royal at the royalton

a few months ago, my friend Audrey introduced me to priceline.com, a concept which to me sounded a little too good to be true. The idea is that you bid for holiday accomodation, as high or low as you choose and hey presto you win some spang -dangle hotel stay for half the price! I thought this website might have been baloney, I mean they have Denny Crane as the face of priceline! although, I do sheepishly admit that I actually love Denny Crane - not to mention Donny Crane! *drool*....

despite my doubts i have been religiously bidding every other day, determined to stay below the ceiling price that Panu and i had agreed on. day after day, i was rejected by priceline, advised that actually, they do not have 4 star hotels in central NYC at my bid. it's ok though, i have the tenacity of a pittbull, it takes a lot more than that to flatten my spirit!

so i bid and bid, and today! Today i won! when we hit NYC in November this year, we are staying at the Royalton Hotel! Up until today i had no idea what the Royalton Hotel actually was but when I casually mentioned to some colleagues that that's where we were staying, they - no joke - almost choked on their tea.

so apparently, the Royalton Hotel was re-designed by Phillippe Starck, designer to the stars and french royalty. the hotel is sumptuous, it is modern, it is art-deco but not patent tacky. it is just divine. and furthermore, it is supposedly the bedchamber of choice for quite a few stars ducking away for a NY shopping trip... oooo yeh.

and the price? we got the place for about half the rack rate. I like!

anyway, that's November, still 121 sleeps away! This weekend, we are off to the land downunder. Someone said to me today, you're leaving summer for the Australian winter?

well, considering it is 25 degrees in the queensland winter, I am hardly complaining!

i'm bursting

i cannot believe it's only 6 sleeps til we're heading back to home soil. i don't care that it's only for 2 weeks, i am bursting with excitement and can't imagine how i'm going to get through the week..

looking forward to seeing all you sydneysiders & queenslanders!

question

so, here's a survey question for you all out there...

how many of you out there say "i love you"?

... and is the healthy prescription of at least once a day for real?

... or another million dollar habit coined by hallmark?

... and would it be more special said less frequently?

finally!

Loreen and Felix started going out before I even had my first proper boyfriend. They survived the tumultuous transition from high school to university and stayed together through various odd phases of university life, and even odd-er casual jobs. They stayed strong through the turbulent early years of fledgling career-hood, through CA exams, and even the highly stressful move to the top-left end of the world.

All this time, while they stuck together in unity and strength, I was piddling along from one relationship to another, falling in and out of love and crying on Loreen's shoulders more than a few times.

How amazingly lucky they are to have one another in such a profoundly strong relationship.

All I can say is thank goodness for mIrc, for otherwise, these two would never have met!

Congratulations Loreen & Felix, i love you both x

More photos here.

update

time seemed to escape me again, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post! i'm in dire need of a verbal vomit onto this page but between work, visitors and attempting to be social, i've just run out of minutes.

so here's a brief update on the happenings in the life of catty:

• we had our very first visitor! aaron came, slept on our aerobed and left to follow le tour around France...
• on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, G-Love and friends played an awesome show at Hyde Park... (photos)
• uncle shawn hosted a bbq, where the guests had to build the bbq... (photos)
• we managed to squeeze in Wanted, which i thought was absolutely brilliant! how did James McAvoy get so hot?
• and Erika (who's leaving me!) and I had dinner at a funk-quar Malaysian European restaurant - assam laksa, roti canai... not too shabby!

Penang assam laksa and Roti canai with dhal curry dips











Ikan asam pedas and Aubergine curry

I know, not very European, but they did have rib eye steak on the menu too!

This weekend, tonight in fact, we are off to France again for the much anticipated wedding of Loreen and Felix! They've entrusted us with the task of delivering the celebrant from Paris to the wedding somewhere outside of Paris - big responsibility hey? Let's hope we don't get lost.

no bunny suits..

Loreen had instructed quite clearly that there were to be no strippers. She also instructed in perfect French ("I'm not wearing the fucking bunny suit") that she might not be pleased if she had to wear a bunny suit.

If it were anyone else, literally anyone else, I would have picked up the phone and booked a naked fireman without losing two winks of sleep. But for those of you who don't know Loreen, she is described by her own fiance as "obsessive, compulsive, fierce". And that's an understatement.

So without pushing the issue of the "fucking bunny suit" much further (read: at all), we convinced Loreen to don the cutest set of bunny ears, a little bow tie and the cutest of cute fluffy tail *yay*... how cute does she look??

With the hen appropriately dressed, we headed out for a night of good food, copious amounts of bubbly, and somewhat average music. It was good girly fun, so completely underrated!

More photos here.

Incidentally, we spent the day lazing at the Le Kalon Spa, closed to the public for 6 hours for our private function and it was the most chill-axing day of pampering ever. Highly recommended if you are having a party of about 10 girls.