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Showing posts from 2017

RotoVegas Pt. 3: Vegan Eats

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Going to stay in a smaller city can be sort of daunting if you are Vegan, because you don't really know where you will actually be able to eat (without having to do a whole grocery shop and cook from scratch) unless you have other Vegan friends in the area - which I don't. There is always  Happy Cow , but for Rotorua there weren't many entries and most of those were just Vegetarian. So here are a few places I discovered in Rotorua that were Vegan friendly. Night Markets Rotorua Night Markets run on Thursdays from 5pm, I found three different stalls selling Vegan food which was pretty surprising as I was not expecting there to be more than one! I had Seitan Nuggets (called Wicked Nippers) and a pulled pork style Vege Burger from a food truck called  Mr. Jacksons  which travels from Tauranga each week. Another option was El Cartel Mexicano who advertised Vegan options with there usual offerrings of quesadillas, burritos, nachos and tacos. A

RotoVegas Pt. 2: Boxing Day

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My favourite thing about Rotorua is how close you are to nature.  On Boxing Day I went to The Redwoods National Park (Whakarewarewa Forest) to hike and spend some time in nature - it's only 10 minutes from my parents house.  I spent around 2 hours exploring the tracks, stopping in the Nursery Road area to have a snack and take some pictures from the look out. Of course I also got some typical white girl pictures, though if you are going to do this, I recommend wearing sunblock because I forgot and now my shoulders and back are burnt as f*ck. After the hike, I met my family back at Blue lake for another turn at paddle boarding before heading home (and grabbing some Pita Pit on the way). If you are planning on heading to Rotorua here are a few other interesting things you could try:  The Polynesian Spa Redwoods Tree Walk aMAZEme Rotorua Night Markets (thursday nights) Skyline Luge/Gondola's If you have a favourite spot in Rotorua that you

RotoVegas Pt. 1: Christmas Day

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Everyone has different traditions for Christmas, for me it's all about family. This year our family Christmas was held at my parents new house in Rotorua, after we had our immediate family's gift exchange the food preparations begin for the huge family lunch that we have with all my Aunts, Uncles & Cousins. Of course I snuck in lots of accidentally vegan things into the shared table including garlic bread and a Chocolate Hazelnut & Boysenberry cake that I made myself. I used The Caker's mix for my base, they no longer stock the Chocolate Hazelnut mix but have other options in their online  store . I've also tried the Raspberry & Coconut mix, and the Lemon & Plum - which was my fave! The best part about these mixes is most of them are easily made vegan (I think only one mix includes dairy milk chocolate.) I decided to add boysenberries to make it more Christmas-y, so divided it into two layers and filled with a boysenberry sauce which I whippe

Shakespeare: Auckland Pop Up Globe

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"love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind..." Last week I was fortunate enough to be gifted tickets to the Pop Up Globe's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Right after Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer is my favourite Shakespeare play - though I hadn't read it again since high school when my English class studied it. It was awesome to see it reenacted with a Kiwi twist. Spoiler Alert: The Fairies in this version all speak Te Reo, so brush up before you go. " Oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, four lovers escape a death sentence by fleeing to an ancient forest. Elsewhere in the woods, a group of tradies secretly meet to indulge their love of amateur drama. But there’re more than just trees in this forest. Ancient creatures of myth and legend haunt the dark corners of the woods, and they love nothing more than causing trouble… " The artwork on the roof of the stage.  The Globe itself has an open roof, so as the n

But First, Coffee!

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This past weekend was full of firsts for me, which is why today, I need a coffee I.V! On Saturday, I had my first alcoholic beverage of the year, made my first beach trip of the summer, I went to town for the first time in over a year, had my first donut from the new Tart Bakery at St Kevin’s arcade, first Karaoke, and had my first yelling match on Queen Street (oops). Saturday was the Unofficial IPW end of year gathering, which is why I broke my dry spell and had alcohol for the first time this calendar year. Steph and Leilani came to chill at my house prior for girl time and pre-drinks, we headed out to mission bay in our bikini’s (but forgot towels, so didn’t swim) and took a stroll along the beach. We then went to St Kevin’s arcade on Karangahape Road to try the fresh fruit icecream that Tart Bakery had been advertising, unfortunately the shop had over heated and the machine wasn’t working! (We’ll go back another time).Instead I got a bright red iced

ACPWCC: Wellington Weekend Getaway

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I’m currently in Wellington airport (Sunday morning) writing this after one of the best wrestling weekends I’ve ever had. I flew down here on Saturday morning to join All Commonwealth Pro Wrestling in their debut show in Porirua. I’m happy to report back that it was an awesome show! The crowd were so filled with energy and the card was stacked with amazing talent from NZ and Australia. Not a single dull moment. I stayed in Lyall Bay along the waterfront with Britenay and it was beautiful. We took an early morning walk and went to The Botanist for brunch and coffee (shout out to my Auckland brunch bunch, I miss you). I chose the buckwheat pancakes, with lavender poached fruit and coconut yogurt.  After brunch we did a little sight seeing and went up to the Brooklyn wind turbine and looked out over Owhiro Bay before driving to Porirua to set up the wrestling ring for the show.  Photo's from the show are available  here. I

Off To The Races

You may have come here expecting to read something about wrestling but today I want to address another passion of mine - Animal Welfare. As a vegan I make it my business to learn as much as I can about industries that not only produce animals for consumption or use animal testing, but also industries that exploit animals for entertainment so that I can be sure not to support them in any way.  Recently I have heard amongst my friends discussions of attending horse racing events, so today this is what I will be talking about. Usually I would just remove such people from my life by way of unfriending or blocking on social media, but if I continue down that path sooner or later I’ll have no friends left – so here I am, hitting you up with the knowedge. While horse racing might seem like a fun event for you and your friends to attend and spend the day drinking in the sun – its far from fun for the horses. Safe NZ states  that in New Zealand, around 5,500 thoroughbred and 3,00

A Year in Review

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It is one night out from IPW’s Time Crisis 2. I’m sitting here reflecting on the year that’s been, all its ups and downs, and I’ve just realised that I will actually be wrestling the next 5 weekends in a row. That’s every weekend until Christmas! Holy sh*t. When did I become a worker?!  I’ve done a lot of things I never thought I with do in wrestling this year, things like wrestling Bea Priestley in front of over 600 people in Invercargill, having 6 matches in a weekend at Wellington Armageddon, finally overcoming my fear of the top rope and landing a Moonsault, or feuding over whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza. I’ve had 25 matches in front of a live crowd since my debut match at Rainbows End in September 2016, and that will reach 30 by the end of the year. I’ve also been booked by 5 different promotions in New Zealand (there are only 8 wrestling promotions in the country). Writing this down is absolutely surreal to me. On top of all that I’ve also bui

Success Is A Journey

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When I began wrestling in March 2015 it became clear to me quite fast, that while I was ‘in shape’ (read: thin) I was not fit. And so a few months in to my training I hired a personal trainer to show me what to do, and I finally began to enjoy going to the gym and lifting weights – the first time I’d been back to a gym since I was 15 years old. (I also decided to give up alcohol and try a vegan diet!) In January of 2016 I joined my local Anytime Fitness and in April 2016 won the “Member of the Month” for the most visits (and went vegan permanently). Every month I competed with myself to get to the top of the ‘most visits’ list. I would get up  at 5am  to head to the gym before work, and then return again on my way home. During this time, although I was doing so much in the gym I barely noticed any difference in my body. This was really disheartening, and over time I started to slack off and dropped down to twice a week. In May this year, I had to stop all exercise for 4 weeks

Table For Three

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So I had a really exciting blog planned where I asked for twitter users to submit questions, but then after recording our conversation answering all the questions, I put my phone in my pocket without locking it and deleted everything. Oops. So anyway, it was Vegan night once again at Gypsy Caravan in Ponsonby, so of course Amber, Candy and I were all over it. Candy was late. It was really great to catch up with the girls, I’ve been super stressed about work lately and have been bugging them non stop about my first world problems 😂 The menu was pretty complex and I didn’t actually take a proper picture of it so I truly have no idea what we ate, I just know it was delicious. It was our second visit to Gypsy Caravan, and it was super cosy. I think the next time I have a real date I’ll come back here. The regular menu has options for omni’s and vegan’s alike, so atleast I don’t have to worry about not being able to find something to eat on the menu.

Auckgeddon17: I met Holland Roden

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Oh hello, it’s an Armageddon blog.  This time there’s no food involved because I was too hype to eat anything all weekend. Oops Pre Geddon Friday I learnt how to drive a truck! So that was exciting. We set up the ring for the upcoming weekend and I got to meet a cute little goat. Don’t be fooled by its cuteness however, it was actually head butting me. On Saturday Amber, Candy and I had a look at some of the stalls and I picked up a Princess Aurora Pop Vinyl -as previously mentioned she is my fav Disney Princess. I also had my first match against Delilah for the first round of the Woman’s Armageddon Cup Tournament. Delilah is awesome, she’s fairly new and comes from another Auckland promotion, which she worked at right after our match together. A group of IPW folk went to watch and support her, she didn’t come out with the big W, but she did a great job. After the show, I headed to Father Ted’s to chill with two of the #KiwiClassics Will and TK. On Sund