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Tag Archives: fun activities

Volcano Winery Rotorua

20/07/201920/07/2019

It’s a dramatically cooling off day in Rotorua and a must-do is the skyline hill. There are a swag of activities to part take in, including wine tasting.

We head out to the Skyline and purchase the gondola ride (which is actually really worth it and reminds me of Switzerland) and 3 luge passes. The costings and options are here.

The wines are NZ wines and if you are not planning on going to a specific wine region this is the next best thing.

It’s actually quite an OK deal if you are traveling with children.

So off the gondola to the top. The ride takes you over the international Mons Extreme sports track which is stunning. We spot a herd of deers happily munching on the slops and as the climb continues draw breath at the quite spectacular views.

Once at the top, the clouds open up! Like teaming rain.

We decide to take shelter in Volcanic Hills Winery.

So we figure a wine is a good pause, especially as we are about to challenge ourselves to luge.

The staff at the winery are extremely friendly and feel like old friends. Even Georgia who assures us she is an introvert.

Delightfully indulged with wines (very approachable wines I might add), chit chasing with Johnny about his life and him inquiring about our, we whittle away a lazy few hours taking in the views of Rotorua.

It’s a wonderful incidental side trip.

OH – we decide not to luge as it was really cold and raining and very nicely they staff extended our expiring on the luge so we can revisit in a few weeks and use the passes then.

Highly recommend.

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The Gili Island Cooking School

07/06/201607/06/2016

For a bit of fun I thought I would try the cooking school on Gili Trawangan at Sweet and Spicy.

As I said it was a bit of fun.

You get to cook five dishes but eat six.

Sweet and spicy cooking class
Sweet and spicy cooking class

It was good for me being a nutritionist seeing how food has been bastardised to suit the Western Palate. Loads of MSG (salt) and loads of other things that just are not healthy but it was fun and for two girls in the group it looked like their first cooking experience. Including stirring something in a pot!

sticky rice balls
Green sticky rice balls – the green dye was banana flavoured!

IMG_0382 IMG_0384

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We made some green sugar balls in sticky rice…. I think they call this food but I could debate that.

We also made gado gado (frozen vegetables with a chilli peanut sauce).

My favorites were definitely the chicken Lai (recipe from a Lombok village) and the steamed fish.

For all the herbs we used it lacked the same dynamic taste sensations that other countries have in their foods – that or the herbs were old and had lost their kick.

Flaming the chicken for a curry
Flaming HOT!

The most fun by far was flaming the chicken.

I had a scary kitchen incident growing up and we accidently torched my friends kitchen when cooking popcorn. The fat caught on fire, then exploded. I ended up with stitches in my leg (after diving through a window to escape) one girl ended up in hospital with concussion and the girl closest ended up with nothing as the flame died down pretty quick! Oh that’s right. She threw water on the burning fat. An absolute no-no.

Anyway getting comfortable with flames in the kitchen was cathartic and fun.

Would I recommend it – sure. It was only 350,000 (35USD) and you got to eat the food. Times were at 11am, 4pm and 9pm.

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