Tea Time Win

A few weeks ago I entered in a competition run by Melissa Louise and Zomato to win a tea experience at O'ways Teacafe in Claremont. I promptly forgot all about it, but a few days later, my day was made when I found out that I had won one of the vouchers!

On a free Saturday morning, Frosty and I headed off to go and use up my voucher and we decided that since it was close to lunch, we may as well order lunch as well. 

Neither Frosty nor I are big tea fans (we both usually prefer coffee), but the tea-making ritual was so peaceful and unhurried and it definitely left me thinking that I could become more of a tea drinker, just to partake in that ritual a bit more regularly.

One of the things that we both noticed over the course of our meal and tea was that service was a key factor for O'ways. The staff were well trained and pleasant and the owner took her time at each table and mentioned just how important service was to them when she came to deliver our bill to us. As both Frosty and I spent some time working at a Four Seasons (which is a hotel chain renowned for it's service and attention to detail and where training is important for all staff), we often notice that South African restaurants are lacking in this department. However, O'ways impressed us and  when we get a chance I'd like to go back to test out some of their other teas (and maybe some coffee too!).

Thanks Melissa Louise, Zomato and O'ways Tea Cafe, it was awesome to take part and win a competition and I'm sure we'll be back to visit O'ways soon!

If I remember correctly, I got the Rooibos and Ginger tea 

We discovered the meaning behind the term Tealight Candle!

Frosty got the Kenyan Black Tea

We got some nibbles before our main dish arrived, they were delish!

Frosty got the Gnocchi with Pesto and it was scrumptious.

I got the Peasant Food - a hearty meal of a Veggie-soup type dish with a freshly baked roll - yum!

Numeric Math Camp Fun

A few weeks ago, some of my colleagues and I got to spend a morning at the Numeric Math Camp which was held over the course of a week at UCT. We got to interact and chat to learners from Gr 6 - Gr 8 and really had a fun time. 

Numeric is an after school program which uses Khan Academy to expose learners in low income areas to maths and aims to improve maths scores in those areas by focussing on the basics and letting learners go at their own pace. To find out a bit more about Numeric, click here. This maths camp gives some of the top learners in the program a chance to gain some more exposure to maths in a fun and engaging environment and find out why maths is relevant later in life. 

I gave a fun talk on "My Maths Story", where I shared my maths journey. Starting from the age of 16, I explained the impact of Maths and Computer Science on my life and how Maths enabled me to pursue a career in Engineering and Software Development. I also explored the various careers I was interested in over the course of my schooling, illustrating how Maths was required in order to study all of the degrees I was interested in. I explained one or two simple engineering concepts that require maths and finished off with a few maths tips that I have learnt along the way.

It's always a bit nerve-wrecking standing in front of a lecture hall (probably the engineer in me coming out) and I often find that it takes me a few minutes to settle into my presentation and get comfortable in front of a big group of people, but by the time I had established that the majority of these kids knew about the CSI and NCIS TV programs, I had got into my stride and really enjoyed giving the rest of my presentation, you should hopefully be able to click through my presentation below*. The rest of the morning my colleagues played some fun maths activities with the learners, teaching them about binary numbers, the basics of image processing, sorting logic and ordering. 

Numeric also put together a video of their 2015 Math Camp - see if you can spot me!

* I used Prezi to create this presentation, it's a great alternative to Power Point!

Planning for Namibia

In about 2 weeks, Frosty and I are off to Namibia for his cousins wedding. Now that things are starting to calm down a bit, we've started on our planning and things are coming along nicely. Research is being done, papers and documents are getting sorted, ideas for routes are being brainstormed, budgets are being calculated and excitement is starting to build. It's always exciting when going away, but it's even more exciting when you're going to a place that you've never been before and neither Frosty nor I have been to Namibia before!

We'll be in Windhoek and then making our way back to Cape Town over the rest of the week, meandering along and exploring some amazing places. I'm also looking forward to this trip as a chance to play around a bit more with my camera and practice taking photos in a different environment. So once I'm back, keep your eyes peeled for a few posts of pictures of Namibia and some travel tips! 

Do you have any tips for travelling Namibia that would be useful to know? Please comment below, I'd love to hear them!

2015 Cape Town Bucket List

This year, Frosty and I have started noting down things for a 2015 Cape Town bucket list. There are so many lesser known things to do, we thought that whenever we are brainstorming ideas on things to do, we'll first refer to our bucket list before we think too hard.

It's a work in progress, but here's what we have so far. 

• Rondevlei Nature Reserve
• Slangkoppunt Lighthouse (guided tour)
• Tobogganing at Cool Runnings
• Picnicking at Company Gardens
• Historical Walk at V&A Waterfront
• Honest Chocolate
• Muizenberg Moonlight Meander
• Greenpoint Urban Park
• Promenade Run
• Helderberg Nature Reserve
• Spirit of Just Nuisance Harbour Cruise
• Coffee at Bean There
• Dinner at I Love My Laundry
• World of Birds
• Rietvlei Nature Reserve
• Labia Theatre Movies
• Iziko Museums
• Mostert's Mill
• Hout Bay Market

We did our first two bucket list ativities on Sunday - the Hout Bay Market and World of Birds - the market was pretty much like every other market. Cool, quirky things, delicious food and lots of people. The only thing that was different about this market was that every second person had a foreign accent. But otherwise nothing that you couldn't get in markets closer to Cape Town. 

World of Birds was definitely worth the visit! When you walk in, you think it'll take you about an hour and you'll be done, but don't be fooled. This place is massive and offers an amazing variety of birds to interact with, as well as other animals - think monkeys, reptiles, squirrels, tortoises, alpacas and bushbuck. 

Any suggestions on things to add? Leave a comment below!

Art Of The Brick Cape Town

 A few weekends ago Frosty and I went on a date to go and see Art Of The Brick at the Watershed (V&A Waterfront) in Cape Town. I had a vague idea of what to expect, as I had done some research into this exhibit by a guy called Nathan Sawaya. 

After pursuing a career in law, one day Nathan decided that he'd had enough and instead he started to focus on something that he had been doing since a kid: building Lego sculptures. We got to see a great selection of his sculptures in Cape Town and the exhibit was much bigger than I had originally thought it would be. With sections for general sculptures, classic sculptures, art throughout history and more personal explorations, I was amazed by what he was able to reproduce using Lego blocks.

I really thought that he used his platform to expose people not only to Lego Art, but to art throughout the ages was great. It was an awesome way for me to remember all my matric art concepts that I haven't thought about for ages and to give those without much of an interest in art (aka my date) a bit of a taste for art. 

If you still aren't convinced, here is a taster of what you will see as you walk through the exhibition (there are a LOT more than what I've featured here and I would recommend with all my heart that you go and check it out yourselves!). 

Some more details:
Cape Town exhibit: 12 December 2014 - 28 February 2015
Joburg exhibit: 13 May 2015 - 12 August 2015
Ticket Prices: R85 to R140 (depending on the type of booking you make)
Ticket Sales: Computicket (the Archive Building in Joburg and Watershed Building in Cape Town)

Edit: For more information on Nathan Sawaya, you can visit the artsy.net website.

Night Time Photography

Over Christmas and New Year, I was away at Balloch and I spent some of the time learning a bit more about my camera and how the different settings interact. I had such fun doing this and on some of the evenings I experimented with night photography - here are some of my favourite night pictures that I have taken straight from my camera*.  

Trees at night with a long exposure, large aperture,
relatively high ISO and a flash.

Mountains with clouds at Balloch.
A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

Balloch mountains at night, with fast moving clouds.A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

Balloch Cave at night.
A long-ish exposure, large aperture and relatively large ISO.

Camping at Balloch, with the tent lit up at night.A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

The moon in fast moving clouds.A long-ish exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

The night sky surrounded by rocks and trees with fast moving clouds going past it.A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

The one thing I learnt while playing around with night time photography is the importance of your ISO setting. This number should be quite high in order for your sensor to sense as much light as possible. 

Don't forget that a high ISO setting can lead to grainy pictures, so play around with various settings in the high range. When combined with long exposures (anything from 10 - 30 seconds) and a large aperture, again to allow for maximum light collection, you should be able to take some pretty decent pictures at night. Finally, make sure you use a tripod or put your camera down where it won't wobble, otherwise your pictures will come out blurry.

If you are interested in staying at Balloch, here are some details:
    website
    facebook page

* I'm learning about GIMP as I go along and once I've done some editing I'll display some more pics, with edits.

How To Build A Self-Watering Flower System

Remember when I told you I was growing Basil (along with some other herbs)? Well, so far so good, they're all looking healthy and I have even managed to get a jar or two of home made pesto out of my basil which has been delicious!

Just before we went on holiday, Frosty and I decided to build our own "self-watering" plant system in order to (hopefully) to keep our plants from dying while we were away. 

Granted, the first attempt culminated in a completely imploded water container (the plastic was too soft). Our second attempt was a lot better. We're still seeing a bit of suction on our water container, but at least there was some water in the container when we left - now we have to just hope it lasts.

Here's how we built ours: 

So, this is what you'll need:

1. Some sort of water container (we used one of those hard plastic 25 litre containers, but glass or metal would probably be better). It should come with a spare lid that you can use and dedicate to your system.

2. Enough piping to reach all your plants.

3. Female pipe adaptor and "L" connector.

4. Various "T" pipe connectors (depends on how many offshoots you need to make).

4. Some plumbing tape.

5. Something to heat up the pipe (optional, but does help).

6. Your plants all need to have shallow bases.

7. Something to rest your container on, once it's been put together.

This was our first attempt - you can see how the plastic bottle has collapsed into itself. It wasn't particularly successful for a number of reasons. We think we put the bottle too high off the ground and the plastic of the bottle was too soft. Effectively, the water going out sucked the container into itself as the container was too soft to suck air back into the container. 

What is meant to happen is that the container needs to be strong enough to let some water out and then suck some air back in, up the pipe and into the container once the water drops below the level of the pipes in the plant bases.

This was our second attempt, which was a little better (and will hopefully mean the plants survive while we are away!).

We positioned this second container much lower than the first one and also got a container that was made out of slightly harder plastic. You can see there is a bit of collapsing, but not as much as the first container!

We are heading back to Cape Town on Sunday, so hopefully our makeshift water system will have helped our plants to survive while we weren't there. I'll let you know the outcome when I get back!

Africa Geographic Competition

Facebook is pretty amazing. Through one of my contacts, I found out about the Africa Geographic Photographer Of The Year competition and the prizes look pretty amazing, so I thought I would enter with a few of my own pictures.

There are 3 categories:
Travel
Wildlife/Scenic
People/Culture

I entered the below pictures for either the Travel or Wildlife category. Hopefully my pictures will soon be up on the Travel and Wildlife albums - if you see any of my pics, please like them so I can stand a chance to win the "most popular entry" category!

Travel - Rolling hills in Baberton

Wildlife - Amur Falcons

Travel - Baberton Sunset

Wildlife - Trio of Rhinos taken at Mabula Game Lodge

Travel - Sunset at Mabula Game Lodge

If this sound of this competition appeals to you, why don't you scour your pictures and see if you have anything that will fit into one of the categories? Let me know if you've entered by commenting below!