Best of Bali: Motel Mexicola

Motel Mexicola absolutely blew my mind. I am not exaggerating when I say it was one of the best places I have been in my life, anywhere in the world. It was on my list of spots to go for dinner but fate led us there for lunch instead as we stumbled on it by chance as we left Body Works after a massage. It was very quiet at that time of day which let us really soak in all the venue has to offer - and that's plenty!

It's a colourful, Mexican-style restaurant and club with multiple spaces, from tiled bars to lounge areas, outdoor benches and diner booths. The decor is just out of this world, with cacti, black and white photos, religious icons, flowers, candles and South American paraphernalia filling every spare corner. There was so much going on that you probably could have taken a different photo with each step, so culling down to just these 13 snaps was quite the challenge!

The food was also outstanding; simple and delicious. We had the vegetarian fried empanadas and the corn and cheese quesadilla plus some fruity mocktails and aqua fresca. We also couldn't pass up the Mexican churros for dessert complete with a thin caramel dipping sauce that was soaked up in the doughy goodness of the churros. Yum.

I could probably go on all day about how good this place is but I'll keep it short and sweet by saying if you go anywhere in Bali, go here. It's probably even more lively by night but be sure to visit by day too, even just to go crazy photographing the place. I immediately started fantasising of a second wedding here, guys. It's that good.

Best Bali spa destinations

One of the main draw cards of Bali is the extremely affordable spa and beauty treatments. I had always known that, yet somehow on my two prior visit I managed to skip this element of the island completely - even though I adore a good massage. This time I set out to change all that by having at least one per day. Indulgent, right? But I was in major need of some de-stressing and serious relaxation.

This is probably a good time to send thanks to our wedding celebrant Shannon, who sent me a little booklet of all her Bali picks. Everywhere she recommended was fantastic, which means even more when there is a "massage" parlour every 10 metres. Here are the three top places we rated for affordable beauty treatments in Bali:

* Body Works, Seminyak: This was a tranquil spa in the heart of Seminyak with a wide treatment menu that ranged from massages to facials, hair therapies and beauty services. While slightly more on the pricey end of the scale, the lovely setting and private rooms really added to the experience and I would go back in a heartbeat. We paid about AU$14 for a 30-minute back, neck and shoulder massage on our first day.

* Smart Spa, Kuta: LOVED this place! It's a simple but clean and inviting two-storey salon on Jalan Pantai Kuta with a long menu and extremely attractive prices. We first visited for a 30-minute foot and leg massage that set us back $5, and the next day returned for a one-hour Balinese full body massage for $10. On our final day we were back again and this time I didn't want to leave, so I had another one-hour massage followed by 30-minute foot and head massages, with the total two-hour package costing about $22 including tipping. The staff were all so skilled and friendly, and like their brochure says, "You'll want to come back again the next day!"

* Think Pink Nails, Seminyak: We made bookings for this New York-style nail bar for our final day to indulge in some beauty treatments before coming back home. I'd say their prices are not the cheapest for Bali standards - about half the price you would pay in Australia for a mani/pedi etc, but the quality was fantastic. Lucy and I both got OPI gel polish manicures with a glitter gradient effect plus OPI gel pedis, and they by far beat the standard that I usually get back home (and for a total of $45 together). The staff really took their time to ensure a good result and were very professional. I had heard horror stories about people getting eyelash extensions elsewhere in Bali (using super glue, eep!) so I was unsure as to whether I would get this done while on holiday, but decided to go ahead at Think Pink. Once again I was very happy with the result and the full set of silk extensions set me back just $35 (compared to $16 at dodgy street salons).

Best of Bali: Mister Zimi

I've been keen on Mister Zimi's colourful designs for a couple of months now but never actually got around to buying one of their dresses (I had my eye on their iconic pineapple print before it sold out). When I found out they had not one, but two, stores in Bali I knew it would be one of the first stops on the agenda as soon as we landed.

Funnily enough, the current collection shop was actually next door to Sea Circus (where we had breakfast on the first day) - I thought it would be tricky to find but it was actually the simplest thing ever! My sister Lucy and I both left with two dresses each, with Lucy going on to buy another two from the past collections store just around the corner.

In hindsight, I am glad I never bought anything from the website without trying on first. The dresses are quite roomy so it really depends on how you like the fit - I ended up with a size 8 because I am on the shorter side, whereas even though Lucy is slightly slimmer than me she went for a 10 as she is taller. Now that we have the sizing right I think we will be frequent customers of the web store (and maybe I already have my eye on one of those amazing rugs too).

Best of Bali: Sea Circus

Don't you just love Instagram? I find I seem to get the best recommendations on places to go from other people's posts, both at home in Australia and around the world. When a photo of Sea Circus in Seminyak popped up a few weeks ago it went straight onto my list of must-visit spots for this trip and we checked it out our first morning in Bali.

Being so used to just getting breakfast as part of a hotel package, it never really dawned on me that Bali could be full of amazing brunch spots plating up options far better than standard hotel fare. So rather than stale croissants and strange hot options we instead enjoyed "squashed" avocado on toast with roasted tomatoes and garlic mushrooms. Topped off with juice and coffee, it was the perfect start to the day.

Sea Circus is also well worth a visit for its quirky, colourful decor. Original artworks and interesting light fixtures added to the kooky charm, while the service was every bit what I have come to expect from the Balinese: friendly, smiling and efficient!

Bali packing

Tomorrow I am jetting off to Bali with my sister and I am super excited! It's been quite a while - read: more than a year - since I last took a proper trip  and it's come at the perfect time. I just started a new position at work which has already proved quite the learning curve, so it's going to be nice to kick back in paradise for a couple of days and really, truly relax.

This trip is going to be all about looking after myself: think daily massages, reading by the pool, watching sunsets from cliff top bars and trying not to get too sunburnt of course. I haven't been to Bali in four years so I am also quite interested to see how it has grown, what quirky new places have popped up and if the new Zara store compares to those in Europe.

Of course I left packing to the last minute, so while I procrastinate from the real thing here are my top couple of items I'll be sure to stuff in the suitcase:

1. Some kind of fun one piece. I love this one from Nookie.
2. A nice wide-brimmed hat to keep the glare at bay while devouring a novel on my iPad.
3. Hammamas towels are not only good post-swim but can double as scarves, blankets and rugs if need be.
4. I'm sad to say I don't even have a good beach bag so it will be the first thing I'll be grabbing from a market stall once we land.
5. Also swooning over this Nookie number, but I ended up settling on a polka-dotted swimsuit instead.
6. Maybelline's Baby Lips is basically a God-given creation.
7. A solid skort is perfect to go from casual days wandering the lanes of Kuta to sipping mojitos at a trendy beach club.
8. Jellies. Comfortable, versatile, cute and bonus points for that special feeling of childhood nostalgia.

Let me know if you have any tips of where to shop/eat/play in Bali!

New home deal breakers

Source: Pinterest

Somewhere along the line during our house-hunting process, at the peak of my frustration, we compiled a list of things to help us guide our search and let us know if a property was a winner. It can be easy to be persuaded by fancy pictures online and make an emotional decision even before viewing somewhere, which can make it difficult to say no when you view the space in real life even if it doesn't fit your original criteria. 

A lot of these elements we had discussed at length during our nightly walks when I could not contain my energy from having spent hours browsing real estate listings online, so we had a pretty clear idea of what were the essential must-haves, the optional desirables and the ultimate deal breakers. The key things for us, the deal breakers, were those parts you can't change - natural light, location and the floor plan. We knew if we got these right we would be much happier in our place, no matter what else it included from the list. Here's what we came up with next:

MUST-HAVES

• Big windows with natural light, ideally north-facing
• A spacious, semi open plan layout that makes sense (you'd be surprised how many places have bizarre extra walls and nonsensical floor plans )
• Villa or townhouse rather than an apartment or flat
• Two bedrooms
• A courtyard or backyard rather than a balcony
• A separate laundry
• Must be within five kilometres of the city

DESIRABLES

• Third bedroom
• No renovations needed
• Air conditioning
• A separate dining room away from the main living area
• Wooden floors
• A bath
• Interesting architectural details like archways or exposed brick walls 
• A dishwasher in the kitchen
• Lock-up garage

As you can see, most of the things on the second list could be changed or added in ourselves at a later date, while the elements on the first list were pretty much set in stone. The final verdict on the place we ended up buying, then? I am pleased to say it checks all the must-have boxes, but falls a little short on the desirables. BUT! There are opportunities for us to add in most of those things and more, so I am excited at the prospect of making it our own over the years.

Adventures in house hunting: part two

Picking up where we left off in part one, things had to get a little worse before they could get better. Putting the offer in on the first house made me only up the search even more, but we had a problem on our hands - there was just no where even close to being desirable on the market, and even those dud places were being snapped up within a few days of being up for sale. We went to several home opens in one week and there were issues with all of them, from second bedrooms being no bigger than a closet in size to half-renovated units that would need a ton of work to get them up to scratch. But they all seemed to sell straight away.

We waited a couple more weeks, with me obsessively checking realestate.com.au every 10 minutes to see if anything new had been listed. Eventually I decided we would just have to go and see the bad properties because maybe we were being too picky and the things we wanted just weren't in our price range? Maybe the first property we found and loved was a fluke and there were no more out there like it? Perhaps those duds were the best we were going to get?

So we set out on a Saturday morning to view three potential places and all were just as bad as they looked online. By that point all my usual positivity had run out and I was talking about starting to look in far out properties or going back to a rental. I was ready to give up! But there was one last place on the agenda that was on the way home, which was the only reason we decided to head to the home open. It had been on the market for a couple of weeks (the equivalent of a lifetime in the current market) with no offers and the photos online were worse than all the others. 

The moment we walked through the door, I know I had been wrong in my assumptions about this place. The pictures made it look boxy and uncomfortable, but in reality there were high vaulted ceilings that gave a feeling of space plus a large window facing north, giving the natural light I so wanted. The floor plan flowed and made sense, once again adding to that spacious vibe. But it was when I walked out the back that I was sold - there were no photos of an outside area online, however, there was a large backyard far bigger than those we had seen in previous villas and I immediately started to dream about all the possibilities for this untapped area.

The downside was that the kitchen was practically unusable it was so bad, and the bathrooms also needed some updating. But we instead saw this as an opportunity to make the house our own. Rather than putting up with a new but ugly kitchen like so many of the other properties we had seen, we would have no qualms ripping out the seventies benches and appliances and replacing them with exactly what we wanted. And the great thing was that we could afford to make these changes straight away as the house was already bargain priced and with no other offers on the table, we had room to negotiate. Don't even get me started on the location either, because how can you go wrong being 10 minutes from the city and only five from three major coffee strips?

After we put the offer in I was the opposite of how I was at that point with the first place we saw. I was cool, calm and collected - perhaps I knew that we had this one in the bag? The agent came back the next morning and gave us a counter offer and we accepted it on the spot. It was well within our budget, in fact we expected to spend far more when we first started our search, and everything felt just right.

Fast track to a month later and we will have settled within two weeks. Everything was smooth-sailing finance wise, the only hard part has been waiting to get in so we can start on our renovations. I'm a big believer in "everything happens for a reason" and this was so true in our house hunting process. I'm much happier with the place we ended up buying compared to the first we put an offer on, and the money we saved is just an extra sweetener thrown in.

Adventures in house hunting: part one

Wishful thinking in Subiaco

We made the decision late last year that buying a house was something that was important to us in the near future. We had just moved back to Perth after spending 10 months in Sydney and made the call to live with my parents while we squirrelled enough money away for our deposit and began researching the market. Though we had bought once before when we were in our late teens (that is a whole other story), it was at the height of the global financial crisis and the housing situation, at least in Perth, is very different now.

In reality, the whole process has taken less than five months since coming back from Sydney, though it sometimes felt much longer than that - try moving back home shortly after getting married when your other siblings are still living in that same house! But taking that time to save on rent and put aside as much money as possible was absolutely the best decision in the end because it helped us reach our goal so much faster.

Despite the relatively short time frame for everything, I'm not going to lie - the search was hard going and soul-destroying in many ways. Much of the optimism I had when we started the process was quickly dashed when I realised just what you can get for your money here in one of Australia's key boom towns. I.e. not much. For the same price as a four-by-two historic house in many parts of the US, you'd be lucky to get a two-bed apartment in a less than desirable suburb here. Yep, we're living in the lucky country and that sure comes at a price. But there's really no point lamenting over the housing situation here - it is what it is, and I still agree it's better to enter the market sooner rather than later while prices continue to rise.

So we had been browsing online for a couple of months while we saved and had not seen too much that we could even consider buying, until the perfect little place came along. It was in one of our favourite suburbs, had the sweetest picket fence, more space than we were expecting and this exposed brick wall in the kitchen that I fell in love with. And best of all, it was hugely under our upper price limit, we hadn't seen anything even close in price. We hadn't quite saved what we had hoped for the deposit by that point but knew we had to see it, so we headed along to the home open to see if the villa was all it was cracked up to be.

And it looked even better in real life. I fell in love and knew we needed to have it. We put what we thought was a generous offer on it that afternoon (above the asking price) and waited to hear back, confident that our refusal to low-ball on the price would hold us in good stead. Long story short, several offers were submitted in the property's first day on the market and we weren't successful. I found out that it ended up selling for 10 per cent more than the asking price, which is massive - back when we bought our first place you could offer that much less than the asking and have it accepted.

What was perhaps most upsetting was how the real estate agent ran the offer process like a silent auction. He urged us to put our highest offer in from the get-go, but we had no idea what was a fair price to pay for the villa over the asking price. In hindsight we probably would have been willing to offer more to secure it, but we weren't even given the opportunity, which is not only unfair for the buyers but also for the seller as they could have potentially made even more money. 

I kept second-guessing our offer and felt so disappointed we missed out on what seemed like our dream home. But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining and ours was about to come along - so stay tuned for part two of our house hunt!