Sky Bar, Cape Royale on a windless 33 degree day
04 Dec 2011, Posted by Cape Town Girl in hotels, south africa, 0 Comments
Definitely one for the Holiday Bucket List. This is the Jade Mountain Resort at St Lucia. Let’s pretend we are there. Visualise it. Smell the smell of the sea air.
Imagine standing here at sunrise. Maybe some tropical birds cawing somewhere.
Having your muesli and Jasmine tea by the pool before your massage.
Can you smell the sea?
A little meditation in the pool? Ahhhhhh……
Looking forward to this event at the Table Bay Hotel. So far I’ve eaten about 500 Lindt Balls and drunk a bottle of champagne and I haven’t even got to the Table Bay yet, so things are looking good. First we’ll be picked up in a limo then we’ll be taught how to make all manner of delicious things while taking part in our own cooking show (literally a life-long dream of mine – been telling everyone, my hair is longer than Nigella’s so I’m definitely a better cook) and then we’ll ’suffer’ through a wine-tasting at the Atlantic Grill (what a tragedy) and then we’ll sample a few of the whiskies and cognacs at the Union Bar (love me a single malt).
to read up more about who’ll be attending it with me, you can click here. Looking forward to having CTG’s Official Wine Expert along. Should be hilarious!
from the Table Bay Hotel, along with an invitation to attend the Table Bay Sun International Chef’s Table Event next month. Done! Lindt choccies, macarons and some red wine for friday night… don’t mind if I do!
Went on a little trip up North to ‘get some perspective’. And by perspective, I mean, meet some cool people, drink Johnnie Walker Black and go to cool places. I’m never fond of leaving the city bowl, but my fellow Capetonians, JHB isn’t so bad, if you know how to do it. Stick with me kids.
Went to a Khaya FM Johnnie Black Jazz Party at Katzy’s. Love Katzy’s – it’s a jazz bar in the old school tradition at The Firs in Rosebank. Definitely a repeat venue for dinners and casual drinks for future Joburg trips.
Had lunch at Sofiatown restaurant in Newtown. Spotted this Nike Run Your City wheatpaste / social media campaign. Apparently one was done in Cape Town, but in Woodstock, so I never saw it. Not sure who runs through Woodstock. Would be far too cumbersome carrying pepperspray and a tazer.
Went to Neh! in Alexandra. It’s a 3-story restaurant / bar / club that looks out over the township. Loved the VIP areas - all Courvoisier and Hennessy and purple velvet and Veuve.
More of the Neh bar. A CTG-approved selection.
Wearing leopard print harem pants and sipping a glass of Johnnie Black at the Katzy’s party.
Spotted this poster at Kospotong in Newtown – love it. Love the ‘Hayibo Tokoloshe’ caption too!
Stayed at the Da Vinci hotel across the road from the Sandton Convention Centre. It’s got a great vibe – all black and white and silver. Great for a girls weekend, for future reference. Thanks for having me Joburg, it was fab.
A few quick snaps of last night’s Cosmo Summer Fashion Show. Above are the Sunglass Hut models. Those are some exceptional bodies, I must say!
The venue was One&Only Cape Town, and it was looking super glam. Veet, as a sponsor, definitely owned the evening.
Can’t wait to see the snaps from the Sunglass Hut photobooth. Well done to Cosmo – it was a great show. And the turnout was insane!
Similar concept to the Daddy Long Legs / Grand Daddy Boutique art hotels here, except the extreme luxury version, these are pics from the Seven Hotel in Paris.
We particularly love the levitation vibe in the last room :)
Rocking the Daisies is a very civilised music festival. Granted it was the first music festival for both LA & CTG, so we don’t have much to compare it to, but we expected a lot worse. We stayed in the Kreef Hotel, a tented hotel with our own private showers and very clean portaloos. There was hot water and mirrors and basins. The service was excellent, as was the breakfast the next morning. The hotel is only a short distance away from the stage area, saving us the great trek the rest of the campers had to do.
Kreef Hotel
The tents had mattresses with sheets and everything. Much better than this:
We arrived on Friday afternoon just as things were getting started. The sun was setting. We drank beer. We pottered around the stalls. It’s much like the Old Biscuit Mill, with a big stage in the distance and some people jumping around on the stage. Very pleasant.
Ophelia, Simz & CTG
Friday night got very cold very fast. So we drank more beer, ate some steak rolls from Knead, talked to some people, talked to some other people, saw some other people, tried on silly hats…There’s kind of so much to do besides watch music we found ourselves only catching 3 acts: Seventh Son, the Dirty Skirts and New Young Pony Club. The Dirty Skirts were super-pro, very ‘big international band’, lots of black-and-white imagery, lots of black leather. New Young Pony Club were bouncy and rocky and fun. And very English. We bounced and we rocked, and then we all fled to the Red Bull tent, where there was warmth, and a lineup of DJs that would keep you dancing, and hence warm.
This photo was taken at about 9pm in the beer tent, which should give you a fair indication of the vibe.
I think the Red Bull tent was the unofficial headlining act of Daisies? We didn’t stay for Saturday night, but it was the place to be on Friday night and from reports it kicked ass on Saturday night too.
The Loaded Smoothie Beach and the dam were a definite highlight. We chilled and swam for a good part of the morning. Worked on our ‘base tan’.
Then we bought nougat, cheesecake and lemon meringue pie from the Miss K stall. Because how could we not?
Miss K's Lemon Meringue
Did you know that Rocking the Daisies is a green festival? I knew that but I didn’t really know what that meant until I saw this, which maps areas you can recycle your waste, and water stations where you can refill your water bottles rather than buying new ones, etc.
After we ate our cheescake and our nougat and our lemon meringue and our Vida (thank god for Vida!) we were ready to hit the road. Not bad for a first-time festival, not bad at all. Would we do it again? Absolutely! See you next year! Next time we’ll bring some hard antihistamines, since our hayfever was worse than our hangovers :)
My festival outfit: skinnies by Pepe, leather boots by Woolworths, Jersey by Urban, shades D&G at Sunglass Hut
LA's festival outfit: dress by Country Road, Cardigan by Trenery, boots by Trenery and shades Ray Ban at Sunglass Hut.
Click here to see my full set of photos from RTD 2010.
Riding the lift at 15 on Orange
Last night PD, LM, LA and CTG hit up 15 on Orange for an evening of cocktails and anti-aging treatment discussions hosted by Elizabeth Arden’s Prevage range. Not that we are aging (visibly), but we do plan to not-age ever, and Prevage has a great reputation for being THE preventative treatment to use. We actually have this idea of sparkling eternally like vampires - like EDWARD - so this was a meeting with our skin investment managers.
If you haven’t been to 15 on Orange yet, do yourself a favour and go check it out. It’s the least hotel-like hotel in Cape Town, and their investing in collector design pieces like the Haldane Martin Songololo couch has paid off – it’s simply the most beautiful space to be in. The decor detail is phenomenal – from the hanging walls in the bathrooms to the chain mail chandeliers and the feather lamps and the sparkles in the staircases… it’s just lovely. It might even take the title of CTG’s New Favourite Spot, but that’s still TBC.
Hanging chain chandelier
ANYWAY we had a professor of cosmetic surgery chatting to us about various anti-aging treatments available. Have you heard of a technique called ‘needling’? Where you wound your facial skin with tiny little needles so that your skin starts making collagen to fix itself again? Apparently it’s super common and it works really well. He passed the needle roller around… it gave me goosebumps. Guess I’m just not ‘there yet’. I did have a black light scan which shows all the hidden sun damage the human eye can’t see. Let’s just say it was a bit of a wakeup call. There is no doubt about this: the sun is the devil, and it wants to burn holes in your face. Smear on the factor 50 whenever you can.
We received the whole Prevage range to take home and try. I have mentioned Prevage before - I came across it while searching for the ultimate daycream-containing-sun-defence-that-doesn’t-cause-pimples, and having used the day cream for about a month now I am a convert to the product. Despite this, I did what we all do when we get new beauty products – went home and got in the shower and then smeared myself slick with EVERYTHING from the serum to the eye cream to the body cream to the night cream, and then slept on my back (like EDWARD) so as to minimise lines from pillow creases (apparently a very reliable cause of facial lines).
It was fun learning about it all. Thank you to Elizabeth Arden for inviting us. CTG will be doing a discussion video on the products at a later stage to let you know how it’s worked with our skins, since we all have very different types of skin and what works for one person might not work for another and that’s the kind of stuff you want to know, right?
“You can check out any time you like, but (when you go tan by the pool you will be burnt like an ant and) you can never leave.” Am not kidding, there is a hotel in Las Vegas that is designed in such a way that it reflects and magnifies sunlight and burns its guests! Can’t make this shit up. Thank heavens One&Only Cape Town does not burn its guests, because that’s probably where we’re going to be spending much of this summer, and the ‘dead ant’ vibe is so 1998.
