My Droid X

I just activated my new Droid X cell phone and it's awesome! I've been wanting to get a new phone (specifically Droid X) for awhile now. My iphone is so slow to load anything and sometimes it would just give up by shutting down (okay I may have dropped it more than a couple of times). I got the Droid X for $30 from Amazon :D I could have gotten the Droid Pro for 1 cent but I wanted a large screen for navigation and the X has many cool features and looks a lot better! The plan is the same as my old iphone so it's $30 well spent! How far has technology come!? I remember hm 15 years ago my dad's cell phone was as heavy as a brick and looks like a brick too. Okay I should finish my french homework, although I'm taking it as pass/fail - the fact is I suck at languages so I'll have to put some effort into it :P btw I'm much better at cantering now, I think mainly because I'm more relaxed. It seems that after I came back from holidays the fear of falling during cantering is much less, maybe cos of all the awesome adventures we've been in! oh and yes I want to do mountain biking here but I'll have to find people whose willing to ride with me!

Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now

Gotta love 80's music (and getting away with crazy outfits and hairdos)

O.A.R. Shattered

Love love love this song! It's certainly hard to come across a song that's BOTH catchy and carries a nice message nowadays!

NZ Trip - Day 4 to 6

Day 4

After a long day, we slept in and upon waking up, my body especially the legs were sore to the point where I was pretty much dragging myself around! But with $50 per 15min late fee for checking out we thought we’d better hurry. So by 10.10am we were out and about in Taupo. We had brunch at one of the many café shops there. I had a croissant filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese and tomatoes. Sounds good doesn't it?! Unfortunately for me I rediscovered that I couldn’t eat half cooked scrambled eggs - the addition of cheese to the mix just made it worse. I was glad to leave the restaurant for our leisure 2 hours hike to Huka Falls along the Waikato River (this is the longest river in NZ and drains off Lake Taupo).

When we arrived there, we realized that this was not actually a hike, it was more of a walk on unpaved ground without any shade. This in addition to it been a hot and bright sunny day with UV index of 14 such that your exposed skin literally stung after a few moments in the sun made us change our plans. Like most folks, we drove to the falls. It was a good decision may I add. At Huka Falls the river flow was fast and furious! It was so loud that to talk one had to shout. This reminded me of when we went hiking in John Forrest National Park back in Aus. We planned to see the waterfall so we walked along a creek. As we were walking, we realized that something was very wrong - the creek was dry. So was there be a waterfall upstream? nope. It was certainly nice to be in a more lively place!

Huka Falls on Waikato River

We then drove to our hotel for the following 3 days. It was over $160/day so I had quite high expectations. When we arrived there, we were surprised to see a 2 story high cottage. The number of guest rooms would not have exceeded 6. It was run by a couple and pretty soon we learnt that they were our hosts. This was going to be somewhat awkward! We would have to leave our shoes by the front door, make sure that the rooms were clean and orderly, not make too much noises at night etc. One of the benefits of this place was that they serve complimentary breakfast but of course these were to be prepared by our hosts. They asked us what we wanted for breakfast the next morning. Other than continental, there was hot breakfast with a choice of bacon, eggs, sausages, tomato and mushrooms. Urhh of course I wanted everything (pretty sure bix wanted the same thing) but we politely only picked 2 from the above choices. I thought, who could possibly ask for everything. Yet sure enough, the following morning we were having breakfast on a dinning table shared with other guests, two of them were munching away on their full selection of hot breakfast - I imagined myself eating that plate of food whilst sadly looking at my own humble selection.

Day 5

Yes! The day had finally come for our epic Tongariro Alpine Crossing hike - and what a great way to kick off the New Year!!

We left early via shuttle and at around 8.30am we arrived at Mangatepopo, the beginning of the Crossing. The suggested time for this hike is 7hours and it's a strenuous hike on volcanic terrains with no sun cover. We will be passing 2 volcanoes, Mount Tongariro and her larger sister Mount Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings). We can also climb the mountains as we see fit. I was so excited to begin this! I've being waiting for this for so long! And it did not disappoint. The breathtaking view along the way was surreal and unearthly. The magnificent volcano Mt Ngauruhoe stood tall and strong and towered over Mt Tongariro (actually I couldn’t make out where her peak was). There was the South Crater filled with a yellow lake, the deep Red Crater with fumaroles venting hot fumes and not to mention, the beautiful Emerald Lakes. There were three of them each with different shades of turquoise. The color originates from dissolved minerals brought to the surface from deep within the earth. During the hike, there were some long climbs up on unstable volcanic terrain with loose tephra. It was rather daunting for me since I'm a chicken when it comes to height so I tried not to look back. But as with everything in life, where there are ups there will be downs. We soon arrived at the major descent. I took one look and thought, you gotta be kidding - this is way too steep! I knew I had to do it so I inched down sideways as if in slow motion snow boarding. After awhile, I wasn't that scared anymore especially after seeing others literally skiing down the descent, so I took larger steps and finished the descent pretty fast. I waited for bix longer than usual to finish this part of the hike, every few minutes I'd look up to see where she was only to find that she was at the same position as before :P.

Mount Ngauruhoe and South Crater with bix

The ascent to Red Crater

The treacherous descent down

In front of two beautiful Emerald Lakes

I was then busting to go to the toilet so I dashed to the next stop, Ketetahi Hut. Along the way I thought my bladder may just burst - damn, how convenient it would be if I was a guy! After I got there, I doubled back to walk with bix and later we had a relaxing lunch at the hut. We thought we could take it easy because we still had 2 hours left before the shuttle arrives and the suggested finishing time was 2hours. But unlike the conservative prediction for the Lake Waikaremoano Great Walk, this prediction turned out to be rather tight. We ended up being 20min late for our shuttle back and everyone was waiting for us.

After we got up the shuttle, a guy came sat next to us and told us that he informed the driver to wait up for us. We thanked him, he was really talkative so a conversation started. It was quite interesting because he seems to be knowledgable with almost everything. So we shouldn't have been so shocked to find out that he is a radio host for Radio NZ. Apparently Radio NZ is similar to ABC - the number 1 news radio station in Australia. His brother who is a professor in Ohio said to me that it’s similar to NPR in US - NPR? no clue (currently have my car radio tuned to NPR :)). I liked the professor's character. He asked us if we were tired and said he was quite tired himself. I would have assumed that he was probably not fit if it won't for the radio host who added that it's because his brother also climbed Mt Ngauruhoe! The detour to climb Mt Ngauruhoe can be dangerous and is extremely strenuous. Most people would have just boasted about it.

Day 6

On this beautiful and sunny day bix and I went canoeing on Whanganui River. Wades Landing, whom we booked to be canoeing with couldn’t take us because their jet boat was just broken (we planned to canoe down the river and jet boat up). So the lady there helped us to call other places and off we went to another canoeing place 45min down the road. This place was much busier with tons of people running around. Soon we discovered that it was run by a family with 5 children. The teenage boys all tried to be cool while their little girl ran around acting as a host making coffee for the guests. They also had several handymen one of whom was a stereotypical Frenchman with a beret and pretty bad English. He suggested for us to ‘taste’ the lifejacket to see if they fit! I asked him rhetorically ‘you want us to taste it?!’ he nodded. Later someone asked the French guy what's his job in France, but he couldn't understand it at all. This unfruitful exchange carried on for sometime, so I translated it ‘Quesque c’est votre travaille?’ and he immediately understood, excuse my grammar slash spelling but it felt good to know another language :) I may just go back to learning some French in my spare time!

After bumming around for an hour or so waiting for them to get everything ready - we were finally off to canoeing. In the true family style, we were driven by their personal vehicles down to the river bank. There they taught us the basics of canoeing. The person at the back steers and does most of the paddling while the person at the front pretty much just paddles. Steering was interesting - you can either back paddle on the side where you want to turn to (I found this gave sharp turns) or you can simply do normal paddling on the opposite side where you want to turn (this gave smoother wider turns). During rapids, we were supposed to keep on paddling, if you panic and stop paddling that's when the canoe would be most likely to tip over!

Off we went on our canoeing escapade. After a short while of paddling, we arrived at our first rapid. As we approached we could clearly see how unstable and fast the river was flowing. Needless to say it was a little frightening but mostly exhilarating as we paddled our way through it. During this, the canoe rocked from side to side and water splashed in from all sides. Then our canoe became stuck between some rocks. We tried to paddle ourselves out but to no avail. So being the quintessential hero that I am, I jumped out of the boat, stepped into the fast current onto the river bed and pushed us out of a very sticky situation. We canoed for about 3hours (it was quite tiring actually), stopped at a lavender farm along the way, had some pastry, I got scratched by a cat, and we continued our way to the finish.

Are you trying to smack me with that paddle Bix?!

No probs - I have one too!

Reading a map on a one way river - useless for directions but helpful if you want to know how much longer you have to continue this hard paddling

NZ Trip - Day 1 to 3

Day 1

On the first day, we drove from Auckland to Rotorua and went for a hot spring experience at Hell’s Gate. We first did a walk around the geothermal reserve with hot springs, geysers venting hot fumes and boiling mud pools. The sulfur smell was incredibly strong and quite bad. We then went for a warm mud bath at 40oC and washed off the mud in a cold shower - going into a cold shower after the warm bath wasn’t a nice transition, however it was surprising that after awhile the cold icy water actually felt nice and refreshing. Then there was the option of going into sulfur spas. Why would people want to smell sulfur let alone bathe in it?! Apparently because of its healing and relaxing properties. The spas were available at low and high sulfur concentrations - of course I wanted to try the high dose where the water was opaque yellow. The sulfur bath was hot but ohh so relaxing - perhaps one of the most comfortable things I’ve done!

Hell's Gate geothermal reserve

Day 2

The next day with our residual sulfur stench (which was impossible to completely remove) we went mountain biking with Planet Bikes. The Whakarewarewa Forest in Rotorua is known for it’s MTB trails and it was pretty busy there. I haven’t ridden a bike for some time but soon familiarized myself with a couple of loops around the carpark. Then off we went with our guide for some much anticipated mountain biking. We first rode on a kids trail – even this seemed scary and terribly bumpy at first. I soon discovered that the bike had pretty good suspension and learnt to rise out of the sit during ‘big’ bumps. We later upgraded to grade 2 (there were a total of 5 grades of MTB trails). This was harder and we had to sometimes get off and push the bikes up hills – it somehow just did not want to go up. And talk about going down! Once I thought I’d do a big step down on the bike, but I lost control a bit and nearly rolled off the trail to some mushy forest below! I must say that MTB was really fun and gave a sure-fire adrenaline rush, I’ll see if I can get to do some back in CA.

MTB in Whakarewarewa Forest (Rotorua)

Easier way up for me (harder way up for pros)

We then drove around Rotorua’s 16 lakes. The lakes were literally one after another. The most spectacular one was Lake Tikitapu or simply the Blue Lake. This lake was indeed the purest blue verging on aqua color.

Blue Lake (Lake Tikitapu)

For the night, we stayed in Lake Aniwhenua Lodge that was situated in a valley half way between Rotorua and Te Urewera National Park (where we’d be hiking the following day). The old lady showed us the communal shower, lounge and kitchen. This was going to be the first time in a long time since I’d be using a communal shower. I was also super excited to see that we will be sleeping on double bunk beds! Don’t know why, maybe cos it reminds me of been a kid again - without a worry in the world! :D

Day 3

We got up at 4am, ate some breakfast that we had gathered from a small local grocery store the previous day, packed and left the lodge 5am on the dot.

The drive to Te Urewera National Park on route 38 was through mountains on unconcealed winding road with a speed limit of 100km/hr. This would all have been very well except this 2 way road was unmarked and too narrow to fit 2 cars! So there were 3 tire tracks, the middle one marked by car tires coming from opposite directions. Thankfully through this drive there was only one car coming from the opposite direction – it was a close shave though! Along the way, there were plenty of sheep and cows (as with driving in NZ) and they stood on steep cliffs yet looked perfectly happy munching away on grass etc. There were also many horses, I wonder what people use horses for here? Nevertheless I got to take some nice ‘wild’ horse pictures. We also came across a man in army clothing carrying a gun walking by the side of the road. As we drove past he was examining us which was disturbing to say the least.

Wild horses in NZ countryside

After roughly 3 hours of this crazy drive, we finally arrived at our destination, Onepoto. This is the start of the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk which skirts around the lake and takes 3-4 days to finish. Due to our time constraint and the fact that we don’t particularly enjoy the sanitary aspect of camping, we decided to do the first stretch from Onepoto to Panekire Hut and descend back down to Onepoto on the same day. According to the DOC, this is the most strenuous part of the trip and takes 5hours one way. Off we went high-spirited (at least I was!) to begin this hike. I must say that it was an interesting sight - trees, mosses and ferns were everywhere, they were so dense that only small patches of sunlight seeped through. And earth was carved to expose giant tree roots that were used as steps! There were lots of steep climbs and I was afraid to look back down because I’m super scared of heights (had nightmares about falling off cliffs when I was young only to find out when I was awake that I was hanging from the bed trying desperately not to fall to the ground - which was only a couple of inches down). So as I was climbing, I was dreading the descent down that afternoon. After nearly an hour of continuous climbing, we were finally on flatter terrain. I was happy to know that the climb and subsequently the descent down was over for the moment whilst bix was happy that she can start eating her chips (or ‘chirps’ as the kiwis call it). During our climb up, everyone we crossed paths with greeted us warmly. I thought this was pleasant and refreshing so during our descent down, I greeted everyone coming up to carry on this nice little tradition. By the way, the descent wasn’t bad at all, by that time I was used to the terrain and was jumping around and down the steps! At a little after 6pm, we were back at Onepoto, the hike took around 10hours and it was time for our drive to our accommodation for the night which was in Taupo. The fastest route to Taupo would be to drive back on 38. But driving on that unconcealed road with lanes shared by incoming cars with cliffs and at night?! Nope, that would simply be insane. So instead we took the longer but safer route to Taupo.

Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk - The climb up

Here comes bix with her chips

Overlooking Lake Waikaremoana

On the way we passed Napier and had dinner there at 9pm, we were totally famished by then. The restaurant was closing but was able to make our meal. I wanted to have an apple cider while we waited for our order but left my ID in the car. The amusing lady owner pulled up a chair and sat down on the table with us as if to see who’d give in first – alright, off I went to grab my ID.

We still had nearly 2 hours of drive to Taupo. The road was smooth albeit little winding (which we have come to accept as a common occurrence in NZ). There were many trucks on the same route with us. In fact, if I recall correctly, other than those trucks, we were the only ‘small’ vehicle there. At first, there were passing lanes so we were able to overtake some huge trucks. Then we came to a rather slow moving truck but there were no passing lanes and the only way to overtake would be to cross to the incoming traffic from the opposite side. One of the trucks that we had overtaken earlier had by this time caught up with us. So now we were sandwiched between 2 trucks – not a good position to be in especially if you were in a hatchback. The truck in front of us indicated left turn signal several times, we wondered if he was trying to tell us that there were no cars coming and so it was safe to overtake him? We thought we shouldn’t risk it given it’s dark, we couldn't see anything past the truck and it’s very likely that our crappy Getz would stall at some speed and refuse to go faster during the overtake. After awhile, he slowed, pulled over to the unpaved side and allowed us to safely pass (along with the faster truck behind us). We were amazed. In fact, most drivers in NZ are like this, and we have encountered several other instances where they’d pull over to give way to us. Once a tow truck nearly busted his tire whilst letting us pass! I’m real surprised and grateful to see such conscientious drivers in NZ!

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!