use them to help influence people through music and the work that they do!

Mama diary - 2 months

Little A is now 9 weeks old. Time flies so fast seeing her grow up and reaching those little milestones - her first smile, coo, sleeping 6 hours straight and generally starting to settle a lot better. I would describe motherhood as one large experiment that requires a lot of patience and perseverance. Things that worked in the first few weeks stop working, things that didn't work ends up working.

So what have I learnt so far?

Don't expect to be perfect.
The most stressful times I had was when I wanted everything to work out. Little A would be doing normal newborn things such as crying...and crying... and crying but firstly I was afraid that I would look bad in front of my in laws so all I wanted was for her to stop crying. Sometimes I don't know why she would cry and I would get frustrated but then the guilt would set in because she can't communicate in any other way except for crying. Then there is the thing of us living in the age of information. Yes information can help - I have been guilty of googling a lot to reassure myself that it's normal and I would only trust reliable sources such as Babycentre (not the forums). But then there is also too much information or rather opinions online and some of it did make me feel bad. To have a routine or not? To co-sleep or not? Should we use a dummy? Swaddle or not swaddle? Leave her to sleep in the capsule or not? What I have found is that tiredness is probably the most dangerous thing for your newborn. There are risks to all of those things mentioned above but having a baby that doesn't sleep and as a result, you lose sleep is even more harmful. When I'm tired, I find I get frustrated easily, I don't bond as well with her and as a result she cries even more and then the cycle gets bigger. Also when you're tired there are simple things such as walking becomes a hazard cause your balance is that much more off and forgetfulness sets in too. In the end we did co-sleep a bit in the morning hours and it helped the both of us so much more.

Be thankful for the little things.
There is nothing more rewarding than seeing your little one smile at you for the first time. No matter how bad the night has been, once she is awake and gives you that smile, your heart will melt.

I am thankful that I have a little one who can sleep pretty well. At first she was very clingy and now as she is older, I can put her down by herself and she can sleep longer stretches. Every child is different and when I expected her to be able to sleep by herself and tried to do all the training, I just got frustrated. I decided to let it go and as the weeks go by she has learnt by herself. I wish I had saved myself from the stress before hand in getting her to be the 'perfect sleeping' baby and just let her grow and develop.

I am thankful she takes injections quite well given that I hate injections. She will only protest for 30 secs and once I give her a cuddle she is fine.

I'm thankful that she loves music and that always calms her.

I'm thankful that there are so many people around her who loves her so much.

Finally I'm really thankful that she got to meet my grandma.. Her great-gran!

Some useful articles that I wish I'd read sooner.
This article is so true and I think every new mother should read this:
The newborn survival guide http://www.ohbaby.co.nz/blogs/-/plus1/2012/7/9/the-newborn-survival-guide/
Tips for bonding with grandparents http://grandparents.about.com/od/growingintoyournewrole/a/Bonding-With-A-New-Grandchild.htm

Finally, I saw this canvas at one of our favourite coffee places and is something I want to give to little A :)

We love you Annabel! :)

God is never too early...or late!

It's been a week since our little Annabel has joined us in this world.
What an amazing experience it has been with our first baby. Did things go as planned? Not even close.
Our plan was to have a natural birth with minimal medical interventions but our little one decided to come 1 week early and my contractions did not come gradually, it started right away at 1 every 10 minutes at 3am on Sunday. We called the midwife in the morning and she scheduled us in for a check. Yes I was in labour. She asked if we wanted to go home to rest and wait until it was closer to the time to push or use Syntocinon to speed things up. We chose to go home. Nothing happened until about 4pm when my contractions got closer and I thought yay it's time.

We got to the hospital and found out I wasn't ready - I was still only at 2cm but yet the contractions were so frequent and painful so in came the gas. We decided to use Syntocinon as well to start the pushing process but when the midwife broke my waters she found that our little girl had pooped in the water. That was not a good sign. So in came the epidural  - we were very fortunate to not have to wait for an anaesthetist. She came in and in between my contractions did what she needed to do once and was done in a few minutes. We had a really good one and she wasn't even a consultant.

And then we waited. Then it was time to do the hard work. It felt like I was in a tv drama with our midwife, the hospital midwife, two paediatricians, a nurse and a student all surrounding my bed. After 2.5 hours our midwife was ready to do an episiotomy while the paediatrician got all the gear ready for ventouse (our midwife and the docs weren't agreeing with each other) and just as they were about go ahead to do their thing, our little baby girl decided to come out.

The drama didn't stop though, I met her for 5 minutes and got wheeled into theatre for 2 hours because I was losing a lot of blood because I had a 3rd degree tear - in the end I lost 1.3 litres of blood and then the next day fell and fainted twice when I got up.

Even though there were so many complications, things we didn't plan to happen happened I am very thankful to God that both of us are well and that my husband was there the whole time with me. As the title of this post says.. God is always on time - never too early or late.

Was this a scary experience? Yes but the whole time I was just praying to God that our little girl was ok. I ended up saying yes to everything to help her - that was my priority. The other thing I guess that made me calm and as relaxed (besides all the drugs) as I could be was this song. It was in my mind the whole time and looking back I am very thankful that although it wasn't a "perfect" or ideal birthing situation, God provided the right care at the right time to help us through this.

It's almost time!

Wow, the last 8 months has gone so fast. Now we sit and wait for the little one to arrive.
I have been blessed with a pretty uneventful pregnancy - so I'm hoping she won't make up for it during the labour and birthing process!

We both really thank God for looking after us especially after what happened last year. So far we have a very healthy girl. We also have very supportive friends and family who loves us and have blessed by so many gifts and advice. I can't pretend that I know everything but I have definitely learnt a lot.

Here are some things I found useful and hopefully act as a reminder for myself as well.

It's about you and your partner
Remember this is your pregnancy so do what works for you and your partner. I am very grateful that I have an extremely supportive husband - he went to every midwife appointment, antenatal class and scan with me. I think having that support helps a lot and makes it feels like I'm not the only one in this. I can't express what a difference it makes to have your husband next to you through all this. Not to mention that he's been very good at cleaning and picking up after me! I'm also glad I have a large group of friends and aunties who have had babies so I can take bits of advice and their experience to prepare myself the best that I can.

Avoid if dodgy/unsure and be flexible
Pregnancy can be confusing especially if you are the first time mother. There are so many do's and don'ts so it's hard to know what you should listen too. Many are old wives tales but the rule my husband and I decided on is whether it has been well researched or not. If not, and it does seem risky then avoid it. Our other rule is if it looks dodgy, don't eat or do it. Keeping yourself and the baby safe should be the number one thing.

Also being flexible is important. We may have preconceived ideas on what we want but I know part of the fun is not knowing what would happen. Which comes to our next rule is we will try to everything natural unless the baby or myself is at risk. The not so fun part about my pregnancy was getting really sick and not being able to breathe - the only medication I took was my asthma inhaler and then had honey and lemon the whole time and plenty of rest.

Communication is key
It doesn't matter what you decide to do but communication between you and your partner, family, friends, LMC and anyone else is key. It's good to set some common grounds with your partner first to decide what sort of pregnancy you would like and then make sure all of this is communicated to everyone else. We were very fortunate to have a midwife who would treat us as if we were her own kids so she has been very honest with us too. Our antenatal instructor also kept reminding us to ask and question when in doubt so we can make informed decisions.

Have a strong support group
By default I think I have been really blessed by God to always have a strong support group. People who have been there for me for different reasons, doing what they are best at rather than just shutting us out because they may or may not have gone through this process. My work has also been extremely supportive - my colleagues have been great help and have spoilt me so much. It has made work a lot easier and I can't imagine what things would be like if I didn't have a supportive workplace. And of course I can't leave out all the aunties and uncles who have already spoilt our little girl so much before she is born!!

So now I can put my feet up and enjoy my month off before the real job comes!