APOLLO BAY

Just over a week ago, my friend Emma and I left Melbourne for a five day trip to Apollo Bay.
I slept over at Emma's house the night before we left and it was the first time I'd seen her in over 10 months. We departed her house at about 10am the next morning and I just have to mention that while we were waiting for our train we ate the best dumplings I've probably ever had.

After roughly eight hours of travelling, we had arrived in Apollo Bay and were checking into our hostel. We stayed at the YHA Eco Hostel, chosen both for the price and the good reviews, and in no way were we disappointed. Neither Emma nor I had ever stayed in a hostel before so we were pretty much expecting the worst - especially after hearing hostel horror stories from family members and pieces online - but this hostel was as clean as any hotel, the people were super friendly (yet not too friendly), happy to help and I didn't feel like my belongings were in any way unsafe, although of course that didnt stop me from taking all the precautions!

While we were eating dinner the first night (massive bowls of pasta), we were sitting on a deck just outside the kitchen and a guy a few years older than us came outside and spoke to us. It turned out he was also vegan and was pretty chuffed about the fact that at that moment in time and space, 100% of the people sitting/standing on that deck were vegan. I guess it was pretty cool.

Day 2 of our trip was cool and cloudy, so we decided to rug up and go for a walk through Marengo to Shelly beach.
Of course I managed to completely forget about sunscreen until we were back in Apollo Bay and my usually-very-pale-face was well on it's way to becoming Belthazor (aka Cole's red-faced demon form from 'Charmed').

Beach - what more can I say

The trail from Marengo to Shelly beach

The rocks here were amazing! Very slippery too

The lighting isn't great here but I felt like I had to show at least one photo of myself hahaha

The thing I love most about Apollo Bay is that you have the beach one way and these beautiful hills the other, unique compared to other beach towns along the Great Ocean Road

As we were eating dinner that night - do all interesting things happen during food time or do we just eat 24/7? - we were swarmed by seagulls and for a moment there I was genuinely scared. Probably more than a moment considering birds are very near the top of my 'things to be scared of' list. Luckily, Emma had no problem channeling her inner demon and protecting our chips from being bird-napped.

After chips we went for a walk along the beach and the water was soo beautiful

Day 3 was a very chill day. I didn't feel too great due to the suburn on my face and the fact that I had been consistently layering my face with any sort of moisturiser I could find. It left me feeling sluggish, although I suppose that momentary relief was worth it at the time. I did naht want a peely face.
We stayed in our room pretty much all day, aside from being temporarily locked out, until we decided to go for a 'walk' up to Mariner's Lookout. I put the word 'walk' in quotation marks because that isn't exactly how we got there...
According the the receptionist at our hostel, it was about an hours walk each way, up and down a steep hill, but we had to do something that day. Maybe two minutes into the walk, a taxi drove past and all it took was one look at eachother and we were on our way, cruising up the hill in a yellow taxi - at a slightly alarming speed, might I add.
The view from the lookout was really nice, we could see all of Apollo Bay + more, and once returning from our walk (yep, we actually managed to walk back) we had a quick look at the view from the top of our hostel before retiring to our room to play Animal Crossing, like the adults we are.

The view from Mariner's Lookout

A sheep we saw on the way back from the lookout! I snapped probably like twenty photos of it's bum and like four of it's face - this is the money shot

The last two days were relatively similar, there wasn't heaps to do without a car or a bike, so on our last night we both got an icypole (the sorbet place was closed, unfortunately) and had a bit of a laugh while *attempting* to exercise, and pretty much all of the next day was spent travelling. It also included me not feeling so great on the bus ride back, losing my wallet (which held I sterling silver toe ring I bought) and some interesting characters on the train - one of whom legitimately sounded like a pimp.
Three things I have taken away from this trip are:

1. Do not forget to be sun safe, even/especially when it's cloudy!! (This is one I already knew, but clearly it needed reinforcement)
   
2. Wheely bags/backpacks will greatly improve your quality of life. My brother of course took my suitcase the day before I needed it, so I was stuck with lugging around a heavy suitcase in my hand - painful and impractical, don't do it.
   
3. Sweet chilli sauce has a lot of sugar - we went temporarily mad.
   

Sorry if this was super long, I had so much to write about. I also have heaps more photos to share so I may or may not do a second post mainly with photos and not much writing (I always find that those sort of posts keep my attention longer too)

-Gracie

ME (Belthazor)

VEGAN GINGERBREAD COOKIES ~ RECIPE

This is a really simple recipe, and it doesn't require many unordinary ingredients that you wouldn't already have in the cupboard!

What you'll need:

• 150g brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar for both batches, I think either light or dark would work fine)
• 2 tbsp golden syrup (maple syrup should be fine too)
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground clove
• 190g butter substitute (I use Nuttelex)
• 1 small tsp bicarb soda
• 450g plain flour
• Icing sugar + water (for easy icing)

Method:
1. Combine all the ingredients together, either on the stove or just in a mixing bowl (like I did), making sure to sift the flower. However, if you're choosing to mix them on the stove, remove the mixture from the heat and then add the flour.

Note: Add extra spices if you'd like a stronger flavour! I think I will next time.

First batch

2. This is what the dough should look like after everything is combined. It should be firm, so you may need to add more flour. Cover the bowl with glad wrap and place it in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

First batch

3. After you've taken the dough out of the fridge, spread some flour on your workbench and your rolling pin so that the dough won't stick to them, you will need to keep adding more as you go. Find some cookie cutters (I used gingerbread men, candy canes and Christmas trees) and pop them on a tray ready to be put into the oven. You can preheat the oven, in fact most recipes would say you should but I always forget and they turn out fiiiine, to 180 degrees Celsius and bake the cookies for 10 - 15 minutes. 

First batch

Here are my cookies, just out of the oven!
Note: It can be hard to tell whether they're done or not when you take them out because they will still be a bit soft (they harden up once they've cooled for a bit) but resist the urge to leave them in for just a little bit longer! That's what always stumps me and then they end up burning. In fact, that may or may not have happened today...

Second batch

SO. I made a second batch of cookies and you can probably tell from the photos that they're slightly different from the first one.
In the original batch, I had to use blackstrap molasses instead of golden syrup, despite the fact that I can't STAND molasses, oh my God. Even the smell.
I was hoping it wouldn't be noticeable once the cookies were out of the oven but I decided that while the dough was in the fridge, I would go up the street, buy some golden syrup and make another batch of cookies, because who wants gingerbread cookies that taste like sewerage? (No offence intended if you really like molasses hahah)
I used the same process and all other ingredients were the same, but I think the second batch is definitely better than the first, although everyone else in my house seems to like the first just fine, so maybe it's just dependent on personal taste - I still suggest golden syrup though.

I simply used icing sugar mixed with water to decorate these (just add icing sugar and water to your desired consistency - more icing sugar compared to water = thicker mixture) but obviously you can do whatever decorations you want! Food colouring is always fun too.

I didn't bother icing the first batch, mainly because I was tired but also because I wasn't as emotionally invested in those ones hahah.

So have fun baking and Merry Christmas!!

HALLOWEEN IN SPRING

Living in Australia, we don't get many Halloween festivities, and decorations and pumpkins aren't always the easiest to find. Nevertheless, it is perhaps my favourite holiday (if it's even a holiday?) and deserves some recognition!

Some time ago, I invited my friend over to carve pumpkins and watch movies - we also ended up reading eachother's tea leaves and making a huge mess. (I'm still finding the various pumpkin seeds that were scattered around my bedroom)

 

We had no idea pumpkins cry?

And here's our pumpkin family <3 (see if you can pick out Fred - he's the special one)

Weekend purchases - H&M

Fluffy white jumper, so soft and cosy!
Cuts off around the hips and the sleeves are perfect length ~ definitely not too short which is a problem I struggle with hahaha ($20)

Up close

A green sweater/jumper: I really like this colour and again, the sleeves are a good length but the bottom tends to cling around my hips/stomach and then puff out a bit in the middle, which is a style I'm not that fond of so I'll returning this. Other than that, it's really comfortable and fits really well, I would recommend this! ($15)

This is a big light grey quilted jumper/sweater thing (I'm not quite sure... It's thin ish?) with rolled up sleeves. It is quilted on the torso with plain arms. I really like quilted things so I picked this up almost immediately after I saw it, but it's either supposed to be very oversized or I got a size too big. I'm going to take it back and try a size smaller but if thats too small, I think I might keep the first one, I don't know! Oh and unfortunately, the sleeves don't roll down any further so keep that in mind if three quarter length sleeves aren't your thing. Maybe you could unpick the thread that is holding them up though? ($25)

This is possibly one of my favourite things I bought yesterday. It's a light, flowy dress which you could pair with so many things and wear as a casual day dress or something nice to wear out at night and it was such a good price I was actually surprised! It's getting close to spring now so I think this dress will be perfect. ($20)

Here is the floral print up close, excuse the stuff stuck up on my wall please haha

Hope you enjoyed, everything here was from H&M (which is surprising because I don't usually find much that I like in there, although maybe I just don't go in often because it's always SO packed with people)! Have a great day/night wherever you are! :))
Leave a comment to let me know if this was a useful post and what you think about this all :)

Today I...

Tuesday the 28th of July - had a blood test done in the morning (missed biology, yes!), asked if I could stay home for the rest of the day and the answer was yes (no maths or english either, yes!), planned to catch up on maths since we have a SAC on Thursday, didn't, watched a lot of youtube videos, cleaned my room, bludged through the rest of the day and got in bed early.

I don't know what I'm planning to call these posts but I'm aiming to do them every day, or most days. Maybe not on days like this considering it's not very interesting... But hey, gotta learn to love the little things. :)

The past few days

Friday the 24th: Woke up to my dog, Kelly, throwing up in my bedroom... She got it all in an empty plastic box that just happened to be on my floor. I have concluded she did it for my benefit, thanks Kel. hehe

Saturday the 25th: Went to Jackson's house with Maddi and Arabella, and played Just Dance haha

Sunday the 26th: Arabella and I watched the Book Thief and I proceeded to do no homework after she left!

Today, Monday the 27th: Maddi and I are convinced Kyle has a vendetta against us (he's trying to kill us, probably for the mandarin peels), I bought fruit roll ups at lunch and got weird stomach cramps after that - no clue why???

have a fab day x

Making changes (yes, I know it's not New Year)

Okay, so apparently I forgot I have a blog haha but I'd definitely like to get into it more! I think before I was finding it really difficult to figure out what to blog about but at the moment I am really excited to do this.
I think in the future I will be posting about recipes, trying to help people understand plant-based lifestyles and basically just what's happening in my life.
Honestly I'm not that interested in reading product reviews that other people have made, so I probably won't be doing many of them, unless they're about movies or something which I am really quite impressed with.
My ideal future would probably involve blogging about plant-based living and travelling, so maybe that's what this will turn into! (If I ever get to travel hahah)

This probably wasn't a very interesting post but it's helping me to feel organised and motivated, thanks for reading!!

Where I go for fashion advice!

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to think of what to wear to a certain event or just how to come up with your own style that suits you, so I thought it might be helpful to list a few inspiration sources that work for me.
(I've tried not to make this too long so if anyone reads this and wants me to elaborate or do another post, leave me a comment!)

1. TV shows and movies.
I'd say possibly the best place to get fashion advice from is a TV show or a movie, especially if you're looking for 90s or 80s fashion because you can always watch old movies or old shows, where the characters and actors were wearing genuine 90s trends.

Movies/shows that I look to for fashion ideas have been:
Friends, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Charmed, Singles, Stoker, and the list goes on....

2. Famous people/celebrities etc..
This is kind of similar to the last point, but I have found that actors and musicians are really useful for fashion tips because they often tend to stay on top of the trends, it's super easy to just search their name into Google images and see a whole bunch of different outfits they've worn (for all sorts of different occasions) and generally they're creative people, which always helps when it comes to style.

I tend to search up people like 90s Winona Ryder, Elle Fanning... I've had a blank and can't think of any others at the moment but basically any person who I otherwise like!

3. Pinterest/Tumblr/Youtube/Blogs
This is probably the most obvious option, and I particularly enjoy Pinterest because I feel like it's a little more organised and easier to navigate than tumblr/regular blogs, although I also feel like the age demographic is more mature and therefore there are less users that post things relative to teens and young adults.
And of course, Youtube is great if you don't have much time for sitting down and watching videos or actively scrolling through blogs because you can watch them as you're doing other things like cooking, getting ready in the morning etc...

Maybe I'll post a list of my favourite Youtubers at the moment, incase anyone is interested!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this post, I actually cut a lot away trying not to make it a huge chunk of writing, but now I feel like it's a bit boring... Please comment, that would be really cool and I might do another post on this topic later because there's so much to say! :)
-Gracie