Partying in the land of the Mountain

So as my previous post stated, I was off to Kingdom Zille, believe it or not, even though I have lived my entire life in South Africa, this was just my 4th visit to "the mother city". Its not a question of whether I liked it enough to visit again, but the location of the city. It finds itself nestled in a corner of the country thats over a 1000km's away from any major city. Given its nature as the be all and end all of cities in SA one cant say that its position doesnt suit it as it probably doesnt want to be connected in any way to the rest of South Africa. Sharing the same bodily mass as the other cities is as far as it goes with Cape Town. It is though a truly remarkable city, well governed and manged to the point that you almost feel at home after spending a day or 2 in it. Some say after visiting that they dont feel like they were in South African, thats just bollocks, either they've been smoking tik or just want to make them selves feel better for not affording a holiday out of the country because Cape Town is in every essence a South African city, just with a big rock in the middle of it.

Can you smell...

Back to my trip, main reason was indeed the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange project as previously stated it was hosted by DJ Fresh & euphonik  of South Africa but featured Berlins DJ'ing greats, Monika Cruz, ATB & Markus Schulz but more about them later as I start at the very beginning. Durban airport aka King Shaka International, I knew my holiday was going to be a good one as I managed to get a window seat in the emergency exit row! These tickets are as hard to get as hens teeth! Why you ask? well duh window seat for staters! and if you dont already know the emergency exit row has an extra 500mm of legroom in order for hysterical passengers to make their way off the burning plane to safety, now me being larger than the average Joe enjoys this luxury, I call it the "middle first class of low cost airlines". Now it just gets better from there after as I enter the gate terminal I spot a Sunglasses hut kiosk, could they have the pair of Oakley Polarised Inmate I've been hunting for all over? of course they do! and the guy gives me a R600 discount with out me even asking him anything!

Cape Town Festival of beer

►►Fast forward to Cape Town ignoring the fact that the plane took 30 minutes extra in the skies or the the fact CTIA opted to put us in the bush and make us climb down stairs instead of the air bridge and lets not get started with the wait for the luggage. I was planned to meet with fellow tweeter @JuicyJemma at the Cape Town Festival of Beer but with the hassle of the car rental place not giving me my license back and me having to drive back to the airport to collect it, I just missed her. But never the less I still went to the festival of beer to share a pint with legendary Cape Town blogger LifeisSavage who might I add isnt very easy to find in a crowd! Mr popular as he is, I found him being hounded by Cape beauties Jeannie D & Lyndall Jarvis, good thing too I met him as I had my directions in a knot and he pointed out to me that the Smirnoff party was in Bellville and not the CBD as I previously thought for some odd reason.

Smirnoff Night Exchange- ATB

►►Fast forward again, this time to the party. It started at 8pm so a good time to get in was 10pm right? Venue the Bellville Velodrome, much bigger than the Skyraiders hanger that hosted Tiesto in May and was a brilliant venue for such an event. Walking down the ramp into the drome, with the sounds of Monika Cruz hitting you in your face was an awesome feeling. VIP bars at every corner with plenty of couches to rest the asses of the masses, I could tell that this was going to be a good night. Monika not well known to many as her two partners for the night did a great job albeit I saw the last hour of her set. With the bars being a free for all all night I was pleasantly surprised that many didnt take this opportunity to get sloshed out of their mind. The last thing I wanted was my night ruined by bunch of people that couldnt handle their liquor. Andre came on for his set and was seriously amazing, he played a mixture of his songs, mainly the new stuff but threw in some classics like "Till I come" & finished off his set with the massive "Let You Go" which got the crowd right in the mood for what was coming next.

Markus Schulz

Step up Markus Schulz, as I said I havent heard much of his stuff apart from the odd mix but this night it was no remixes from the trance master, hardcore from the word go! His set from 1am till 3am felt like a few minutes as his music was so good, suffice to say the only time I stopped dancing was to get me another redbull as I could feel my legs letting go a bit and I had a long drive back to the CBD. After his set we begged him for more but all he could offer was one more song. After which he came down to meet whom ever was left at the end. It was rather a tiny crowd of a 1000 or less. Its sad that events like this which is invite only get those who come for the sake of it being that and not to enjoy what was on offer in terms of entertainment and not the free booze. The true fans of this type of music were left to sit at home that night twiddling thumbs wondering what must have been going down.

Urban Hip Hotels - The Icon

Now stumbling home at 4am may not be the most pleasant thing to do but I couldnt help but feel happy walking into this place. A 1 bedroom 5* apartment in the heart of Cape Town, what more could a guy ask for? fully fitted kitchen, dinning room, lounge with full DSTV bouquet, big screen LCD & a home theatre system. Now I know what you must be thinking, it must cost a pretty penny, but no. Compared to all the other hotels around, this place was by far more cheaper! heck even some places that I could get discounts at were atleast R400 more than this place, fine the others offered breakfast in the morning as appose to this place but you tell me what breakfast is worth R400?

2011 Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG

The next day I woke up at 7am... dont ask, drinking red bull keeps you awake for longer than you can imagine. Fighting the caffeine I thought I'd go have a look outside, good thing I did as I caught Mercedes Benz shooting their commercial for the newest CLS model, at first I thought it was just the 500 or lower model but on closer inspection it turned out to be the CLS63 AMG! They had a guy constantly shining it as you dont want any smudges on it for TV. Plus with the EU plates you could see it wasnt for the local market. I would have gone for a better colour as AMG's are meant to be bit more scary.

tweetup/ drink up

 The days that followed in the Cape were filled of awesomeness, sunsets at camps bay to car sound competitions at the Goodhope center (hey Im Indian, we like our sound okay). On the Monday I got an opportunity to meet some fellow tweeters who we frequently tweet each other... if that makes sense. Was good to finally put a face to the tweets, but we kinda already knew what each other looked like with profile pics and facebook etc.. but meeting them in person was good. A big thanks to @KimGreyling, @MishtotheD, @staceywest24 & the Patron Princess @KirstyBisset for arranging a great night.

View from Signal Hill

No visit to Cape Town is complete with out some scenic shots and from a vast variety to chose from the favourites have to be going up the Mountain and Signal hill, fighting for time I had no time to wait to go up the cable way so Signal hill had to do. Surprisingly it wasnt that busy, so to get parking and walk around the hill with ease was a first time occurrence for me, and to make things better the weather was perfect for pictures!

Fish on the rocks- Hout Bay

When in the Cape another must do is fish and chips, dont waste your time having it at the Waterfront, a drive along the M6 is much more worth it, passing Camps Bay and the 12 apostles making your way into the small fishing village of Hout Bay. There are a few takeout/ restaurants to chose from and all are more or less priced the same so the choice is yours really. Dont stick to just the cooked seafood as there are fish mongers around for you to buy the fresh stuff as I was given strict orders to bring the famous Snoek back to Durban. I probably wouldnt have been allowed back into the house if I didnt bring some.

Camps Bay

Back onto the heavy schedule of meeting people, I had the pleasure of meeting yet more twitter people! (who needs family hey?) Tuesday night was spent having dinner with @PsychoButterFly who you'll find online at most strange hours of the night, hence I dubbed her "Night Warrior Princess". It was pointed out during dinner that I havent properly "done" Long street so after dinner I had a mandatory stop then I decided to explore this mystic street. Well thats as far as I can remember the night, the next morning I found myself with a moerse hang over, receipts for R1000's on the kitchen counter and to top it off my jeans some how got torn... dont worry nothing else was "torn".

The Icon

Its quite a mission to get your butt together to make an 11am checkout time but the gods were kind to me that day and I did but something had to give as finding parking infront of the hotel to hand back the parking garage disc with room key proved to be impossible with traffic, driving a BMW didnt exactly help the cause as well since people dont really take kindly to BMW drivers (no wonder the rental place had them on special). With the hours running out I had the privilege of ending of my time in the Cape on a sweet note by meeting @LeeAnn_Roberts for coffee, as I tweeted shortly afterwards, pictures do her little justice as she is much more stunning in real life. Now I can scratch off "having coffee with a supermodel" off my bucket list. As I sat there at the airport eating my last bit of seafood the Cape had to offer at the Ocean Basket, I wished that the weekend could rewind itself right to the beginning, as there were things I wished I did, things I wished I remembered, and a first for me, wished I took more pictures! But I suppose the good thing is I dont regret doing what I did, I could do this annually from now on!