Melbourne We Love You To Bits

Travelling Aquarians

Melbourne has a special place in our heart for the both of us, it’s where we spend the beginning of our early years as adults. We both love everything about Melbourne, its fashion sense, its excellent gastronomic experiences as well as it’s chilled out attitude towards everything and anything.

We met as we were about to finish our university years, doing a little independent project together and it was unique experience and we had a blast! So let us introduce you to why we love Melbourne so much!

Coffee Coffee Coffee
We both coffee lovers, living in Melbourne for so long we develop a very critical taste for coffee and since then we always searching for that the same quality coffee wherever we go, whether it’s in Jakarta for Amalia or in Paris where Irene lives at the moment.

You can never go wrong getting a cup of latte or…

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What I love about Paris

Travelling Aquarians

So I have been living in Paris for a year now,things hasn’t been easy at the beginning especially when you don’t speak french. However after learning french and having so much free time before, I started to love Paris. I need to make the most out of Paris before we are gonna relocate again God knows where…

Here are the things that I love about Paris!

The Patisserie

I have a sweet tooth so living in Paris is probably is the best thing as you will find beautiful yummy cakes everywhere you go, plus now I work in a cake shop called Gastel Paris, and I get to drool and eat some broken macarons all the time, definitely not so good for my waistline but who cares, you only live once right!

This is what I see everyday when I come to work! who can resist that right?

Aoki is…

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The Aquarians

My best friend and I are both Aquarians, although we are kinda the opposite of each other somehow we click and has been friends for more than 10 years. We met back when we were in our university days and had a long distance friendship ever since we graduated. Since we both love travelling, we decided to create a travelling blog that share our experiences and keep each other updated with our travelling escapades.

Here’s the link!

The Aquarians.

XOXO

Irene

Beautiful roses of Provence

I just wanted to share some of the beautiful roses I found in Provence and dedicate this post for my dear friend Pang as I know she would love it, as she is an aspiring florist. I hope you like it my friend, thinking of you when I see beautiful flowers!

 

I wish I had a good fully bloom lavender field for you, however we were two weeks early so I got you this photo of a poppy field that we can see everywhere in Provence in spring time.

Thank you Pang for always encouraging me to write and appreciate all your support and kind words 🙂

Springtime in Provence

Hello, we just came back from a week in Provence to spend a little break before I start work next week..woohoo finally back to work!

We decided to explore the south of France this time as our mini holiday. We had an amazing time, and honestly 6 days were too short as they are plenty of villages and things to see. Well for this post I will just share the highlights of the trip and let the picture do all the talking 🙂

We arrived by train from Paris to Lyon and pick up our rental car to start our journey.

Lyon is famous for its bouchon, which is the local bistro Lyonnaise style. They are very affordable with lunch menu starting from around 15 euros for a 4 course menu. We stop at Chez Mournier in rue des Marronniers for a typical Lyonnaise food.

After a good lunch we then started our little adventure in Provence and here are the highlights!

View from Grignan, too bad it’s not the season of the lavender yet. It would be nice seeing rows and rows of purple fields

 

Beautiful amazing ancient roses

 

Grignan was a really nice village, filled with beautiful roses everywhere and they are well-known for their ancient roses variety dating back before 1814. They have nice little pathway and a château on top of the hill.

 

Pont d’Avignon

Palais des Papes, where the papacy was held before moving back to Rome, 7 popes resided here.

We had a quick stop at Avignon to see the Palais des Papes and the famous bridge. Unfortunately we were too late to get into the palais so we had a walk in the city and enjoy the scenery instead.

Vaison la-Romaine, where you can find both a roman archeological site and a medieval village

Visited some wineries in Beaume de Venice region, famous for it’s sweet dessert wine

Saturday means farmer’s market day in provence and the village of Uzes turned into the biggest farmer’s market. Plenty of things to see and buy. We end up having a picnic by the river after all the shopping.

It was the perfect weather for a picnic and we found such a beautiful picnic spot.

Pont Du Gard, this is the marvel of Roman’s engineering, it’s almost 2000 years old and still standing tall

 

 

I think you shouldn’t miss Pont du Gard if you ever visit south of France, it is breathtaking! Something to get you thinking as well how amazing is it that people in the olden days are so advance in so many ways.

Lac de Sainte Croix

 

 

So after visiting a village called Moustier which is famous for its pottery we went and visited the lake before heading out to see the Gorges du Verdon which is a 700 m canyon.

Picturesque Gordes in Luberon region

 

Last but not least this is pretty much most of the cities in south of France looks like, villages on top of a hill with its medieval chateau or a beautiful church on top. However Gordes is so breathtaking as you get to see it full panoramic view before you get into the village. These are only some of our highlights, it was one amazing holiday, can’t wait to explore the rest of France as each and every place we visited were all unique in their own way.

I feel very blessed to be able to have this experience and I hope we will be able to preserve it for our future generations.

Maple Apple and Blueberry Crumble

I know it’s probably a fall dessert, but I have been craving for some warm apple crumble sorta dessert. So after browsing on Pinterest and drooling over them, I decided to do one myself hihihi ^evil grin^

Found this recipe through Pinterest with minor adjustment and it turned out so yummy, my husband and my good friend Priska had 2 serving for lunch. Mission accomplished!

Ingredients:

4 Apples (any will do)

1 Bucket of blueberries

2/3 cup of maple syrup

1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Crumble ingredients

1 cup of plain flour

2/3 cup of brown sugar (I like mine not too sweet)

6 tablespoon of cold butter chopped to small chunks

1/4 cups of rolled oats (optionals)

1/4 cups of chopped walnuts (optionals)

Let’s get started!

1. Mixed your chopped apples and blueberries with the cinnamons, and maple syrup and put in the ramekins or dish that you will used to bake it in. I love my pyrex dish!

2. To make the crumble, put sugar, flour and butter and rub it in until it resembles a crumble kinda of mixture. Add the chopped oats and walnuts and rub it and mix it up well.
3. Put the crumbled on top of the dish, cover it well, especially the edges.

4. Bake it in 180C oven for around 40 minutes, till the crumble is golden brown.

Best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or custard. You can have around 6 small portion or 4 bigger serving portion with this recipe!

Remember life is sweet when you choose it to be! Enjoy your weekend!

Root Beer Cake

A special friend made this special cake recipe for me for my birthday and I want to share it with you all. It’s such a thoughtful gift. I am so grateful I made such wonderful friends within the wordpress community!

A Girly Getaway: Bukit Tinggi Indonesia

I feel bad for going MIA for these couple of weeks, I was away back to Indonesia for a couple weeks to catch up with family and friends.

I went back to Indonesia minus my hubby, so I had a chance to have two girly getaway with my best friends. Quality time and extensive catch-up, considering we see each other pretty much once a year if we are lucky.

My first trip was to Bukit Tinggi in West Sumatra, it’s more of a culinary journey, feasting on the local cuisine which is one of my favourite Indonesian cuisine. As Indonesia is very diverse, each region, area or even village has their own local cuisine, dialect, traditional clothes, architecture and so forth; that’s why Indonesia is a wonderful place to explore.

I will just let the picture tell the stories but I will post the food journey on a separate post! Enjoy and have a good weekend!!

My Bestie and I enjoying the rainy weather, it didn’t stop us from exploring Bukit Tinggi

 

Kampung Cino, which means china town, this is the old railway tracks with the traditional Bukit Tinggi architecture with the pointy roof

Jam Gadang, The Gadang Clock, one of the main attraction of Bukit Tinggi for reason; located in the centre of the market area

Traditional and typical Bukit tinggi architecture, adorned with intricate woodworks and pointy roof. There are not many left as modern housing start to fill the city

Old City of Pariangan, still filled with traditional houses

Woodwork

The green canyon, one of the best panoramic views in Bukit Tinggi, you can see the sunset on a clear day with flying fox/bat flying over the horizon.

Rice paddies in the country side

Lake Manijau, we waited about half an hour to for the cloud to move so we could actually see the lake from the mountain

Songket Bukit Tinggi, it’s the traditional cloth that is normally use for special events, made from either gold or silver thread! Beautiful heritage!

 

Our travelling companions whom we met at the guest house we stayed in, such an amazing thing to meet people from Germany and France all the way in Indonesia

Reminiscing Old London Town

So it’s been 5 months since I moved from London, and today as I was looking at old pictures in London: I realised how much I miss it. When I first moved I was homesick most of the time, and didn’t feel like home. However after 3 years, you found your rhythm and found your comfort zone in the midst of crazy work demands (which I am hoping this will be the case here in Paris). My time in London was mostly filled with work, however having said that I did get a chance to explore London and the English country side. So I though I share with you my favourite places in London. I will do a separate post on the beautiful English country side!

Museum

My favourite museum would be the Natural History Museum, I like the majestic feeling as you walk inside and greeted by the gigantic dinosaurs. I love the brick work of this beautiful building. Especially  when can you just walk in to any room and learn something new . It’s has become my sanctuary when I need to unwind and focus on something else, rather than let my own thoughts running wild. It’s weird but I found museums and galleries to be so relaxing even among the crowds. Best of all its free (Yeah!)

Hello Dino, I miss you!

Natural History Museum London

Spring time outside the Natural History Museum

Markets

The Borough Market would be my place to go for a whole day of food tasting. I love spending the weekend there grazing through all the different food and drinks stalls. The abundance of colourful fresh produces entice you to buy them and start coming up with crazy recipes. It’s heaven for foodies!! If you ever planning to go to London please visit this market you will drink, eat and be merry for sure!

Photosource http://www.eventseed.com Unfortunately I didn’t manage to capture any myself.

Bookshop

I miss my bookshop Hatchard, where you can find signed copies books through out the year. I can spend hours browsing this 5 floors bookshop. Built in 1797 it is the oldest bookshop in London AND hold three royal warrants, supplying books to the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales.  Isn’t that amazing, you have the same bookshop as the Queen. If you want to read the full review of this book shop check out my post here in Travelersdaily.

Inside Hatchard

Signed Copy everywhere, sorry for the blurry picture!

Vintage shopping and Street Art

Brick Lane is the best place to go vintage shopping and stop by for some cheap bagels as well while you are at it. It reminds me of Gravel Street in Melbourne. Lately you will find pop up designer outlet shop as well, you might just find a few bargains here and there. I love to walk around here and look at the graffiti arts as well, they are amazing.

Vintage shopping time in Brick Lane

My friend Eda admiring a street art somewhere near Brick Lane

Stop for some Bagels after some major shopping! 

Well these are a few of my favourite places, there are plenty more but these are the things that I missed the most apart from my friends!

Happy Weekend!!