Kia Ora from NZ!

A warm hello from NZ :D. This morning I arrived at Auckland and after having spending some time here, it seems that Auckland is much more influenced by American shops and culture than Australia. New Zealanders have such strong and interesting accent - for instance, when saying 6, they would say 'circuth' (as in circus but with th at the end). I'm now in my hotel feeling quite tired and headachy having only had 4hours of sleep in the last 24hours. I will have to pick up my sister from the airport tonight at 1am (her flight got delayed) in our awesomely small and crappy rental Hyundai Getz.

I hope to blog about our time in NZ everyday so as to remember the experiences but this may not happen. So I will give a schedule of what we shall be doing in the next 10 days. Of course this is all subject to changes especially given that it rains 1 out of 3 days in NZ!

27 Dec - Bianco Off Queen Apartment

Day 1 (Dec 28)
Auckland sightseeing
Drive from Auckland to Rotorua (around 3hours)
Relax (in prep for epic journey) at Rotorua Hot Springs 3pm (Hells Gate Thermal Reserve http://www.hellsgate.co.nz/)
28 Dec - Ventura Inn & Suites Rotorua

Day 2 (Dec 29)
Mountain biking with Planet Bikes at 10am (http://www.planetbike.co.nz)
Drive from Lake Rotorua to Lake Tarawera to Lake Aniwhenua (around 3hours drive)
29 Dec - Lake Aniwhenua Lodge

Day 3 (Dec 30)
See sunrise against Lake Waikaremoana (sunrise at 6am)
Hiking in Te Urewera Forest Park - Onepoto to Panekire Hut (around 10hours return)
Drive from Onepoto (Lake Waikaremoana) to Wairoa to Taupo (around 4hours drive)
30 Dec - Falls Chateau

Day 4 (Dec 31)
Hiking around Lake Taupo - Huka Falls Spa Park walk (around 2hours)
Relax around the lake
Drive from Taupo to Ohakune (around 1.5hours drive)
31 Dec - Manuka Lodge

Day 5 (Jan 1)
Tongariro National Park (Tongariro Alpine Crossing - best one-day hike in NZ http://www.tongarirocrossing.org.nz/index.php?Itemid=27&id=13&option=com_content&task=view)
1 Jan - Manuka Lodge

Day 6 (Jan 2)
Canoeing in Whanganui river at 8am (http://www.whanganui.co.nz/canoe_kayak_trips.php#freedom)
2 Jan - Manuka Lodge

Day 7 (Jan 3)
Drive from Ohakune to Taihape (around 1hour drive)
Horse riding with River Valley at 8.30am (http://www.rivervalley.co.nz)

Drive from River Valley to Wellington through Masterton (around 4 hours drive)
Time to immerse into society a bit, eg check out some bars
3 Jan - James Cook Hotel Grand Chancellor

Day 8 (Jan 4)
Drive from Wellington to Egmont National Park (around 5hours drive)
4 Jan - Quality Hotel Plymouth International

Day 9 (Jan 5)
Hiking in Egmont National Park - Waingongoro Track (around 4-5hours)
Drive from Egmont National Park to Hamilton

5 Jan - Wesley Chambers Hotel

Day 10 (Jan 6)
Drive from Hamilton to Auckland Airport (around 4hours)

My first (real) fishing experience and time back home

When I was around 4 years old our family went fishing, I can't remember much - all I can remember was that it was heaps of fun and that we were fishing in a fish farm (yeah no wonder they were easy catch!). This fishing trip has to be my earliest childhood memory!? This time when I got back home I decided it's really time to do some real fishing! After I announced this, my little brothers constantly asked me when will we go fishing? where will we go fishing? will we catch lots of fish? etc etc...

So we went to buy some fishing supplies at a local outdoor store. We got 3 standard fishing rods with reels, a bag of burley, 3 fishing bobber which comes with hooks (2 floats and the other one can do deep water fishing). Burley is used to attract small fish so that it will then attract larger fish - good idea! We confessed that we have absolutely no fishing experience and it consists of me asking stupid questions such as why are there 2 hooks? (so you have 2 chances of catching a fish), should you cast against or away from the current? (away from it otherwise it will come back to you haha). The guy showed us how to hook up the reel and cast the line, I must have looked super confused with the hand positioning during casting so he asked me to give it a try - perhaps not a good idea on his part cos I nearly destroyed their front counter (twice) cos I let go of the reel too soon!

We went fishing twice. The actual fishing experiences themselves were nothing short of disasters. We first went to Fremantle on the North Mole pier which is supposedly a very good fishing spot - but there were tonnes of rocks and the fishing lines kept getting stuck. Then we (ie the children) noticed that there were plenty of crabs between the rocks and started trying to catch some crabs with bare hands. I nearly got one after 3 attempts at 3 different crabs! We were there for perhaps 2 hours along with many other anglers (ha I like this term) whom looked rather pro but they didn't catch anything either! However during this time we have fished, crabbed and ready to leave lol. The second time we went to Port Bouvard bridge in Mandurah which again is supposed to have good fish and no surprise we didn't catch anything - again. It's a good thing that we did take some crabbing gear and got 4 blue manna crabs! mmm We definitely need more knowledge in and patience for fishing - but it's all good fun!

My plane leaves tomorrow afternoon for NZ - the 11 days that I'm back at home has gone by rapidly. Everyday, my mum would ask me - where do you want to go today? what do you want to eat today? (mmm does my mum make delicious food! plus she can make EVERYTHING!) And my little brother Yu literally begs me to play games with him all the time while my little sister Dong has so much to talk about. So yes, the work that I have originally planned to do over the vacation never actually happened lol. I have to say goodbye to my family tomorrow, I hate saying goodbyes. But isn't always like this?! I came back home really happy to see everyone, then I'm sad cos I have to leave, a couple of days later I'll be really happy meet with my sister and sad again to say goodbye! I hate myself for not being able to control this because this missing/nostalgia feeling is not fun. Arghh, human emotions are so hard to analyze let alone control!

Back home

[Dec 14th]I’m now sitting in Auckland airport getting quite bored with 5 hours to kill before boarding transfer flight to Perth. Internet is too much of a rip off so I’ll just get through it by doing random things such as blogging (and posting it when I have internet) and browsing at some books and magazines.

6 suns! (sunrise en route LA to Auckland)

I booked my flight such that I’d be sitting on the side by the sun. The sunrise was amazing - as always :) Check out the pic above with 6 suns (shadows casted into the cloud layers)! There was also a time when the sun cast 2 orange shadows, one on the clouds and another in the ocean. And since I’m flying from LA to Auckland ie from east to west while sun rises from the east - this effectively shortened the sunrise! I remember last time when I travelled with Emirates which flew around the other side of the globe across the Middle East, sunrise lasted much longer. As we approached Auckland, there was a lot of cloud cover so during decent we flew through them! The scenery with the rising sun, clouds, islands and the ocean was just awesome.

Islands off Auckland

I’m hungry now. The plane food sucks and the smell of them being heated up is just plain awful. Arghh I hate flying, the only good thing is the view (the side view from the small window) but that’s not enough to compensate for the crowdedness and more importantly the feeling of being out of control for over 12hours. I feel that I’m stuck on the plane without being able to do anything about it. It’s like something just picks you up and drags you to another place (like a puppet being controlled by the puppeteer). I’d be perfectly fine with flying if I was the pilot of course! I guess that’s why I like driving so much!

Okay my stomach is rumbling now. I wonder if they have traditional kiwi food? Shoot, what is traditional kiwi food?!!’

[Dec 16th] I’m now back in Perth. Got up at 5am this morning and went jogging! Of course the kids wanted to come although I’m pretty sure they regretted it half way through! Okay, gotta go to see my littlest brother at his Christmas school play :D

Just another day driving around LA

I was running some errands yesterday and drove down to Orange County. On the way I saw - a flipped over car (first one I've seen in real life actually), an accident involving at least 5 cars all pulled over to the emergency stopping lane, another accident involving 2 badly smashed up cars with many CHP cars and orange cones blocking off the right 2 lanes. Yes, this all happened during a 3 hours drive around LA. I would have been on the list too if I wasn't careful...

As I was cruising along, out of the corner of my eye I saw a car changing lanes into the one next to mine (I'm always on the lookout for those situations) and behold, the car kept coming and was driving straight into me! I beeped as I quickly checked the other lane and swerved just in time. The old woman beeped back at me - WTF?! She failed to check her blind spot and nearly caused an accident and she has the guts to beep?! The Bitch clearly does not realize she made a mistake and therefore cannot learn and is out there causing more accidents as we speak.

Seriously, America probably has the most number of idiots on the road than any other country. Why?! Because you can drive at the age of 16 and driving tests are like child play. It also never ceases to amaze me why legal drinking age is 21 but driving age is 16. Is driving not more dangerous than drinking? I don't care if you drink and screw up your life but please realize that you can drag others down with you when you are being a fool on the road. What people need is common sense - but I guess that cannot be taught...what can help is by enforcing more stringent driving tests and rules on the road.

Breathing problem and Flat tire

This morning I went for a 2 hours hike and I wasn't tired at all, in fact I was leading on the way back! :) The work outs have certainly paid off! I'm also pretty happy given I was having a breathing problem.

For some reason, while I was cantering a couple of days ago, my chest felt very heavy and with each bounce in the canter I can feel the pressure of something crushing down inside me. After that, it hurt every time I take a deep breathe.

Not sure how this suddenly happened, it maybe because of the roller coaster ride that I went on a few days earlier during Halloween inside Knott's scary farm. I walked away from the ride with a hoarse voice, bruised knees and pelvic bones. You think how can someone get this from just a ride, well I was super anxious and tense thus my body must have been rigid and was likely bashing around in the roller coaster cage. Arghh...it really gets to me that I'm can't enjoy roller coasters and other awesome rides. I see others having so much fun and I'm just so damn envious.

Or it could be because of my horse fall a couple of weeks ago where I got winded. And speaking of horse riding, I got a flat tire the other night after a riding lesson.

It was dark and I wanted to get home quickly but thought I'd better change the flat tire so I pulled into a gas station to borrow some light. I have to say that my car jack thing is pretty inefficient (at least how I was using it). A cute guy came and asked if I needed any help, I said no I will be okay although I know I was not, he ended up leaving but came back to make sure I was okay, I just ignored him (I have to stop doing this). Of course, the bolts were rusted and although I hate to say this, I wasn't strong enough to unscrew them, so I decided to risk it and drive home in my flat tire. On the freeway, my car suddenly went stagnant at 50miles/hr and slowly died down as I smelled the horrible stench of burning rubber. Damn! I pulled over to the emergency stopping lane and called Geico. The Geico guy assumed that I must be scared, hm not particularly given I got myself into this mess. 40min later a tire changer guy came but it was too narrow for him to work since I was parked on a bridge. Long story short, CHP (California Highway Patrol) dropped by and stopped all traffic so that my car can safely rumble off the freeway. So yeah, because of my flat tire the 134E freeway was temporarily shut down.

NZ Trip Planning and Other Things

Alright, so we are going to New Zealand for our vacation! It will be a 11 day epic journey! (may not be as epic as Lord of Rings but then again I'm not yet prepared to sacrifice myself for the good of human race) I can't wait for all the hiking, seeing the beautiful scenery, breath in the fresh air and in general just having a good time. I hope to incorporate some horse riding, mountain bike riding and perhaps jet skiing in the trip too. I've literally been counting down the days and thought I should note down how excited I am now because as a mere human being subject to the enigmatic human nature, the excitement of the wait and build up can sometimes overwhelm and diminish the excitement during the actual thing...

I'm watching the Joy Luck Club, I've been meaning to see this for quite sometime! It's a story about the lives of 4 Chinese women raised in China and their daughters who are born in America. The movie does stereotype a few things but there are many things that are very realistic. Like how Chinese families tend to show off their worth through the achievements of their children and the general public display of self criticism. The mother-daughter relationships are portrayed I think almost perfectly here. The parts about why a mother took opium and suicided and why another gave up her twin daughters - when you find out the reasons behind them it will leave you stunned and in awe of the wonderful moms that they are. The significance of 2 sides to every story is depicted very well here! And by the way, all of the men-women relationships here are flawed and so complicated that it makes me happy that I'm not in a relationship. The real reason is probably because I can't afford to get my heart broken. Anyway back on track, all in all, it's a beautiful and candid movie. I will surely watch this again and I do highly recommend it.

On a side note, I fell for the 3rd time while horse riding today. Florida spooked again and I fell off (she was the culprit behind one of my other falls too). I was doing cantering and my instructor was telling me to slow down a bit, which I tried but the spooking process has already began and she didn't listen, we came around a corner while she was doing her kicking thing, I lost balance and fell. I landed on my side and used my arm as support. It didn't really hurt but now I understand what it means to get winded from an accident, because I tried to stand up immediately and discovered that I could hardly breathe! I had to sit back down and take some slow deep breathes! My arm was bleeding a bit, after tacking Florida up etc I went to wash up and sprayed some alcohol ahhh how it stung!

Chocolate/Nut/Fruit Cookie Recipe

I'm glad to say that the cookies I'm baking now are made from scratch. And damn! do they taste good! I realized that the main problem I was having was that I didn't add enough butter (for health reasons of course) but the perfect amount of butter is essential.

So here I have my eclectic cookie recipe. I don't have a measuring cup - so I've described everything in terms of handfuls (very rudimentary I know)

Ingredients
1 stick of butter
1 egg
3 handfuls of normal unbleached flour
1 handful of walnut pieces
1/2 handful of dried fruits (I used mixed berries - cranberries, cherries and blueberries)
1 handful of baking chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)
a generous dash of brown sugar
a tiny sprinkle of baking powder

melt butter and mix with egg, add everything else and mix together thoroughly, separate into 12 portions on a baking tray and flatten them out (otherwise you will end up with ugly looking golf ball cookies), stick them into a preheated oven at 350oF and bake for 12-15min.

very simple and delicious! mmm