Honeymoon Post 1

Well the past 2 months have given me enough blogging material to keep this blog going for at least till the end of the year. A lot happened. Got married, went on a honeymoon, SO is moving to NYC. Craziness. I should have spread this all out a bit. 

Anyways, I was tasked with one thing for this wedding. Book the honeymoon. So, with such great responsibility, I decided to let the pros deal with it instead of potentially facing the wrath of the SO if I screwed up.

A couple we know used PremierTours to book their honeymoon and had a great experience so I thought why not. They did an amazing job and the itinerary they put together for us was everything we wanted.

After a 9 hour flight from LAX to LHR, we had a 4 hour layover, and then an 11 hour flight to Cape Town. Jacques, our driver/guide/bodyguard picked us up from the airport and drove us to our hotel, Kensington Palace located in the foothills of Table Mountain. Although we were a bit tired after such a long flight, we were refreshed after seeing the view from our balcony.

The room was quite large. Probably can fit our entire NYC apartment in this one room.

The weather on Table Mountain was supposed to be decent so Jacques rushed up to the base of the mountain. It was a 5 minute cable car ride up to the top. 

As one might expect, the view from the top overlooking Cape Town was impressive. You can see Robben Island in the distance. Given more time, I would've loved to check out the former prison site but our time in Cape Town was limited to 2 days and we had a lot to see. 

The top of Table Mountain was eerie. The cloud cover made this place look oddly desolate. 

Don't know why they built this hobbit house here. I guess I could look it up but I'm lazy. 

Jacques then drove us to the Bo-Kaap community in Cape Town. Originally settled by the freed slaves, Bo Kaap eventually became a huge Malay society (mixture of ethnic societies from Southeast Asia, blacks and whites). Cape Town kinda reminds of me Long Beach. A laid back coastal town with a lot of immigrants, its fair share of sketchy areas and lots of drugs. Throw in some Snoop Dogg and Cape Town is repping the CPT.  Anyways, the story Jacques told us is that one guy got sick of his boring walls and decided to paint his a bright color. Soon it became the hit of the neighborhood. I'm sure the rich folks down the street scoffed at the poor immigrants and laughed at their loud, poor colors. Well, take that rich folks, these houses are now a historical heritage. 

The next place we visited was the old fort. Jacques got us there just in time for the noon canon shot. Now I imagined the cannon to be somewhat large. It was about the size of flute. What a disappointment. 

The solider loading up his wussy cannon. 

Sucker went off like a M-1000. I shouldn't have judged the cannon by its size. Hehe. Yes, I turn 31 this year....

This was a corner of the dungeon. I was hoping to capture some paranormal activity. Hey what's that weird shape.....did you hear that? Was that tapping? It's coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!!

Lovely hook thingie. 

The obligatory artsy shot. I bought this camera about 3 hours before we got on our flight so4 this first day was trying to figure out all the functions of the camera. Or I could be like my dad who bought a $1000 camera with a $1000 lens only to use it shoot everything in auto.  

After the fort, we were hungry so Jacques took us down to Camps Bay for lunch and sightseeing. Kinda looks like my hometown, PV.  

I still remember when all this land was empty and there were no houses this side of PV. 

Anyways, after that it was off to the South Africa museum. Our final stop for the day. The SO was not very pleased to have to go on an educational tour especially since this would've been like hour 40 of travelling. 

Some early graffiti. 

Tagging about the mad hunt yo!

An African medicine/shaman. They had a picture of the pope next to it too. I guess it was just showing the different types of religion.  

The SO with Jacques. You can see why we called him our driver/guide/bodyguard. The man was massive. He said he actually lost about 50 pounds too. We saw him get mad and I was about to crap myself

I don't even know why I took a picture of this pot. What compelled me to think hey this would be a good picture. Probably so I could write this sentence in the blog and waste everyone's time. Lose-lose. 

I'm guessing another medicine man. Horrible Sean Connery movie btw. 

I rag on the SO for liking turtles. This was supposedly evidence that turtles can be cool too. I still think they're pretty boring and slow. 

Whale skeleton. I swear in every natural history museum they have a whale skeleton or a life-size whale model. Yes, I get it. They're big. I'd rather have them show me other animals where you're like wtf they're really that big or small? Like I never knew eagles were so damn big until I saw one in Alaska. 

That man is normal sized. 

Anyways, after a wondrous 8 hours of sleep, it was breakfast time at Kensington Palace. Fresh squeezed juices and an assortment of breakfast choices. I love being on vacation. 

First stop was Boulders Beach, a penguin preserve. 

The penguins had some nice digs. 

The middle penguin is a rebel. Fight the power, penguin! Don't let the man tell you that you need to face right. Occupy Penguin Street!!! I'm gonna have to link to an Occupy Wall street wiki so I remind myself later what the heck I was talking about. 

The adolescent penguin was losing its baby fur and heading into adulthood. Soon the penguin parents will look longingly while the mom cries "they grow up so fast" while the dad puts a reassuring arm around the mom penguin. I think I watch too much TV.  

Next post: Day 2 in Cape Town.