TRAVEL

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This was a business trip and when Wellington calls, especially when WOW is alive in the city, you answer. Wellington comes alive when hosting their world-class festivals with travellers coming into the city to explore the unique cafes, bars, restaurants and to soak up that all around welcoming Wellington vibe. En route from the airport, we witnessed an array of street artist and musicians that the capital city is known for. We soaked up that vibe as we arrived.

Where to stay is always the question when traveling. This was a quick trip and we needed class and comfort as the day ahead was full of social commitments, events and some very fine dining. Naumi Hotel in Wellington was the answer. The stunningly designed boutique hotel is one of a kind. Upon entering off Cuba Street, there is a sensory experience that greets you at the door. Full of vibrancy and colour, the hotel lobby is the place where selfies were meant to be taken. An oversized futuristic floral art installation serves as the centrepiece in the foyer and groups of guests can be seen stopping to take turns to snap a shot in front of this beckoning beauty.

Lola Rouge Restaurant & Bar is full service, conveniently on-site and open for breakfast lunch and dinner. The intimate restaurant is perfect for enjoying a full meal with the option of private dining in their formal dining space. The bar is sprawling with intimate nooks and options for enjoying a cocktail and nibbles. Ordering is made easy with online table ordering that can be charged directly to your room so that you can sit, sip and relax without a worry. That’s exactly what we did with a cheese board and bubbles on order.

Our double room was colourful and modern with amenities to suit the most seasoned travelers. Comfortable beds, pillow options, hair tools, plush linens and all the rest you would expect from a 4-star accommodation. Room service was available and swift staff with friendly faces delivered our meal to the room with apt promptness. It was truly felt that we were staying in the lap of luxury. With Naumi’s proximity to town, you are spoilt for choice on where to go. Shopping, dining, art and entertainment abound. Ortega and Charley Noble, Plonk, and Aubergine are just a few fine dining options that were recommended to us and we popped in for a bit of everything. Travel Tip: For quick trips, why not book drinks and nibbles at one venue, have your main at another and then book in a late dessert at yet another. It’s a great way to sample the city.

Naumi staff looked after every detail of our stay making us feel welcomed by the north. The hotel hosts corporates, conferences, events and weddings so no task is to big or small to take on when it comes to guest comfort. They didn’t miss a detail despite the busy season and high influx of guests for the multitude of events that were on in town. Our room even had a few luxe treats to welcome us and enjoy upon arrival. Now, that’s service.

Needless to say, I will return. One night at Naumi is just not enough.

VISIT NAUMI

Originally published November 2024

Kia, Editor of CM 

Transitioning is never easy. Not in any facet of our lives. Moving into new seasons can be uncomfortable and so can building a new routine. There's always the motivational point that must be at the forefront of your mind in order to commit and persist. The question of: What benefit do I get out of this? In our most recent collaboration with Blush Skin Clinic in Merivale Mall, I learned that the benefit is naturally glowing skin and a long lasting beauty routine to go with it. 

The business of beauty is big. A recent study showed that beauty startups have eclipsed the consumer industry faster than any other modern means of making money. Every day there is a new promising product released that captivates the world and extracts billions from the daily dollar. As a woman with a front facing job and walking the occasional runway, one must put their best face forward at all times so over the years I've tried a lot of the lot. We are also sent lots of product to test here at the magazine and what works for me may not work for others but I do know that establishing a proper beauty routine is a beautiful thing.

So how does one know what works? I leave this to the professionals and most recently for me it was at Blush who specialize in rebuilding skin and rebuilding lives through DMK. Through its unique combination of state-of-the-art botanical science and innovative technology, DMK has formulated a range of treatments and products designed to act like an ecosystem for the skin.

Enzyme Therapy is the core of DMK’s Professional Skin Revision treatments. Designed to encourage the skin to function optimally, Enzyme Therapy is a unique concept exclusive to DMK. This treatment is unlike anything you have experienced before. It improves lymphatic drainage whilst eliminating toxins and impurities from the skin. A “Plasmatic Effect” is the result from the enzymes that encourage circulation and oxygenation to replenish the skin. 

I did the research and invested the time into working out whether this new skin regime worked. I received 2 full enzyme skin treatments that included the most relaxing massage and I left with a skin prescription, product, and an easy to follow routine for both day and night. The benefits were seen immediately and that made it easy to stick with the process and trust I was doing my face a favour. The enzymes in the treatment actively work to hydrolyse dead skin and encourage new collagen and elastin formation. The skin is oxygenated and detoxified. My skin was beaming. The DMK philosophy of REMOVE, REBUILD, PROTECT and maintain has gained international recognition because healthy vibrant skin is actually achieved. 

The treatment works for those with acne and congestion, pigmentation and uneven skin tone, wrinkles and fine lines, premature ageing and sun damage plus scaring, stretchmarks and cellulite. Your skin technician will determine the appropriate programme for you and they can provide you a complete skin analysis. 

It's back to Blush I go to stock up on product and book in my treatments which are beneficial from anywhere between every 4-6 weeks. Make the personal commitment. Devoting time to yourself definitely comes with the benefit of feeling beautiful both inside and out. 

Just a sidenote: My standout product was the EFA Ultra-DMK's signature supplement that provides the full group of essential fatty acids 3,6,7, and 9. It is designed to support skin functioning, internal health and overall wellbeing.

Stay beautiful, Cantabrians.

-Kia

EIC Cantabrian Magazine 

Nick, Lumiere has just won New Zealand’s best Cinema, how does that feel?

I was nervously anxious about it because inwardly and deeply I don’t chase crests or laurels or any form of positive content you’ll have to dig into my psychology. When you think about it, I’ve done the Mahe, Four decades of hard work and dedication. So, Im taking this, I’m taking it.

What inspired you to get into cinema and how has that vision evolved for you over the years?

Yes well, it’s definitely evolved. Because when I knee high to a grass hoper and living on the fringe of East Christchurch I would quite often catch the bus or drive around in dads car and drive around looking at the buildings these square profile buildings on suburban street corners and they were cinemas and I knew as a family, we were quite poor, and Id never be able to discover the world but these places screamed to me of cultures and stories from other parts of the world so the departure lounge to parts of the world I wanted to go to. At first it was the architecture of these buildings, the smell the sight the sound, the way it looked, weather it was Victorian or gothic or art deco it really hooked me in. The smell, the musk, the history and the social commentary really got me and then through evolution instead of looking at the ceiling I looked at the screen then film took part of that over. For me it’s still a beautiful hybrid of atmosphere and content.

This is the question that everybody gets asked, what are your top three films?

That’s like a loaded gun, it’s an Alec Baldwin type of moment, you know? So, this one is not a classic film, it been my number one film for a long time and every year I think about it it, its “Breaking Away” with a young Emily Watson and I don’t know, it’s the way it was filmed. A maverick film maker who uses natural light, natural performances who micro cameras right in your face. That film of a woman living in a strictly Calvinistic, religious island somewhere off the Hebrides’. It’s about her and the way the community treated her once she was trying to find her way in love as a young girl on the island. The community turns on her and in amongst that are these beautiful segues and postcards of the island and music of the era. A bit of Pink Floyd, nostalgic 60’s artists. That’s the film that sticks in my mind, decades later. Blade Runner is definitely in there because there’s nothing more tangible and exciting for me than sitting in the back row and watching the audience get into this film that’s near on 40 plus years now and you can touch the atmosphere in the cinema of the expectation of the audience watching this film with a bunch of strangers. In 1982 I saw that film at the Harbor Light in Lyttleton on a very rainy night and the roof was leaking, and musky air was coming through because the cinema is decades old and that moment, I revisited some weeks ago with Blade Runner. There are guys and girls that have seen that film two or three times here, but they keep coming back to it because it has that X factor. Number three is “Heat” and I’m very glad that you brought a debutante to see that here the other night.

How do you decide what you’re going to put up on the screen?

Well intuition. I come with the benefit of knowing the Christchurch audience and I ran film festivals and been involved with festivals. I’ve gradually built up an assemblance of knowledge and yes there is a bit of personal stuff there. But there is this chemistry, amalgamation of knowledge with my time at Alice in Videoland. Talking with people about their love and wants with film. So, I’m really confident in that scheduling of cinema. So yeah, a little bit of personal and a lot of what I think the film community needs.

I come here, it’s the cinema pinnacle for me, you’ve done so well with Lumiere. How do you feel about the journey?

Immensely proud now and when I stop and take a breath, finally Im actually patting myself on the back and that’s taken a long, long, long, long time and those pat yourself on the back moment is coming more and more now.

Looking forward, where do you see film going with so many ways to watch films now?

I’ve looked upon the advent of streaming services as a plus. People want choice and they want choice now, so I look at the Lumiere for the months and years ahead and say you’ve got to have choice, you’ve got to have variety. So, animation, documentaries, film festivals. I’ve just introduced a thing called pitch back, play back which is an album listening session in the dark. So, you go in there with a mask which you can wear and listen to an album which might be in its anniversary year and sit back and relax in a disciplined environment and you get to listen to that in a 5.1 sound system. We recently commissioned a local band,  Moider Mother played the soundtrack with the film Nosferatu. We turned the sound off and had a silent film with just the band playing. Just variety and using the art form in different and more exciting ways. I can never compete against streaming services but when you look at the Lumiere it’s never boring from week to week.

You’ve got a full cinema when it comes to classic films that are 30, 40 years old. You’ve got audiences that really appreciate it.

Yeah, if there’s one thing that I’ve seen on the upswing, its films that I call “Out of the past” that’s a need or want from younger people that want to experience these films in a disciplined environment, i.e. cinema. There's an unquestionable thirst to see these films on an anniversary or reissues right around the world. I guess that’s led in part by the lack of contemporary films that really hook into people’s zeitgeist. If there’s nothing in the future they look into the past like anything,  music icons, where are todays music icons? So, it’s just the same for cinema. I definitely see my “Out of the past’ series as a corner stone of what I’m trying to do or curate in my time on earth.

You’re in such a beautiful space at the Arts center and the cinema itself. You must love it here?

Yes, the room tones and the ambience of the learning institution that was the old University of Canterbury lend itself well to what I’m doing. What a perfect segue. An Old university lecture theatre split into two cinemas. So, it does feel good, it does feel right. Part of the tender document that I took on when I started here is that it has an educational imprint and I think we’re doing that in film academia and an environmental one which we are careful about, that we do in wastage here. We have a social conscience. The lynch pins we have in running a business, environmental, social, good outcomes for staff, its all in there. That’s the fire in my belly that wants me to keep this thing going.

The French Festival is coming soon. 

What else are seeing at Lumiere in the next 6 months as far as festivals and events?

Yeah, it’s still a gathering of nuts in terms of film supply. We’re talking about the recession; the actors and writer’s strike. It won’t really be until 2026 that studios around the world will be ramping up their Feng Sui. But between now and 2026 the revisiting of film festivals from different countries, the British, the French, the Irish, the big international and the Doc edge. I’m busy on working on all those now so yeah, again, variety and choice.

Thank you, Nick. It was a great afternoon chatting with you. Best of luck to you and the cinema moving into the future.