Our Weekend getaway to Little Greece in Cape Town

 

 

Last month for my mom's birthday, my darling husband and I were invited along with my cousin and his new bride to spend the weekend with my family at the West Coast in celebration of her 46 years  on this earth :) and boy did it come at the right time. I have been so exhausted and stressed out due to work, life and my pregnancy and the break away did the world of wonders for me. It also marked the last holiday we would celebrate alone as a married couple aka baby moon. so I was very excited. You know how they say that one should never have expectations as you will always end up being disappointed? Well, I should have known that as I am always the one to remind others of that saying!

The Friday evening after we got there and settled in, we had dinner together as a family. My dad then became restless and decided to go visit his friends who were at the same resort as we were. My darling husband, cousin and two brothers decided to go play some football on the pitch and boring old me went to bed early.

I woke up the next morning and learnt that my darling husband injured his finger in the football match the previous evening so swimming, playing tennis or squash was all out of the question due to his injury. I always use to say that he shouldn't play any sport unless its on a Play Station as he is always injuring himself. When we previously visited this resort 10 months prior for his 26th birthday, while playing tennis he tore a muscle in his foot and he was on crutches for a month or two. Due to his injury he ended up staying in the chalet most of the weekend playing Fifa on the PlayStation!So much for the baby moon! I decided I wouldn't allow that to spoil my weekend and ended up spending most of my time with my parents and cousin-in-law. My dad took us girls on a drive to a town nearby called Saldanha, we visited the new mall and did some shopping :) we arrived back to the resort, had a quick snack and headed for the indoor pools. My mom's friends surprised her with some Spa treatments which she thoroughly enjoyed, while she was having her treatments done, my dad and I were lounging at the pool reading baby magazines.

When my mom returned, us ladies spent an hour at the Spa in the sauna, steam room and jacuzzi which was quite nice as we could catch up and gossip.

We ended the evening off with a huge braai (south African word for barbecue), snacks, cigars and some Texas Hold'em poker.

Usually my family are all early risers except me, but on this particular Sunday they all overslept as we were playing poker until 3am!

We had a quick breakfast as opposed to our famous huge Sunday breakfasts, headed down to the pools and Spa. It seemed as though the boys had their own agenda and the girls theirs as we were never all together at the same time. I left the pools earlier as my mom surprised me with a Spa treatment after lunch due to my complaints about my bad pelvic girdle pains. The therapist was kind enough to organise a massage chair as I could not lie on my stomach. I hate how time always flies when you having a massage. The therapist was quite good and I appreciated the fact that she did not babble on, I hate having conversations while I have a treatment done as I usually always fall asleep.

I got back to the chalet, I'm not sure how as I was so sleepy and woke up 2 hours later. I slept right through lunch and got woken up as it was time to leave. The drive home was quite chilled and I slept like a baby that night.

 

 

 

 

We stayed in the yellow chalets

The Donkey I grew up riding on, his still alive after almost 20 years and this guy has been working at the resort that long as well!

The heated pool

Our view from the room

The view of the Bay

 

Pictures are courtesy of google.com

My life would suck without.....

 

So I decided to do a post about what I cant live without in life so that people could get to know me a bit better without me actually having to write a long and boring post. I love alot of things in life so this is just a sneak preview of a few of my LOVES!

 

   

   

       Food oh Glorious Food :)

I absolutely love most types of food but I am quite a picky eater. I enjoy healthy and unhealthy food, have the biggest sweet tooth and absolutely love sweets!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reality Tv Shows and Series :p

I am somewhat OBSESSED with Reality TV shows and series to the extent that I'd much rather spend the weekend alone at home with munchies instead of going out with friends and enjoying the sunshine (sounds worst than what it is)

 

 



 My GHD Hair straightner, cellphone, dog and Google...

 



          

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                

 

Like most woman, I love receiving flowers, reading fashion magazines, dressing up and being dined.

 I am a hopeless romantic so I enjoy treating my husband:)

Babies (especially Asian) and children amaze me and I am quite fascinated by them.

Shopping will be the end of me!

 Summer is my favourite season (for now), waking up on a sunday and going for a scenic drive ending up at the beach with a picnic basket, wearing a cute sundress with an oversized hat.

I thread my eyebrows instead of wax.

I find long eyelashes exquisite (fake or real as long as it looks real)

It's always been my dream to own a clothing boutique, open a restaurant at 40 and write a book before I depart this world for the next!

 

Aaaaand this sums up the majority of things that my life would suck without....

 

"The simplest pleasures in life are free".

The Cove

Sundays are one of my favourite and least favourite days of the week, I'm sure many people feel this way about Sundays due to Monday being the very next day, a new start to the WORKING week.
Anyways, Sunday is my "Lazy" days which I prefer to spend in front of my TV watching everything I possibly can! I am a "former" TV Addict!
That evening I was channel hopping and saw that academy award and Oscar winning film "The Cove by Richard O'Barry" was being played that night (I didn't know until the next day that it won an Academy award and Oscar and numerous other awards), somehow the name sparked a wave of curiosity in me and I decided to read the synopsis of the film, it was quite a brief synopsis and had I made a decision based on it, I probably wouldn't have taken the time to watch it (thanks DSTV). Boy was I glad I did.

The Cove is a documentary about dolphin slaughtering in Taiji Japan. Usually I wouldn't watch this type of documentary unless there was nothing else to watch. Could it be that it reminded me of the time when I was obsessed with dolphins as a child?

Basically the documentary follows Richard O'Barry plight to educate the world about the barbaric practises and mass slaughter of more than 23,000 dolphins each year.
Richard is a world renowned dolphin activist and flipper the dolphins former trainer,Before he became an activist, he worked for 10 years in the dolphin captivity industry and for the last 38 years against it.

Why is this happening? Well, for money of course. I believe that wars, massacres, drug dealing, hostile take-overs, prostitution, slavery and genocides are all caused by greed.I always ask myself when terrible things happen, how is it that we do not know about it? why is it not on the front page of our newspapers? Well with an ongoing war happening in the Middle East, Famine taking centre stage in Africa, America trying to take over the world, why would a massacre of dolphins make the front page? I am not saying that the above mentioned is not important and should be ignored, that is another story for another day!
Each year thousands of dolphins are driven into the bay in Taiji where trainers capture them and sell them to aquariums and marine parks all over the world for about $150 000 per dolphin, the unlucky dolphins who are not sold into captivity are then slaughtered in the "secret" cove and sold to supermarkets all over Asia as "whale meat".
What amazed me about the quaint beautiful little town is that they appeared to be devoted to the wonder of whales and dolphins that swim off its coast!
So besides the poor dolphins being gruesomely killed, people are being fed so that is a good thing right? Wrong! Dolphin meat contains dangerously high amounts of mercury, of which is being distributed to schools in Japan (according to the documentary). Pregnant woman who consume the so called "whale meat" are giving birth to babies with the congenital form of Minamata disease. Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poison.Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms.
What saddened me the most about this documentary was the fact that fishermen of Taiji went to great extent to stop this documentary being filmed, not once did they think about the innocent asian people out there who are being poisoned without knowing it. The Mayor of Taiji as well as the Japanese government were involved in covering up this senseless practice!

The End product



Massacre of dolphins

A scene from the Cove

Richard O'Barry

So, what can I as an individual do to help? I strongly suggest each individual to watch The Cove and then do the following:
Sign the petition and educate yourself so that you can educate the next person.
"Knowledge is Power".
http://savejapandolphins.org/


References:
http://thecovemovie.com/
http://savejapandolphins.org/

Who am I?!

 Welcome to L.i.f.e according to Coco

Who am I????

I am your average 20-something (closer to 20 than 30) conservative yet modern Muslim woman/wife and soon-to-be mother (God Willing) living in the most beautiful city in the world (OK everyone thinks their city is the most beautiful) Cape Town, South Africa!

I have many loves in life and a few things I loathe....
Inspiration flows from anything and everything which excites me and makes me appreciate the simpler things in LIFE....

After many days and months of procrastinating I am finally ready to start my blog about life according to ME....

P.S this blog is a way of expressing myself and is in no way a reflection of anybody else.

Happy Reading!

Coco

xxx




South Africa is based at the tip of Africa

My beautiful city - Cape Town