Happy Birthday to me! Today, I turn 28 years old and I’m feeling nostalgic. It was this time last year when I celebrated my 27th birthday with all my dearest family and friends and bid my farewells as I set off on the biggest adventure of my life. A few days after my 27th birthday, I jetted off to Doha to begin my new life as cabin crew. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I knew nothing about aviation or what was required to be cabin crew other than serving chicken or beef casseroles. I wasn’t sure how I would cope not only living abroad but in the Middle East, away from my family and in a country so different from my own.
Almost one year later, I can safely say that this year has been the best year of my life. I have travelled to so many destinations that I never dreamed I would travel to in the span of one year. I have met some amazing people and made lots of new friends from all around the world. I’ve learnt a lot about myself, and what I can achieve if I set my mind to something. I am more confident, and most importantly I am happy. So happy that I can’t ask for anything more in my life because my dream to see the world is now a reality.
I mentioned earlier that I have travelled to a lot of destinations this past year. Well believe me, I haven’t travelled to quite as many as I would like. I still have many more places to go and see so my journey here won’t be ending anytime soon. I have some big trips planned for 2019 and I can’t wait to share them here soon. I said I’m going to travel the world, and I really mean it.
Now I will backtrack a little to last month – October. I travelled to Bangladesh, Kenya, UK, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Hong Kong and Australia.
Nairobi, Kenya
This was my second visit to Nairobi and on this occasion I thankfully had enough time to leave the hotel and do something exciting. I have always loved African animals, it may or may not have something to do with my childhood obsession with The Lion King (best movie ever!) They have always been a great fascination of mine, particularly lions, elephants and of course Giraffes!
One of the number one attractions in Nairobi is the Giraffe Centre, a conservation park for giraffes. Here, you get the opportunity to get up close and personal with the giraffes and when I say personal, I mean you can legit French kiss a giraffe… yes, I kissed a giraffe and I liked it. Warning, the following material has not been censored and may be inappropriate for some viewers….
London, UK
I finally saw London on my roster! The fact that Qatar Airways operates numerous amounts of flights to London each day, I knew it was only a matter of time before I was rostered for the flight. I have been to London a few times now and it still remains one of my favourite cities in the entire world. I love the fashion, the food, the tube, the people, the accent, the culture, and of course my friends Dani and Pat from Australia who are both living in London at the moment. I spent my short layover catching up with the two of them.
First stop was breakfast with one of my old childhood friends, Dani. Of course being Melbourne girls we ordered avocado…. so basic but so delicious
After a short shopping detour, I made my way across the city to meet my old work colleague and friend, Pat who was kind enough to sacrifice her lunch break to see me.
Hong Kong
My most anticipated trip this month was Hong Kong and I was lucky to visit twice. I have wanted to visit Hong Kong for a long time now, mainly to eat but also because I have heard many great things about this city. I was not disappointed, I’m not sure what it was about Hong Kong but from the moment I landed there, I immediately fell in love. I’ve visited China a few times now, but Hong Kong has a completely different vibe. It has a very nice mix of the old and the new.
A must do when visiting HK is hiking up to The Peak, a lookout overlooking the beautiful city by the water.
Visited The area Mong Kok for shopping and tried the amazing egg tarts at the famous Kam Wah Cafe. I’m not usually a sweet tooth but these tarts were delicious!!
This was the goldfish market in Mong Kok, so random. I love Asia!
Took the Star Ferry across the Harbour to see the city skyline at night.
Wouldn’t be a trip to Hong Kong without a visit to one of the cheapest Michelin Star restaurant in the world, Tim Ho Wan. This was my first time to dine at the restaurant even though we have one in Melbourne. When it opened, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t go as I wanted to save my first time for visiting the original store in Hong Kong. Of course the first thing I ordered was the famous pork buns… and now I know why they are famous…. mmmm mmmmm
On my final day in HK, I visited the Big Buddha statue on Lantau Island. I took the crystal cable car up the mountain which has a see through glass floor.
Adelaide, Australia
Back to Australia… it’s not home but it was close! I had a special little visitor on my short 24hr layover in Adelaide – Mum! I was so excited to see my mum at the end of a long 14hr flight from Doha to Adelaide. We spent our time catching up, shopping and eating our way around Adelaide.
The first night after I landed we went to the Lucky Dumpling Festival which was on by the river. We ate yummy overpriced Asian food including Philippino bbq chicken and green curry laksa dumplings.
We made a conscious effort to save room in our tummies for dessert. We visited the ice cream store 48 flavours which has what feels like a gazillion flavours for you to choose from (not great if you are bad at decision making like me). The hardest part of my day was definitely deciding on an ice cream flavour. They are very generous here with their taste testers so you shouldn’t have any regrets over your final choice. However, everything I tasted was so delicious, so the taste testers didn’t actually help so much. I ended up settling on my beloved matcha flavour and my Mum took the coconut taro flavour (interesting) so Asian I know…. maybe our ice cream choices were inspired by our dinner…?
The next morning, the two of us attempted to burn off all the calories from last night and went for a decent walk to the newly opened cafe, Coconut Estate Eatery for a lovely instagrammable brunch!
This was the epic breakie board for two! Eggs cooked to perfection #yolkporn
Also thought I’d throw in how excited I was to see Kmart, I haven’t been here in almost a year so don’t judge me. I bought a new bake tray for $3 – amazing!
November Roster
My layovers for this month include:
- Singapore x 2 (this was country #50 for me to visit)
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Zagreb, Croatia
- Skopje, Macedonia (this will be another new country for me and the flight comes with a day off :D)
- Dhaka, Bangladesh (was meant to have 2 Dhaka’s this month but happy birthday to me, rostering removed one of them!!!)
Well that’s all from me for this blogpost. Until the next one, I wish everyone a happy November 😀
Danielle Murnane 
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