It's been a while, but I've been busy...

Wow, it's been a very long time since I managed to post something > heres what I have been up to.
 In September I ventured off with my family holiday for our annual holiday in Mauritius. More specifically, I spent 10 days lying on the beach at the Sugar Beach Resort. These days were characterized by the large, if not ridiculously extravagant breakfast, followed by an hour or two of reading, then the first of many rounds of fruit punch, and with rum when it seemed an appropriate time, then more reading, then lunch, then more reading, maybe a trip to the spa...then when the pancake cart comes out, you know its 4 o'clock, time for tea and to get ready for the most beautiful sunset you'll ever see, after that, its back to the room for a bit of pampering and spritzing up, and then its to the restaurant for a buffet of exotic food to tantalise every taste bud you didn't even know you had. And so it goes for 10 days straight. I managed to read three whole books in the ten days, John Grisham's The Brethren, Nora Roberts' The Search and Jodi Picoult's Plain Truth.
What a life! (and yes, I am still trying to burn off all that food I ate...so worth it though!!)

We did venture out to the market once, where you can find everything from woven handbags to Cashmere pashmina's to shoes to batteries and cellphone chargers. Its an incredible experience, filled with sounds and smells you will never be able to replicate, and the Mauritian traders are willing to barter right down to the "special price...just for you". The almost 1.8 million people living in Mauritius are peaceful and happy, even though there are many religions and races all living in the small 45km by 65km area. Approximately 330km of that area is on the coast, making Mauritius a perfect island holiday destination.


See what else I've been up to in the next post, hopefully not in another couple of weeks!

Oh, and check out my friends' fabulous blog Pretty Vintage - she has some great articles on fashions and all things lovely! <3

Out on the Town

Thursday night I ventured out to the new Oscar Kotze restaurant, Blonde. It is the beautiful sister of the very successful Beluga and Sevruga, and just as stylish. The food is mouthwatering and elegantly designed, the venue is character-filled and the staff are friendly and helpful. To make it even better, everything - even the drinks - is half price until the end of August...bonus!! Definitely worth a visit!
After Blonde, we made our way to The Fez, which has reopened as an attachment to the new dinner-theatre Vaudeville. Unfortunately the queue is a bit of a damper but getting there before 10pm mitigates the wait a bit. The club, which pumps out dance/house tracks all night, is a  fountain of gorgeous people in fabulously trendy clothes. With its Athens-style low arches and palms, The Fez is stylish all on its own, add a few hundred 20-somethings and you have a great night out. The fashion on the night ranged from short dresses and boots to high-waisted skirts, tees and pumps for the girls; and checked shirts and jeans to collared shirts and loafers for guys. By 2am, the drinks were flowing, people were mingling and the dance floor was pumping. All in all, a perfect end to a night on the town. (One more thing especially for the girls, The Fez has cottoned on to the kind of strange two-girls-in-one-loo-cubicle trend and catered accordingly, two loos in one cubicle...ingenious yet rather strange at the same time!)

On another note, I am an avid follower of Robyn Cooke, aka StyleGuideCT, on Twitter. Robyn is a style guru, and happens to be fashion editor at O Magazine. Check out her blog and watch out for her inspired fashion advice! Enjoy!

Vintage Chic

A few weeks back I was at the Old Biscuit Mill in Salt River, a gorgeous place for a Saturday morning brunch, and I came accross this wonderful vintage shop just next door called The Cat's Meow. I managed to find a few treasures there but I must recommend a visit, it is too amazing to miss out! This black vintage jacket with black embossed brocade on it was a mere R250 and its great over a simple dress or an evening gown on those chilly Cape Town evenings.

While researching this place I found another post on this blog called PopYaCollar...check it out to see what else The Cat's Meow has to offer and while you're at it have a look around - La Muse seems to find all the hip and happening people in Cape Town :) Follow her on Twitter too if you'd like some daily advice on what is trending in Cape Town fashion! 

A new look!

So, some of you may have noticed, well you can't not, that I have redesigned my blog and now have a new and fabulous look! I decided it was time to focus on what I really love, and that is fashion, beauty, trends, girly stuff... but don't worry, I will throw some stuff in there for the guys too :) 

It's been a little distracting while I've been on holiday, doing all sorts of things and getting festive with the World Cup, but I am back and I hope to be more up to date in the future!! 

This past weekend I celebrated Bastille day in style in our little piece of France - Franschoek. The town itself consists of one main road and a few side streets, a town hall, a post office and a court. The rest of the buildings hold restaurants and shops selling the most upmarket of wares. Franschoek was packed with beautiful people this particular sunny Saturday, mostly wearing berets and showing off their fake tans in lovely dresses and shorts. The wine was flowing and the food was great, from gourmet sarmies to pizzas and good old boerie rolls!

All in all, it was a fabulous day, we walked around the town and took in the festivities, sat in the wine marquee tasting wines from all over the region, and left as the sun was setting. Aaah bliss!

I stumbled upon a stylish blog at Vogue.co.uk - and a couple of nice blogs linked to that site, like Savannah Miller's...Sienna's fashion designer sister, their mother was actually a South African born beauty herself! Check out Savannah's blog to see what she has been getting up to!

Photo credit: Tristan Sandwith (http://www.flickr.com/photos/36846097@N05/)

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

It is Nelson Mandela's 92nd birthday today. The United Nations has christened today as Mandela day, a day which I am sure will be a South African public holiday in the near future. For now, it's a day where we celebrate the immeasurable good that this man has done for South Africa, and for African Democracy as a whole. People all around the world are encouraged to take 67 minutes out of their day (to represent the 67 years that Mandela gave in dedication to the struggle for democracy and against the injustices of South Africa's society) and do something for someone that they would not usually have done. For anyone who has not heard of Nelson Mandela, he is up there with the greatest people in the world. His name can be mentioned alongside Mahatma Ghandi; Princess Diana; Winston Churchill; Mother Theresa; Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. These leaders are known for many different reasons, but all have made a difference in the world we know today.

I often wonder how people see South Africa. We have many skeletons in our closet, and the media coming from SA is often about our ridiculously high crime rate, or our terrible zenophobic attacks, but there is so much good here. I am proud to know that Nelson Mandela represents our countries heroes, he shows the world that there is a country here filled with beautiful people just like him. It is days like these, where Nelson Mandela is the number one trending topic on Twitter, and a Google search for news related to his name receives almost 20000 hits, that I am proud to be a South African. This day, and the recent success of Africa's first hosting of the football world cup, put South Africa on the map. I hope that those tourists who visited our country these past few months will go home and tell their friends and family what a beautiful place South Africa is. It really is a great day to be a South African today.

Check out what other blogs have to say about our Great Madiba!

Today is the first World Cup Semi-Final in South Africa, actually right here in my home town of Cape Town. At 8:30pm the Netherlands, who are firm favourites in this very Afrikaans-which-stems-from-Dutch country, will play Uruguay, who happened to beat our beloved Bafana Bafana team in a previous match and we will never forgive them! So, the city is alive with orange and the people will be out in force. One thing us Capetownians do well, is jol. We are a city of party-people, be it a braai, or a weekly night-out at the local club, we don't do half measures! I, for one, will be at the fan park very soon, to ensure the Uraguayans go home today! Enjoy the match! x

Tourist in my own country

So as it turns out, I am a terrible blogger! I guess its just a busy time for me at the moment, because I find myself away from my Mac most of the time, but maybe when I get back to Uni, I will be able to blog more regularly.

Since I am holiday at the moment, I have been enjoying my city and what it has to offer. With the World Cup celebrations, and so many tourists here celebrating out culture, it is easy to see how great Cape Town is. Just today I enjoyed a wonderful morning picnic in our botanical gardens, Kirstenbosch, overlooking the city and under the comfort of the mountain. It was fantastic. The gardens are filled with birds and rivers and rolling lawns, and its quiet, aside from the occasional few tourists chattering and children laughing. It’s quite a treat to feel like a tourist in your own city.

Speaking of that, I rode the train to town for the first time last week. Now some may think this is strange, but in Cape Town, public transport is not as great as it that of the more developed cities of London and D.C. The South African taxis are either rather dodgy or rather expensive; the buses are not very convenient and the trains are impractical as they only run on one line, from one coast to the other. Those who do use the public transport, do so out of necessity for the fact that they have no other choice.

However, the transport infrastructure has been updated for the World Cup and there is more security for the tourists. Consequently my family and I braved the train from our nearest station to the city centre, which felt sort of like being in a different country rather than our own. We had a great day wondering around the city, knowing that we were very safe, sharing a pavement with people of all races and nationalities. It was fantastic to see the excitement that everyone was sharing. It is sort of like our country has transformed into another country completely just for this month.

I have to be honest, I quite like this South Africa, it has all the beauty of the real one but without the imperfections. Maybe, just maybe, we will find a South Africa somewhere in the middle: A beautiful country, free from racial tension and crime, but still full of the little imperfections that give South Africa its culture and charm.