South Island, New Zealand : Wishes Do Come True

Before that, I just found out today that, there is one particular guy deleted me from his Facebook buddy! I don't know when he did that, I don't care, because I don't ever realized when and why we became buddy at the 1st place, oh, he read my blog.. yeah. Ummm.. Was it because I ignored his request to meet me for a movie or something? I'm sorry if I didn't interact well with ALL of my buddies in Facebook. But, is that how people deal with it? " Say YES to all my requests and you'll stay." Fuck that. It seems like people put too much hope on Facebook and treated it as online catalog for finding girlfriend to be wifey or 2nd wife. Catalog my ass. Why not you catalog yourself as "desperado looking for a wife" together with the list of properties, sickness as well as skills that can generate money. Loser.


Back to NZ, South Island trip. The main reason why I wanted to visit South Island wasn't for their rolling hills and fluffy sheep. It's for the blue snow capped mountains and milkyway. Yes, I never seen snow capped mountains in my entire life, except pictures and a lots of it. And I only saw milkyway on TV. So, when I googled about star gazing in South Island, this was the 1st image caught my eyes..

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This picture made me to know and read more about Lake Tekapo. I want to be at the exact location, under that exact skies!


It was so dark when we arrived at Lake Tekapo area. It seems like people here sleep early. It was quiet and not much street lights. We parked nowhere in the dark and all I can hear was strong wind, so strong until it shakes. I imagined that, I'd probably float into the air if I step outside.


Next morning, I stepped out and I couldn't believe my eyes...

We parked and sleep underneath that exact skies! #wishesdocometrue.


So, Lake Tekapo was the 1st official milky icy cold lake I saw in my life. It was so beautiful to me and I was busy taking hundreds pictures of it.

.. and then I remember I still have stars and milkyway left to see. Im here at the Lake, the problem is, it's early morning!


Went to Earth and Sky office to find about their stargazing program.

So, yea.. good luck with the price! And you can watch the stars if the skies, I mean weather permits! Don't fret, here, I have another contact if you really wanted to experience the stargazing tour at Tekapo Starlight as low as NZD20 and hope for clear skies! 


We proceed our journey to Mount Cook/ Aoraki as planned, and planning to cook our lunch there!

I was busy taking pictures of snow capped mountains along the drive until I saw bluish - turquoise - milky field on the right of the road. It made me screamed!

It is The GREAT LAKE PUKAKI!

Look at astronauts image from up above, how big is the lake is. With the size of 1,413km2, the size is almost 6 times of Kuala Lumpur city. 

No wonder my office mate back in my office kept telling me about the lake before Mount Cook. We don't have tailored itinerary in our hands, and we drove by ourselves. Of course it is overwhelming when you see something like this along the journey. Anyway, we must keep on going because sun light will be out by 6pm. We continue to our destination and promised that we will stop by here again on our way back from Queenstown to Christchurch.

Half of our journey to Mount Cook/Aoraki was with the sight of Lake Pukaki.

It looks like a giant cookie dough covered with sugar powder, as we get closer to the mountain. 

So close, yet so far..

Yes. Finally we are here.

and no, we didnt do the jungle trekking or mount climbing. We just cook there and basically clean our lung with serious breath in and out breathing technique :) The air is crispy fresh!

Seriously, I dont know which one is the point of Aoraki Mount Cook! Is that the one behind me? No! I DON'T KNOW!

That one? NO! I DON'T KNOW!

So, after hundreds photos were taken (urgghhh), obviously we were behind schedule until I have to forget my plan going back to Lake Tekapo for a stargazing tour. :( 


We need to reach to our next destination - Queenstown before day gets really dark..

Opps, too late, it was dark before we able to reach Queenstown! But what I tell you, about #wishesdocometrue ? 


When I was so upset thinking about the stars and milkyway that I was about to miss. "Im here already.. underneath South Island skies.. and yet.. no stars for me.." I looked outside up to the sky from the caravan window .. I saw diamonds.. million of it up in the sky! We made a stop at streets of nowhere, in the dark.. there I was..standing with no binoculars or telescope.. watching the greatest creation of God.. for free.. it was all 3D.. I can see the stars hanging down like.. I almost can touch it!


I  SAW THE STARS AND MILKYWAY WITH MY OWN EYES! *cries*

Im trying to finish all my trip posts – South Island, NZ (Pt. 1)

So, I know you don’t care whether I able finish all of my posts on my almost forgotten South Island, New Zealand trip, some of you already seen it all 600 photos on my facebook’s album & wall with admiration, or jealousy. But I still want to put up on here because it’s 3a.m - I can’t sleep, and I don’t know what else to do at this hour.
Ah, before that I was busy surfing Victoria Secret’s body lotion on the net. I always love anything from Victoria Secret, including their models. Well, who doesn’t?
My boss is leaving to London today so, instead of giving her trouble figuring what to buy all for of us in her every trip, so I told her what I want. I want Victoria Secret’s body cream.

This one. It’s been in my wish list forever. Candy Baby Shimmer Swirl Cream – with the smell of sugar & warm Vanilla. Just imagine how mouthwatering I can be with it! So I texted her then found out that Victoria Secret flagship store only coming to New Bond Street’s London on 2012. Sad. So, this body cream can go back to my wish list and sit there, forever.

So, back to my almost forgotten trip post. South Island, New Zealand – where no Victoria Secret’s outlet can be found. That is me, enjoying my 1st pale breakfast in Christchurch, with no smell of Victoria Secret’s body cream.


In an attempt to stick to the lowest cost trip, my girlfriend and I chose the cheapest accommodation in Christchurch, called  PointBreak, Backpackers located at New Brighton Central.


Well, when it says “cheap”, means it is so far away from city centre and city glam. But it’s ok, there was not much glam in the city centre at that point of time anyway, not after the earth quake, not when they still didn’t fix the road & buildings. It was totally closed!

The background supposed to be a Flea Market. But it was Free & Easy MYOB trip for both of us, we woke up late, continue with curling our hair - so nothing left for us anymore. Except the sight of them repacking their stuff back into the boxes.

 New Brighton Pier. It was so windy cold. I don’t know how the girl behind me can walk with shorts. I only able to smile for a few seconds, just for my camera. That’s it.

This remind me of beaches along Great Ocean Drive, Melbourne :( . Blue, icy cold, un-swimmable.

1st time I saw big Husky and felt ok with it. Although the dog is on leash instead of pulling sledge on the snow, but at least, this place cold enough for it. I hate how Malaysian and other tropical countries’ dog lovers took this dog as a pet. They are not pet. They are strong working dog. You are torturing it with your stupid apartment’s ac at 16 degree Celcius, all year round.

 Nothing much you can do in New Brighton. No big malls or awesome sightseeing or fancy architecture. One day stay at this place, will do.

Uh, they have Roxy & Quicksilver factory outlet though. So, I bought one hoodie sweater to warm me up the next day.

 We took the bus to get around the place. We need to find shopping mall to keep us alive during this trip, any trip.

 It was September, early spring in New Zealand. The flowers started to bloom everywhere. Not as great as autumn still. Freaking cold. So that’s why the flight tickets was cheap 

Waiting to embark the journey to a happy place!

Happy place – Westfield Riccarton shopping mall. It was a short happiness though! It was Sunday and they closed at 6pm! What kind of shopping mall closed at 6pm? On Sunday? Do they really know how to run a big business? All the sweet cafes in that building closed at the same time too! No muffins! No doughnuts! Urggh!


So we took the bus back to our motel. We were very afraid that the bus service end at very hours too!

We tried to spicy up our experience in Christchurch though by checking out the night life around. There are a few bars in New Brighton and people were busy watching Rugby’s match. It was All Blacks Vs Tonga, I think. Yawn.

But then we met a friend who willing to join us on our South Island trip. Yippee~!


Day 2: So left the town (town?) at 10am. All excited.

Apparently in South Island NZ, you’ve gotta leave the town to see awesome view.

The rolling hills and the sheep along the way for the first 2 hours of our trip, and few days later

We made a stop at Ashburton, for a quick grocery shopping. We cooked our own meal for the rest of the trip! Can you believe that?! Real cooking experience in South Island, NZ!

You need good muffins along your self drive trip. What to do, Im a muffin person!

Look at that yellow bushes. It come to my surprise that those bushes/ plant  or what so ever it called (seriously, I don’t know the name of it) are the unwanted plant. They been trying hard to remove it from the hills or else the sheep have no place to run & play!


It was almost dark, so we made a quick stop at – I – already – forgot – where – it – is to enjoy the sunset across the field.. it was so beautiful..

Basking under South Island sunset. Moment like this makes me happy, no matter how tired I am.

Approaching Fairlie, at last! Oh, Didn’t I tell you that we are heading to Lake Tekapo for a night? And to visit Mount Cook the next day.

It was almost dark & cold. We were hungry & tired. And now, Im starting to feel sleepy too. 4:44 am. It’s time to hit my good bed. I will continue with day 3, whenever I can’t sleep, again!

Suddenly November.

Everything is so sweet and it turn me into a girl with a sweet tooth. Sweet Cupcakes,  doughnuts, saying and hearing sweet things too.

The world is spinning so fast or it was just me who refused to move with it. Im basically halting. Im ok with it. As IF my AGE can be halted too. Delay. I love to delay things now, hoping that everything went delay, including my age. This is one of the reason why I keep on delaying to update blog post. Excuse me.

My girlfriends and I love to take pictures, hundreds of it, in a week, or month. But one of us really took time to upload & share it with all of us on Facebook. She hadn’t upload pictures taken 5 months ago, or last year. We started to complain and she replied us – “I keep it as our Forever Young Time Capsule, I will upload it and tag all of you in 10 years time and makes everybody think those were taken like yesterday. Still Hip and gorgeous”. Brilliant.

I know. Halloween is over. Like almost 2 weeks over. I saw everybody uploaded their Halloween’s make over & costume on Facebook. Some are freaking ugly and some, well, you know, fucking slutty. Aw, come on people. Can you at least be someone different than whoever you are? LOL.

Halloween Eve. So, I don’t have ugly costume. Slutty, um.. maybe

I turned up nude. I don’t know, I don’t celebrate Halloween. I don’t even know the history of it and why. But collecting candy sound fun to me. But, there was no free candy around KL city and it never will. We here have trouble to get extra packs of sugar to bake cookies for any big celebration and anything involve sugar becoming more and more expensive. So, let’s just stick to ugly & slutty costume.

Oh, I have thousand pictures from my  New Zealand trip last September. I know! September. I’ll wait it become a little bit moldy so that I can forget about what and where the pictures are all about, so that I can end up with sweet & short post with lotsa pictures.

Basically this is our route trip.

Okay, that’s too small. Um, here it is.

So yea, we started with Christchurch on Day 1, start our journey to Lake Tekapo on Day 2, visit Mount Cook and proceed to Queenstown on Day 3, laid back at Arrowtown on Day 4, on the road for the whole on Day 5 back to Christchurch and did our last minute shopping at Christchurch Airport on Day 6. Yea, nothing much you can do for 6 days/5 nights South Island Trip. But with the limited budget and limited leave approval, I finally see white & pink cherry blossom with my own eyes.

Priceless. It was early spring in South Island, so some of the cherry blossom trees bloomed early and I believed it bloomed for ME. I didn’t expect to see it in South Island NZ, because I was busy Googling and taking notes on the Lakes, Mountains and Star gazing program. I wish I could see a milky way across South Island sky, or a shooting star. In fact, I was so stupid blonde, thought that Cherry Blossom only exist in Japan, Korea and Washington DC. God knows how limited my knowledge is, so He pity me, let few trees bloomed earlier so that I can be happy till I pee. Alhamdulillah.

It is so pretty till doesn’t need a nice smell. Maybe to the locals, this is nothing, just like ‘Bunga Kertas’, maybe. But this is the reason why I wanted to go to Japan and Korea. Not some cute Hentai or Kimchi soup. So I can cross out this from my list and busy to do something else on my next year’s Osaka & Tokyo. Yipee!

And oh, apparently South Island NZ isn’t a place for shopping. Not for me. Not when a bottle of mineral water costs me MYR4. But I did buy a couple of jackets and a pair of new boots, because clothes that I brought not enough to save me from cold windy 9 degrees during the night. Im Asian. Hot blooded Asian and I hate Air Cond.

Among of all things, I find this cute and funny. So I bought this as a souvenir and gave it to someone cute and funny too

New Zealand : “Where men are men and the sheep are scared”

Apart of green rolling hills and blue snow capped mountains and glassy crystal lake, this is the sight you have to bear along the trip. 1st day, you go “awww.. look at them, so cute and fluffy…” 2nd day you only paid attention to the little ones running. Because the big ones aren’t cute anymore. 3rd day you fell asleep counting it. 4th day started to hate it. 5th day, wish there will be something else to replace those white spots, and last day, I wish to not see it for a very long time.

And the sight of blue snow capped mountains painted along the horizon line just like the paintings I saw when I was little.

and the lakes too..



Everything is magical. No paintings can ever translate or tell the story of what South Island have along the road, except um, dslr camera. Now I made you wanna go there and see it with your own eyes, do ya?
I have bunch of extremely nice photos & stories to tell. Or, maybe I’ll just post up the photos alone and let it tell. But, now, Im going to hit my pillow and continue this some other time.
xoxo.

Get out there and leave some footprints of your own~

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