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Category: Proudly KZN

Mindgame Escape Umhlanga Review

Last week Saturday we were invited by the the team from Mindgame Escape in Umhlanga to join them for the opportunity to try and “escape” from one of their escape rooms. Escape Rooms is a physical adventure where you have to solve puzzles, and clues in order to work your way out of the room, usually within a pre-determined time limit.

This has to honestly be one of the most fun afternoons out that I have had in a REALLY long time. Being a parent we often are restricted to just doing what the kids want to do. So when I asked a few of our friends if they were keen for something different, everyone jumped at the opportunity.

When we arrived, we were met by Monique, who took us through a quick 2 minute video on what Mindgame Escape is all about. We had decided to do the Sherlock Holmes Baker Street mystery, where we needed to find out who the “murderer” was.

Essentially, you are locked in a room with an hour to escape using a whole bunch of clues, riddles & locks. Without giving too much away, the thought that went into some of the clues was amazing. We don’t often think to look in the simple places for the most obvious things, and that’s really how your mind should work at Mindgame Escape. You are also allowed to call for hints at anytime, which will help with solving the clues.

We finally made it out at 56:29, so literally with a few minutes to spare. Apparently only around 35% of people make it out. The record for that specific room was broken on the same day at 46 minutes!!

All of our friends that were with us, really enjoyed the experience. We literally couldn’t stop talking about it, and what we could have done differently.

The pricing of Mindgame Escape varies from R250pp (for 2 people) to R200pp (for 6 people) and is well well worth it. You can also book your slot online at https://www.mindgame.co.za/ and also check out more info about the rooms and about the whole concept. Once again, this is a highly recommended if you feel like doing something different and giving your brain a bit of a workout!

Disclaimer: Mindgame Escape invited us to join them to try out one of their escape rooms. I was not asked to blog or talk about it, but it was honestly so amazing, I can’t stop. I know we’ll all definitely be back for the Houdini room very, very soon!

November 28, 2017
Review: Sushi Ninja, Ballito

Living in a small town like Ballito it’s a fairly common site to see new restaurants opening up, especially before the silly season. But there are also a few restaurants that have stood the test of time, and just keep going & going and you have to make a booking any time of the year to get in.

And that’s where Brett Michelin from Mozambik is a winner. He just “knows” the business, and is probably one of the most successful business owners I know!

So when a new spot called Sushi Ninja popped up on the raider, and word was that it was Brett’s new venture, we KNEW we had to get down there. So we did. And I am so glad we did…

So a bit of a back story around my sushi journey. In 2007 I went on a company incentive trip to Mauritius. We went deep sea fishing one day, and came back with a sizer of a tuna. The hotel chef offered to cut it up for us and offered us platters of fresh tuna. And there was a lot. Like too much, and we ate tuna until we couldn’t anymore. And I was all tuna’d out. I couldn’t look at any raw fish for years or even begin to try tuna or any type of sushi again.

But slowly over the last couple of months I have been sneaking a little bite here and there, but until last week, I had never ordered a full plate of sushi. And then came Sushi Ninja!!!

Sushi Ninja, is a small little area outside the popular Mozambik, with a couple of tables and a chef’s station where the master sushi chef France, does his magic. France comes with loads of experience, and prepares all the sushi fresh in front of you.

The menu options are pretty standard, with a couple of additional surprises, when it comes to sushi and very reasonably priced. The seafood used in the sushi is fresh as well, and full of flavour. The best item on the menu for me was the salmon battleships, which were delicious!!

Ballito doesn’t offer too many sushi options, so if you looking for flavorsome and well priced sushi, I highly recommend Sushi Ninja. Be sure to give France a hi-five on the way out to say thanks for the amazing sushi & service ;)

Disclaimer: I was not asked by Sushi Ninja or Zomato to write this blog post

December 9, 2016
Review: The Shed Restaurant, Litchi Orchard, Salt Rock

I don’t often do that many restaurant reviews on this blog, but I definitely want to try and do a few more, especially of places in my area. There are so many cool places opening lately so it’s always worth giving them a shoutout!

Recently a new place opened in the area and is becoming a fast family favorite. It’s called The Shed and it’s situated in the awesome Litchi Orchard in Salt Rock. Many people may know the Litchi Orchard for their markets, but having this new spot makes it even better. The is also ample place for the kids to run around and explore, in fact we hardly even see the kids when we go there!

The Shed offers a variety of food & drink options in a great setting. It is set inside a wooden shed structure and also offers a cool outside area with bonfires. The food varies from Burgers, to Wood fired Pizza, to Flatbreads, fresh fish and even awesome tasting steaks. A little bit of something for everyone! Every time we have been with friends someone has tried something different, and everyone has been really happy with their food.

We have been a couple of times as a family and I really enjoy the burgers, while the kids love the pizzas. They also have a couple of local craft beers (Poison City Larger FTW) on tap as well as Gin & Tonic on tap, which is delicious. They also do these awesome gourmet milkshakes (Milo & Cookie Dough is to die for!!)

If you ever in the area looking for a spot to chill out, especially on a Sunday afternoon when they have live music, this is the place. I could easily spend a couple of hours here with the family.

Contact Details

w: theshedsaltrock.co.za
t: 032 8150516

Disclaimer: I was not asked to write this post. I love supporting new businesses in the area, so will probably start doing a few more of these :)

September 9, 2016
Add Hope during World Hunger Month with KFC

I often have the privilege of travelling out to some of our rural communities in KZN to assist with a feeding scheme we are involved in. I have also been following this campaign from the guys at KFC called “Add Hope“, which brings food to those who can’t afford it.

By simply adding R2 to your next KFC meal, you too can “Add Hope” to someone’s life. When you see hope through the eyes of a child, you see the world in a different way, because children always believe that tomorrow will be better. They know that one day they will be doctors, astronauts or police officers.

This video of Mikael shows us that there is hope out there. Mikael aspires to be just like superstars Ronaldo & Messi, and wants to be a star soccer player when he grows up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi2Y5PfiFgs

Food security is one of the basic needs on Maslows hierarchy of needs, yet, in South Africa 3,3 million children go to bed hungry every night. You may have no problem providing for this physiological need on a daily basis, but 3,165 million children in South Africa live with household hunger. Malnutrition is associated with more than half of all childhood deaths and the startling stats extend beyond this.

Having raised over R210 million over the last 6 years, KFC Add Hope currently feeds over 70 000 children every month, through 90 carefully selected national and community beneficiaries.

Help a child make their dreams come true during World Hunger Month and Add Hope.

October 14, 2014
Why the @ILuvDBN & #WeLoveDurban campaign is a HUGE Fraud and Scam!!

Yesterday the lead story on front page of the Sunday Tribune was about how a certain Durban Digital Media company, was paid R500,000 for a social media campaign called We Love Durban.

The campaign forms part of a global campaign, called the “Earth Hour City Challenge” by the WWF encouraging cities around the world to tweet on sustainable living. The city with the most tweets, tagged with a dedicated hashtag, by the 27th March will win the competition. To be honest, I’m not really sure what the “prize” is though, except maybe a badge on a website.

I’m not going to going into the nitty gritty of the shambles of being paid R500,000 for the social media campaign. Mark Smith has already written a pretty comprehensive in depth look into it.

But, what I am gonna do, is look at how I Luv DBN has been manipulating votes, by creating FAKE twitter accounts to gather more votes. It seems they using an automated BOT, called TweetAdder v4, which adds fake accounts and tweets automated scheduled tweest,

So, if you do a twitter search on the hashtag #WeLoveDurban, I noticed a number of accounts JUST talking about #WeLoveDurban. When going into these accounts, I saw this is ALL they spoke about. An random example in case is @Alixking2070C, who has posted 155 tweets in 1 WEEK, ALL of them tagged with #WeLoveDurban.

Alex King, who lives in Arizona, really LOVES Durban. But she also has 91 followers, and follows 331 people. If we click onto her followers, I see a number of accounts that look rather suspicious.

When I clicked onto 3 random followers, they ALL have a similar number of followers, and ALL tweet about #WeLoveDurban

Even though this is a fairly small “sample” of people and accounts, I am confident that the large majority of the tweets for this campaign, for the Durban entries, are fake. I have also heard from a number of people that they too have noticed this dodgy behavior and seen similar activities across the brand. They have also stolen a number of images on Instagram and reposted them themselves, without any accreditation.

This is unacceptable for a worldwide competition, which has a global following, and I really trust the WWF, who is behind this competition does some thorough investigation and analysis to ensure that all tweets are legitimate and non fraudulent before announcing the winners!

Disclaimer: The above views are my own personal views, and even though I have been contacted (numerous times) by the Agency responsible for this scam, I have declined to take part due to my suspicion around the brand and campaign.

Update: 17 March 20:35

Since this post was published earlier today, a number of fake accounts have been deleted. This is proven by the fact that you can no longer any of the above mentioned accounts. As I said above the above accounts were just a sample.

The I Love Durban campaign also posted a blog post earlier denying the allegations of the excessive funds as well as claiming “Cyber-Bullying” tactics which were used in the above blog posts. I wish to state that the post is not intended as a “Cyber Bullying” or defamation post, but merly a post stating some of the facts found from proven research. Unless the above facts are proven to be false, I will stand by my above findings.

March 17, 2014