Has anyone been to Hawaii? Or knows anyone who has? If so, I need some advice, where to go, where to stay etc etc. I'm thinking of doing Waikiki and Maui as I have 9 days, so I think probably 2 islands is enough but any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated!

Ok so, Friday night, Jetteke and I headed back to the chocolate shop, San Churro for Fondue. It was every bit as delicious and decadent as I imagined! On Saturday I didn't do much, I'm trying to watch the pennies now I'm here, I've done everything I want to do besides 2 or 3 things, so I don't really need to spend that much money in between. Anyway, so I hung around the hostel, but got irritated by a guy staying here and ended up in my room at about 4pm, that wasn't the way I wanted to spend my Saturday night! Jetteke was meeting 2 Dutch friends and invited me to join them so I did. We went to a Peruvian restaurant, and it was delicious, very good wine. Jetteke and I shared the snapper- which is fish (love the fish over here, every type you could imagine or need) but I wasn't expecting it to come out with eyes, gills and fins still intact! And it had teeth!!!!!!!!!!! I had to turn the plate away from me so I couldnt' see that bit. But, it was delicious once I'd got over the initial shock. I was thinking about the pizza, but pizza in a Peruvian restaurant seemed a bit of a waste. It was a good night.

The next day (Sunday) I was up at the crack of dawn- 5.30! to check out of the hostel for the night, put my stuff in a locker, eat breakfast then get to Jetteke's house by 6.45 to be picked up from around the corner at 7am. We were going on a wine tasting tour in the Yarra valley. We started off the day with a lovely McDonalds breakfast- sausage and egg mcmuffin and hash brown (i introduced Jetteke to it because she had a hangover- she loved it! The whole day she kept remarking on how good her breakfast was). Then we got on the bus. Our first stop was morning tea at a place that had an array of birds near it. We bought a bag of bird feed and fed the sulphur-crested cockatoos, gallahs and birds I think were called Rosealeas. It was great, especially when one landed on my head! Next we were heading to a steam train ride. This i couldn't really see the point of, it was a bit of an odd thing and I wasn't really bothered, but went anyway. It was so much fun. A proper old-style steam train, Jetteke and I sat on the carriage sides with our feet and arms dangling over the side for the whole journey. It had a real train driver and conductor (all volunteers) and we went for about 20minutes, which was good because by then I couldn't feel my legs because of the wind chill. The smell of the steam and coal burning reminded me of being sat in Gran and Gramp's lounge with their big fire burning. It was so much fun, and beautiful countryside. After we went to lunch at a vineyard I can't remember the name of, it was nice- a roast dinner with weird yorkshire puddings- none of the aussies or dutch around me knew what they were! We sat by a crazy italian family- the son, who had 5 grown-up children and a long ponytail like he was in the mafia was with his parents. They were crazy but very funny and kept us entertained for the whole meal. His wife was telling us how her youngest son rings her everyday when he has his lunch, then gets in his car and drives home so by the time he gets there, she's made him his sandwich. Very traditional family but lovely.

After lunch we went to the Rochford vineyard and did some wine tasting- funnily enough, no one was spitting out their wines once they'd swilled them around their mouth! I'd like to say I can tell the difference, but I have no idea. I did, however buy a nice bottle of Moscato I think i'll save for Christmas. It will go very nicely with a dessert or something. They also had a fudge bar there- amazing fudge!!!!!

Afterwards we went to the Domaine Chandon to see how they make sparkling wine. Ok all you fact-lovers here's something you might not know: only sparking wine made in the region of Champagne is actually called champagne. The rest of it is sparkling wine. So we sampled some really lovely Moet and Chandon champagne after with some bread and cheese.

Ahhh, what a lovely day. Our tour guide, Roger, was very entertaining, and although I fell asleep for a lot of the journey, he really knew a lot about a lot.

When we got back, in the interest of trying new things, Jetteke introduced me to a sushi train restaurant, where the dishes go round on a carousel and you choose what you want then pay at the end- the design on the dish tells the waitress how much for each plate. It was interesting, very nice and cool to choose what you want with what you see- how many times do we choose from a menu then see something else we fancy?

So that was my weekend! Hopefully I have enough credit to put some pics up now for you.

Loadsa love xxx