A short moment of happiness

Clara & Citrus.



I've decided to play again.
For a new beginning, buying Citrus while waiting for my bus to the airport, in my last few hours in NZ seemed the perfect solution.
Why else would the bus stop be right in front of a sound system shop entrance?

The OMO revelation.

It was hard work and time consuming to write and edit from mars.
So maybe a few posts due when I get back.

But there's this.
This afternoon I was asked, "What was the one thing you learnt or experience that you would take home with you from this trip?"
The apparent answer is Walking but I'll get into that some other day.

As I was thinking of the answer, it wasn't bungee jumping.
Or sailing on a yatch all day.
Or climbing a glacier.

And when I can finally put my finger on what it is, it is this.
He has been for me throughout this trip.
Everytime that I am thankful, it is always Him.
In each situation and each person that I met, I am thankful in a way of believing that He was behind all things.
Thankfulness that's like a baseline to what feelings that I have had.

I had set out on this trip on my own, to be removed off everything.
Even Him.
But that was impossible.
Even though I haven't been praying.
Even though I've put myself and others in danger.

In the end, I'm bringing home this experience of just Him revealing Himself to me again.
And if He is for me here, how can He not be for me back home?
That is another impossible truth I have to come to terms with.

North Island in a post

*backdated post*

A new trip is dawning on 18th Oct, and at this rate I don't think I'll ever finish blogging in details about North Island.

But here is what I remember, from the heart.

Auckland, the heart of the city is sloped in like a crater.
It was a place where I saw homeless people really actually sleeping on sidewalks and for the first time in my trip I was wary of people.

The Explorer Bus was a fast way to go about quite a few places.
Mount Eden had a really beautiful view. I enjoyed detouring into an unbeaten path on my way back down despite being slightly anxious that I was lost. Then it was off to Westfield shopping center for some stocking of food. I had my Grain Waves!
Then there was some time to go to the Winter garden Pavilion where I got a chance to take those macro flower shots that I love.

The next two days was off to the tours.

The little town of Paihia had a super quaint tiny cottage that was converted into a library.
I enjoyed my time in Paihia, where we went to get on the boat for the Bays of Islands tour.
And going through the Hole in the Rock was an exciting boat ride because of how the waves was so much scarier in the Hole.

The Hobbiton movie set tour was lovely, being it was actually filmed on a huge farm.
All the little Hobbit houses, which were actually just front doors that opened up to little more than closet space. And visiting the Green Dragon pub where there was a cat that's been around since the first movie.

Before I headed to Auckland, my brother mentioned he has a friend that owns a yacht there.
Going on the Explorer Bus the first day in Auckland and seeing all the yachts in their harbor,
just made me even more wanting to go on a yacht.
So I insisted that my brother ask his friend if I can go sailing with his friend on his private yacht the one weekend I had there. Yeah, with like, a total stranger for me at that point!

I GOT THE CHANCE AND I ENJOYED MYSELF TREMENDOUSLY!

I will never be thankful enough to have met Stephen Scott and his lovely partner Jo, for teaching me all about sailing, especially about the sperms in the sky and navigating around.
I was pretty much lovingly called a 'menace', accidentally dropping a barnacle down a tiny deep slot on the yacht and also leaving the steering wheel unattended to get my hand phone, thus making the yacht spin for quite a bit out in the waters. There was no time for packing a proper lunch, so the whole day was spent eating junk food that was on the yacht and drinking. Oh yes, they were so casual about it that I had my good share of coke and rum as well as some white wine.
We even had the sea police dropped by, because we went off the yacht to take a walk one of the smaller islands and left the sails up, which was a total no-no for any anchored yacht.

The last day was spent at the Art Gallery, where I bought my first small reprint of a painting.
A delightful little cemetery piece.
Then after that meeting Stephen again for a tour of the harbor and learning the history of the American Cup.

Auckland was also where I bought Citrus on my last hour there while waiting for the bus to the airport. =)

Goodbye to South Island

*this is a backdated post*

All in all, South Island was the place I fulfilled dreams, pushed myself to the limits and just saw God in all the things of nature He made.
Sure, there were some hits and misses, like not climbing all the way up the glacier, or not bungee jumping in the right way but I've come to realized that I'm okay with that after the initial upset.

The whole experience of being there, doing the things that I've done, those are my memories alone.
I loved Wanaka and Queenstown the best.
Queenstown is a delightful package of a place that have scenery, food and activities to do wherelse Wanaka was just stunning in view on a clear day.

And these are the places that I would choose to go back to.

Adventure Hostel

*this is a backdated post*

Queenstown is about an hour away from Wanaka.
When I arrived, it was evening, the mountain peaks surrounding Queenstown looked alot like Kobe beef in the sunset.
I booked into Adventure Hostel and was assigned an upper bunk that the rung was too high to climbed up on.
The really nice lady on duty at reception helped me out by getting me a bean bag from the tv room to use as leverage up.
The next day the girl below me had left, so I moved my sheets and pillows down as I was staying four nights in total.

My first day was spent going up the cable car.
The view from the top was awesome. I couldn't stop making videos from different angles.
There were people paragliding, and it was nice to watch them.
I took the package that comes with two rounds of the Luge.The ride's first route was nice but the second route was steeper and some corners sharper that I didn't make it around without getting stuck.
Thankfully there was no other luges coming down while I get myself around those corners I get stuck on.
On the way down I visited the cemetery there.
Then I headed towards the library, but it was closed.
Walking around the Botanical Gardens, it was lovely to watch the autumn colors come to life.
The Botanical Gardens is set like a peninsular onto Lake Wakatipu, so it was a good walk on the paths.
All over the place, people were playing something called disc golf that involved throwing a disc into chain baskets located throughout the Gardens.
One of the things I really wanted to do in Queenstown was to visit Hell's Pizza.
I asked my hostel receptionist on duty for directions to it, surprised to find the entrance in a secluded corner.
The pizzas were named after the 7 deadly sins and all things to do with Hell, like Purgatory, Limbo and Damned.
I really enjoyed being there, feeding my 'evil' side. The decor was all red and black, with creepy dark music playing in the background.
There was also different level of spicyness for the pizzas you can choose from and I chose the 2nd lowest one on the first night.

The next day I had booked myself a trip to Milford Sound, so I was up before the sunrise.
Along the way it started to drizzle and rain.
The bus driver took us to quite a few beautiful spots along the way.
I managed to see a rainbow at one of those places and it certainly warmed my heart.
The bus driver told us a few days back there was even snow in certain parts of the roads we were taking.
I half hoped there was snow, but yet to have snow could mean our trip getting cancelled.
At one point we had to wait for our turn to drive through a tunnel that was dug into the mountain side.
A lot of bridges across the lakes in New Zealand are one way ones, so it was always interesting to watch the vehicles taking turns to use the bridges.
Because of the rain, the mountain sides had a lot of pretty little streams of water flowing down.
When we arrived at the pier for Milford Sound it was still raining.
It was a cruise boat, and the first thing we did when we got on was to have lunch.
After so many meals of sandwiches or noodles, I was glad to have meat, seafood and ice cream.
Where there was streams of water on the mountain sides, now there was alot of waterfalls to look at coming down on all sides of Milford Sound.
I got to see a seal, resting on some rocks as the captain navigated the boat really close to the rocks and waterfalls for us.
When I got back to Queenstown, I headed to Hell's Pizza for my second time, this time picking on the next level of spicyness and having a pear cider to go along with it.

The next day, I figured out it was now or never.
I was either going to bungy jumped or regretted I didn't for the rest of my life.
This had been the whole point of my trip.
Half an hour into the shop opening, I walked in and booked my slot for the afternoon.
Then I went back to the hostel and tried to read to relax myself.
But I was all butterflies inside and it was a really long anxious wait.
There was a bunch of people going up at the same time as I was.
We went up to the place in a small van.
From there we went to the edge and by cable went to this cable car right in the middle of cliffs, where right below us was the Nevis river.
Bungy jumped I did. It was embarassing now thinking back, how I went down with my feet first instead of head, and managed to turn myself around midair.
And then there was the whole I couldn't tug myself out of my feet straps for the way up, so I was going back up like a slaughtered pig hanging upside down.
My shoe nearly came out and the guy who let me out had to throw it into the cable car first or it might have fell off into the Nevis river.
So it was a thrilling, exciting but embarassing experience for me.
But this was what my trip was about, and in the end I DID IT!

After the excitement of all that, I was more sociable to the people in my room.
There was this silly man in the same room and he made each of us signed on his long johns with him wearing them on.
So basically I signed on his ass!
I joined them out to dinner since it was my last night there in Queenstown.
We went to a nice seafood restaurant, after a visit to a wine tasting shop where out of four of us, two was doing the wine tasting.
After dinner, we hanged out watching youtubes in our room as the guys kept us entertained with Pablo Francisco's impersonating Schwarzenegger doing Little Tortilla Boy.
Later on they decided that the long johns had to be FILLED UP with signatures, so we stopped by a few bars to get signatures.
The last place I was with them was this club across the town, where they had cocktails in teapots.
They stayed on much later than I did, as I needed to bathe and had a morning flight to Auckland to catch the next day.
I was glad to have met this decent bunch of random people that stayed in the same room and got along with.

Wanaka

Getting here took all yesterday.
The day before rocks fell on to the road and buses had to turn around and deposit people for another night where they were.
So there was a long queue of vehicles at Haast waiting for the road to open at noon.
Our bus driver did a good job stopping us at various places along the way.
We were at a salmon farm, a creek and another place for a late lunch after the pass opened up.

I made plans to go paragliding today.
But when I called to check on the weather they were expecting wind up there.
So I walked over to Stuart's Puzzling World in the morning instead.
Spent quite some hours lost in the labyrinth first.

The challenge was to find the way up to 4 towers at each corner of the maze and to get back to the starting point once that was done.
I actually found 2 towers on my own.
And then it took me a long while to find the 3rd.
By then I was smart to wait for the people who were up there to come back down and I retraced their steps. Haha.
The last tower was the worst as most people did that first, so I was not getting much clues.
I then gave up about finding the starting point again and took an emergency exit.
There was a sign in the maze saying that the whole thing is 1.5km long but people could end up walking 3-5km getting lost in there. I'm sure I was one of them.

After that I went over to the illusion rooms.
There was a lot of fun things to see and do.
Some stuff were seen unlike what they really are because of how our brain works.
So it was cool to know.

Then it was the long walk back again.
I took a slightly different route and found quite some views.
Snow capped peaks, green mountains down to the lake and town.
It was so beautiful.
I then headed over to the library to have a reading fix.
I didn't knew that Hillary Duff wrote young adult stories til today.

That's about all there is to the time spent here in Wanaka.
Tomorrow I head over to Queenstown where I hope to finally have some sky adventure!

Franz Josef

Today the sky was clear and morning trips to the glacier was not cancelled.
Yesterday it was cancelled because it was cloudy and drizzling.
So I'm really privileged and blessed to have the opportunity to go up.

The helicopter ride was a first for me. And that was nice.

It is just on the glacier that things turned awry.
I didn't count on my lack of balance or fitness to have held me back from managing on my own on the glacier.
From the moment we started walking away from the helicopter landing pad I felt difficulty in stomping the crampons into the ice.
I had to held on to a guide like 95% of the time.
And there was this part where we had to climb the glacier grabbing onto a rope hanging beside which was hard for me going up, but worst going down.

I actually wanted to quit early on but when the other guides came and asked me to confirm and make up my mind for good I thought I can't just quit now and I said I wanted to continue.
But in the end, I didn't go all the way up with the rest of my group but only up to a certain distance and another guide came to guide me back down the way we came.
I guess I was taking too long and the weather was starting to get cloudy.

At one point before it rained I even asked if I can just roll down the glacier and he said if you roll down you will die.
I thought that wasn't such a bad idea because we had such a long way to go.
I was so tired there was even a moment where he asked if I'm okay and I gave my hysterical laughter in response.

And it started raining awhile into the way down.
Which made the glacier even more slippery and dangerous.
The guide just kept telling me we had to move on.
It was scary.

About a third of the way down another guide met us and by that time I could see the rest of the group had reached the helicopter landing pad.
And because the rain had made the glacier more slippery the guides were brainstorming which way was safest to bring me down.

The other guide then decided to take the left way and made me hold on to his bagpack where he had some picks strapped in for me to hold on to while the other guide was behind me.
And every step was a slippery step. The guide himself was taking small steps.
We had to go over some large gaps in the ices and that was scary especially holding on to him and yet his crampons need to have step in enough for my feet to cross the gaps after him.

When I reached back the helicopter landing pad, another guide which had earlier went up when I said I wanted to quit said, 'At least you survived!!'
And my group guide was telling that this was one of the hardest days in a few weeks because of the rainy days they had.
The afternoon trip had to be cancelled because of the rain.

Despite my struggles, the glacier was amazing to be on.
The view. The glacier formation itself.
Rain water and melted snow from way up higher made its formation special everyday.
When I took off my gloves I was really touching ice itself everywhere.
There were so many types of holes made that I wished I could stop and admire.

I'm really grateful for the guides and other people in the group that helped me where I was struggling.

The whole afternoon have been spent resting my aching body for tomorrow.

Doing the K stuff part 2

So after done with kayaking, I decided I was sure to be lazy and not come out again if I go back to the hostel and took a bath.
I went to the kiwi centre to look at kiwis.

These fellas aren't small. They are like the size of turkey.
It was interesting to learn that they are anti social creatures who only socialize with their mates.
Also, an egg growing in a female kiwi can weigh til 75% of what the mum weighs.
So chiaklat for the mum!
But the moment she pops it out, its up to the dad to warm the egg til the chick comes out.
And the chick is pretty big and well feathered.
They are nocturnal birds though. So the centre had 2.
One was anxiously going about the wall while another was just scratching for food.
The anxious one was bigger, maybe it was pregnant.
They eat bugs n worms so they are known to have strong smell although I didn't smell anything with just two of them.

It was good to learn of one of New Zealand's own bird.
They do not have any animals to call their own only birds.

Doing the K stuff part 1

Today I went kayaking. It was just so random.
Was just glancing through their website last night and since I woke up early today just decided to do it.
I even just brought my breakfast over there because I was afraid they don't accept late booking.
This sweet fella up there was helping me with my bread crusts while I waited for the journey to Lake Mapourika.

There was 6 of us plus our guide.
And gosh kayaking is serious here.
We had to put on this thing called spraydeck to keep water from going into the kayak which was made of like diver material fitted to our hips, then a life jacket and a poncho.
And before all that gear we sprayed on insect repellent because the guide tells us there's sand flies.
The kayak turns by foot paddles linking to a rudder for the back person to be in charge of.
That was the cool part. But I was terrified anyway.
So I asked the girl I was paired with to sit behind. Lol.

The guide then pushes us into the lake. And it wasn't so bad at first.
Yeah, like he just asked us to kayak across the lake.
My arms start aching in 30 strokes or so and I had to rest.
I kept apologizing to the girl behind me but really tried to keep up with the rest.
When we got across, he goes the hard 2.something km is over let's now circle the corner, and then he started giving advise to do the limbo and not dodge if any branches came in your face.
*sweat*
So I kept voicing out everytime we were near branches or anything that was in the way.
Because I just couldn't limbo with all the layers I had on!

When we rounded the corner and went a little further in, he then proceed to tell us that we were going to go down a creek. *double sweat*
And at first it was quite wide.
But it got narrower and there was a U kind of part and the rudder did not work in the narrow creek. And we banged into sides, branches and leaves.
So I was having a lot of hysterical moments.
It was embarassing being the only one so paranoid. Haih.
But thankfully the girl behind had kayak experience so she handled everything calmly.

Somewhere later we stopped and the guide explained about the kiwi sanctuary part we have reached.
He then gave us each a leaf to chew, said it will taste like gum.
The moment we have chewed, he grinned from seeing all our faces and proceed to mention its from a hot pepper tree.
It was a terrible pepper taste! What a prank.
And he added that in the old days people used it as anaesthetic for toothache as it numbs the mouth from being so peppery hot!
I wish I could have bring some back to prank people with too.

I was hoping he would tell us we didn't have to go back the way we came but he did as he said the creek gets narrower further on.
The girl behind me suggested only one person kayak so we wouldn't move too fast and bang into things so I let her until we reached the wider section of the creek.

And then it was round the corner that we have came by and another 2.something km back to shore.
My arms just shut down a few times.
The girl behind was really sweet saying she can paddle us back and warning my arms going to hurt tomorrow but I was too embarrassed to just let her.
Also we were already the last ones trailing behind.

I'm really grateful that the girl behind put up with all my antics in the hours we spent out there.
I squealed with almost everything even just the guide coming close or collisions we sure to avoid or anything that made the kayak wobbled abit.

The view was awesome despite all that I went through. Even some rain on our way back.
There was this mirroring effect on the lake that was beautiful despite the cloudy day we had.
I'm so glad I did it although now I'm too tired to blog bout the kiwi centre I gung-ho went to after we got back from kayaking.

Climb every mountain

I'm feeling blessed.
Despite waking up before 5am and just being plain anxious about missing the train or leaving something behind, it has been a glorious day.

I scored the passenger seat beside the driver that shuttled us to the train station.
As he went around picking others up, I realised I missed some beautiful shots just because I did not walk to view from another angle. Oh well, lesson learned.

The train ride was beautiful.

I actually fell asleep between taking pictures both left and right of the railroads.
Which some would think is a waste but I had to.
Had a really late night roommate come in and got on under me.
I don't think she ended up sleeping at all as I could hear her tossing about when I wake up.

Back to my ride.
I loved putting myself to the test by just wearing tshirt and jeans into the open carriage where it was windy and the rain came in.
Looking down at the vastness of their river is like nothing I have ever seen before.
And looking up at those snow covered peaks was stunning.
I'm so thankful that we could be on the train all the way to Greymouth.
Usually in autumn and winter and there's alot of rain, a certain area that the train uses will require the passengers to board a bus and meet the train again somewhere after.

There was this one time we stopped to wait for a freight train to pass us.
It was informational to know from the train driver that the freight trains are the reasons why they can have this passenger train now, as in rails are maintained because of the freight trains.

At the end of that leg, it was onto a bus from Greymouth to Franz Josef.
I realized in this part of the land here they have a lot of one way bridges.
And people just take turn driving through them.
But other than that it was pretty much like driving to Echuca.
Small towns here and there that the bus driver delivered newspaper and parcels to.

I'm so glad he stopped at Hokitika!
At first I wasn't glad because it was around 2pm which was past lunch hour and pretty pointless to me (the cranky lack of sleep side was thinking).
But then I got down and got a postcard which meant finding the post office. Again.
Close to the post office was this walkway that lead to the beach.
And what waves they have there!
Waves that could pull people in and drown them or smash them into pieces. A good way to die, actually. It wasn't pretty and calm but dangerously beautiful!
I wished I had more time there.

After that excitement, I slept somemore on the bus as it rained heavier in the later part of the day.
When I reached my hostel turns out one of the other passenger since Christchurch is in my room and from Sabah.
I feel blessed sleeping with a Malaysian in the room each new place I go to so far.
I'm still frankly shy and tongue tied with the others from everywhere which I keep finding are so amazing as they have travelled from further away.
And the other thing that I'm glad about is that I'm on the lower bunk bed today.

Last day in Christchurch

So today I started out near to lunch hour.
Walked about 30 steps and was freaked out by some droplets I felt and turned around to get my raincoat. Turns out I didn't need it.

I headed to the mall. And seriously, they are in containers in E formation on both sides of this walkway that had some market style stalls as well. There wasn't much to look at since this isn't my trip to shop. So I headed to the cathedral. Or what's left of it.
And it was such a pity. The whole front of the place is gone. And it was one of those really old buildings that would be marvelous to stare at for hours.

I remembered after that I needed to get back to the 'mall' for stamps.

I rounded the area twice looking for the post office. It was off to one middle of an E facing sideways.
The post office had Hobbit stamps. I guess they had to since it was filmed in this country.
After that I was walking around salivating at the smells of freshly made food.
I succeeded to avoid temptation today. Walked into Quake City exhibition instead.

Quake City was worth the ten dollars.
It starts you off with a dark room that as you listen and watch it tells how they believe earthquakes were erupted by their earth god.
It was followed by some exhibits on history of earthquakes in this country and some equipments used to retrieve things during the earthquake.
Then there was this viewing room where they showed the short film of 12 people sharing their accounts of the earthquake. I got teary eyed especially where people were worried about their loved ones.
Then there was an area educating on liquefaction which was pretty much what screws peoples' lives up after the earthquake.
There was more exhibits after that of remains found, the many people that helped after the earthquake and so on.

After that I went to get groceries for my whole day of travelling tomorrow.
It was lovely to take another route back to my hostel and just watch the brilliant redness in leaves.

Wet morning

I'm the last one out of my bed today.
But I only got the Re:START Mall planned.

Yesterday was a good day.
Sun was shining and a kind old man taking his morning walk pointed me in the right direction to the buses.
Took a bus to Westfield Riccarton mall and I had my bacon breakfast fix.
Grocery shopped. Was a little overwhelmed on how to plan but I'll figure it out today.
Visited the farmers market, which had more tempting cooked food then raw.
Glad my breakfast was huge. Seriously.
It wasn't very big just maybe 30-40 stalls in two lanes.
And it ended with a coffee place where the band was playing folk songs or something.

After that the long walk back began.
It was tiring and I had to rest when I reached botanical gardens.
But along the way it was good.
Strangers can just smile at you if you smile at them.

The rose gardens were at their last leg.
Most of the roses were gone. :(
The conservatory was affected by the earthquake.
They had this enclosed nursery at the visitor center where they were regrowing the plants.
So it was good to watch.

I found my first dandelion to blow!!
That had to be the highlight of my day.
I know it's just a weed but I've only seen it on tv where people pluck them, make a wish and blow.

Then it as a walk back to my hostel to drop my groceries before coming back out for the museumthat was diagonal to the hostel.
The museum was good. Some sections on their local ancient people, birds and animals, a whole play area for the human body, and one for Antartica. There was even a section for Chinese and Japanese culture.

Was really tired and got back in before the sun sets.
Today I hope to walk in the dusk as I'm off again tomorrow.

Arrived!

I'm so thankful I made it through all the way here.
The most anxious part was when I thought one and a half hour is not enough to get through customs, security scan, walk over to another terminal and to check in for my last plane.

The length of walk from the international to domestic terminal was written 780m.
But I feel like I have walked more than double of that today.
It's been awhile since I've done such walking.

First time in ages too that I have to climb up to an upper bunk.
And there's a girl from KL sleeping underneath me.
Loaning me the use of sharing her extension ports so that I can charge my phone from up here.
Ok, truth is I didn't know it was hers. Not til I saw the main plug used a different type of holes.

The best part is she is also travelling alone. And so are others.
I'm comforted meeting people who are all traveling alone.
Like, I am no longer the odd one out. Hee.

When the sky is your limit...

It's not easy to decide where to go and what to do.
There is this paralyzing fear or numbness and I feel stuck as time is constantly moving.
And I need to push past this fear and start packing, planning and booking.

I horrified those who plan stuff like this 6 months ahead of time.
I horrified the older generation and well wishers by wanting to do this alone.
I just wish that I can stop adding their fears to my own fear.

I know the older generation is just concerned.
But why do their views somehow always include their racist view of things.

I know most well wishers mean it as a complement.
But then why does it have to be comparative to their own fear.

I'm thankful for Vi, for encouraging this.
And the people I know that's been there and done that.
And those that do not look horrified when I mention wanting to take a leap of faith.

And I'm really hoping You are with me even when I don't feel it.

Booked

So I've made my first mistake.
Booking a long layover, forgetting that I need a visa to step out of the airport.
Or how the airline might not even let me leave the transit lounge.

I miss the little one immensely.
So here's surrendering to Him to make it all possible.

Because I need this right now.
To rely only on You and nothing else.