Designer: mariam
Codings: Manikka
Images: 1 2

I'm back from middle earth!! It was great! fun! amazing! awesome! terrific! remarkable! Went there for two weeks. We didnt want a tour cos we didn't like to stick to others' timing so my poor dad had to drive everyday for two whole weeks. Thanks dad. Went to south island. Its beautiful. In singapore we have nothing but HDB flats and more HDB flats. They have mountains, vast greeny, breadthtaking waterfalls and the occasional clear lakes. I would call New Zealand's beauty heaven on earth. Probably our Eden. They have more sheep and cows than they have people. An agriculture country. No wonder they are super strict with what we bring into the country. In sg, our airport dogs sniff drugs while theirs sniff out food stuff. Interesting.


28/11
Today is major screw-up day. First, the woman from Raffles travel agency told my mum that we had to report to terminal 1 when we had to go to terminal 2. Crap. shit her! We finally boadred the train after having a short meal in the airport. During the 10 hours flight, I dozed in and out of consciousness as my mind and body was out of sync due to the 4 hours time change. I started to have motion sickness and couldn't sleep initially. I think I dozed off for a few hours until I saw the sunlight streaming through the windows. At that time, they started to serve breakfast. After a few bites, I started to feel neutaous. My mood was completely dampened. We left the plane with me sickly following behind. We checked out without much problems and moved on to the counsel to retrive our bags. To our dismay, our bags had not appeared. The baggage attendant was efficient in dealing with the problem and quickly radioed the people to find another baggage box. There was none. He quickly directed all of us to the 'baggage service' to report our about 30 missing bags. We were tired, frustrated and agiatated. All we had was what we had hand-carried along. Not even one of our two bags could be found. No fresh change of clothes, no handphone charger.... There airport staff said that he would contact us to send us our baggage once they received it but we were moving daily. Mum and dad's phone battery may not last that long with out the battery charger. We remembered that when we were checking in at Singapore, the conveyer belt was stuck. Somehow, the luggages did not come through. As they said, the problem originated from Singapore International Airport, supposedly one of the best in the world. they having some funfair there. We are suffering in New Zealand without our survival items. It is not like we are going to Malaysia, a very familiar country to us, and can easily survive without much. New Zealand is a new place to us, our first time here and these kind of things can happen. It is tough to survive.
In my sickness and anger, I heard God talk to me while on the domestic flight from Aulkland to Christchurch. We had not prayed before we left neither did we pray when we had lost our baggages. He wanted to show us something, He wanted something to happen; He had a plan. It was difficult to survive but we managed to scrape through. When we had settled in the motel, my family and I sat down to pray. I knew for a fact that our items were lost but I felt a sense of peace once we started praying. I felt fear that we would never find our baggage yet I knew God would not allow something like this happen to us.
Also, I knew He wanted to throw us into this petatic situation to make us, this family, closer together. He wanted to bond us together; we had no one else. I had not been excited about this trip as I did not like the idea of being with just my family. I could not see much fun in it; I had not wanted to go. Now, I know that God is trying to bring us, one family, closer. To show that in such a situation, I only had my family to rely on. No one else.


29/11
We took a train from Christchurch to Greymouth which lasted about 4 hours.Being the clasuterphobic me, I could not sit still. Our seat was by the window and some table. Luckily, we were allowed to stand at the back of the train to take photos- I spent most of my time there. The temperature was not very low but the wind due to the moving train made it extremely freezing. Most of the eurasians never stayed there for as long as my sister and I did. I totally disliked the enclosed inner train space. We kept snapping photos of the amazing New Zealand scenery and we passed each one. Soon, I was to realise that what we passed was mountains, forests and farmland. Occasionally, we did pass some streams. My camera cannot fully capture the beauty of NZ. One must be there to see the wonders of God's creation with one's own eyes and touch and feel the place. We finally reached greymouth after a long 4+ hours of journey.
We finally landed in greymouth; no, not green, grey. Not nose, mouth. haha. We went to collect our rented car and went for lunch at some Hong kong resturant. big insult to HK food. It was a traumatic meal. The food was horrible I dared not even eat the rice. yucks. I learnt my lesson, NEVER eat chinese food in european countries. Anyway, after that we booked into our motel and went to some shopping centre to buy some clothes and whatever we needed to survive. We then went to see the pancake rocks. Very magnificient views. wonderful. I took many pictures. I've uploaded one on my blog. In the evening we went to subway for dinner. Went we returned to our motel our small luggage had arrived!!!! =) so happy.


30/11
The wake-up time was supposed to be 7am but we looked so tired mum decided to be nice and woke us at 9am. I, as usual, woke up the latest. As I rushed aound getting ready, mum did some last minute packing. We left kinda late in the morning for Fox Glazier. Its a mini sentosa. really mini. Physically big but not much attractions. Overall I have to say that it was nice. We wanted to take a helicopter ride up to the glazier, touch the ice, take some pictures and come down not frozen. The weather, however, was not good so we ended up walking to one of the nearby glaziers. My mum told us to pack summer clothes and a jacket but it was freezing there. The temperature was reasonable, 12 degrees. But the wind was chilling. Took many pictures then left for dinner. We returned to our hotel to find that our big luggage had come in. yeah!!! now we have everything. anyway, at dinner. Their food portions are huge. We ordered two plates and shared it among four of us. wow. the europeans have a plate each. At night was very funny. We went to see the glow worms in the darkness. Quite interesting. Something like fireflies. One tour group walked into the forest with us in a train. One guys happily went to hide somewhere and jumped out to scare everyone. haha. The men screamed the loudest. They screamed. haha. We returned to our hotel tired and sleepy. My sis and I were in one room while my parents in another. kelly needed something so she talked thru the wall to mum. Through the hotel wall, it went something like this...
Kelly: Mummy? Mummy! can u hear me?
Mum: Yes? Yes? what?
kelly: have you boiled our water? I can't switch the boiler on.
mum: I boiled it already. You can drink it straight. Just put the water and close it, it will boil on its own.
kelly: orh ok. where is my waterbottle? I need it.
mum: Its in the blue bag.
kelly: where??? orrhhh... here...
Mum: nevermind nevermind. aiya. I come over now.
very funny to see them running across the rooms. the other guests must have been wondering what the racket is about. HAha. We finally settled everything and got some much needed sleep.


1/12
We woke up, Packed and left for queenstown. Queenstown is the adventure land of NZ. My kind of place.


2/12
Location: Queenstown
Queenstown is almost like our orchard road but its not much for shopping. It is, however, bustling with activity. The night before we had gone shopping for soveniers and gifts for our friends. In the morning we rushed for the jet boat which mum booked for the night before. We were a little late but managed to sit the jet boat. We had a great time especially when the driver did the famous 360 degrees turn. unfortunately for me, I was sitting at the right of the boat. The right was the wrong side to be on. I got most of the splashes. It was FREEZING!!! wet and with the wind blowing against u... oh gosh. how did i survive it??? our guide cum driver was very funny
Guide cum driver: This boat moves by taking in water and pushing it out at high speeds. Later we are going to pass some shallow water and if the boat doesnt get the water it needs u guys will have to go out and do a little push. Dont worry guys, only your feet will be in the 4 degrees water. When we pass, u may hear some scratching sounds but it is just the rocks underneath. If the water is too shallow, the boat can still cross but it will get scratch. Don't worry. Its not your boat neither is it mine so as far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter.
The driver stopped us at some jetty to take a helicopter up to the theme park. They called it a pak. hmmm... I traded my wet jacket with mum to that I could warm up. The helicopter ride was exciting. =) =) up at the pak, my sis and I went to play the Luge 4 times. so fun!!!! haha. We were like some hell drivers. later we took the gondola (cable car) down.
heheez. 10 mins Late for hangliding. paisae. luge was too fun. We drove to the handgliding location behind the van which carried the rest of the players. It started to drizzle but we went on anyway. The instructors were friendly and nice. I think they were nice to my sis and I cos we were small and seen as children. I was 2nd to be flown up. I was the most shiok thing I had done in NZ. The feeling of flying in the air, high up above the rest, feeling the wind in your face. wow. I learned to turn left and right and how to make the roller coaster effect. There was an instructor beside me cos it was all our first time. I uploaded a pic in friendster. heheez. Only my sis and i went, my parents were not "young enough to try such things". ??? according to my mum... since we were not with the coach, we wanted to leave first so the instructors rushed to get our pictures downloaded. bought the pictures CD at 30 NZ bucks. expensive but worth it.
We had Dinner at a jap resturant. fantastic food. They only decent asian food we found in NZ. It was more than decent, it was better than sg's jap food.



I'm going for breakfast now.. later than blog about the rest of my trip. patience, kor.