Culture
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Black Robin Gin
Read more: Black Robin GinBlack Robin Gin is not only multi-award winning, it also has a special connection for me personally, as it celebrates the Chatham Island birds my relative Don Merton saved from extinction. My mother’s late uncle, the amazing conservationist Don Merton, saved the highly endangered black robins of New Zealand’s Chatham Islands using foster birds of…
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Top of the world in Rotorua
Read more: Top of the world in RotoruaDespite being only three and a half hours south of Auckland, a trip to Rotorua is something of the level of an “overseas holiday” for us, in terms of the excitement that the children hold. We went there last year closer to springtime and this year went in mid-June in the depths of New Zealand…
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Historic Kyoto – highlights in photos
Read more: Historic Kyoto – highlights in photos“Nippon, here we come!” read my itinerary for ten days in Japan from New Zealand life in May last month. I arrived at Kansai Airport on Air New Zealand – they used to fly direct from Auckland to Osaka but stopped doing that – so we had to change to another airline which was lengthy…
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R&B musician Paul Morton Jr
Read more: R&B musician Paul Morton JrPaul Morton Jr, born on March 29, 1981 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States is an American producer, musician and R&B singer. His first shows were with the band Freestyle Nation, before he went solo. He is also famous as one of Maroon 5’s keyboardists, and has contributed his vocals and keyboard parts in the…
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Buying designer recycle fashion in Japan
Read more: Buying designer recycle fashion in JapanBuying designer recycle fashion in Japan seemed to make perfect sense. Here was a country internationally renowned for investing in top labels and also having disposable income and a fairly robust sense of consumerism whilst being obsessed with the latest and the newest. This meant, in my mind, the perfect combination – great labels being…
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Highlights of Hokkaido in pictures – May 2015
Read more: Highlights of Hokkaido in pictures – May 2015I headed over to Japan earlier this month for ten days from New Zealand and I thought readers might like to take a peek at some of my highlights in photos. In this post, see my top picks from Hokkaido in May 2015. We flew from Osaka’s Kansai airport to Shinchitose airport in Sapporo, where…
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Highlights around Tokyo in pictures
Read more: Highlights around Tokyo in picturesSo in May of this year, I packed – very lightly, I might add, as, surprisingly for someone with four wardrobes and a predilection for hoarding, I only take one pair of shoes extra to what I wear on the plane, and a tiny toiletries bag of sample-sized skincare and two pairs of trousers –…
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Film review: Slow West
Read more: Film review: Slow WestSlow West (2015, UK/US) 4 stars Our world is a harsh and cruel world. Certainly, it has beauty around every corner, and there’s also love and joy galore, but it’s difficult to escape the pure inhumanity. It’s that old chestnut about life being nasty, brutish, and short. It’s about trying desperately to avoid living a…
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Comedy Fest NZ 2015 Review: “EastEnd Cabaret”
Read more: Comedy Fest NZ 2015 Review: “EastEnd Cabaret”“EastEnd Cabaret” Tuesday 12 May @ 7.15pm @ Q Theatre Everyone, even the most prudish amongst us, deep down, past the facades of sensibility and topics-you-can’t-talk-about-in-polite-company, sits the desire to be teased and titillated, just a little bit. Occasionally, we want to laugh, and we want to feel naughty about what we’re laughing at. Sometimes,…
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JAPAN in May 2015 – highlights from my Instagram
Read more: JAPAN in May 2015 – highlights from my InstagramJAPAN in May 2015 – highlights in photos from my Instagram feed as I travelled the country in their Spring from New Zealand, over to Kyoto up to Hokkaido and back down by bullet train to Tokyo. Intro image: making tea in Hakodate ryokan inn. My Japanese breakfast this morning! Oishii. Beautiful dolls on display…