one*15 and $75 of shopping

NO I AM NOT DEAD

a small friday family gathering at sentosa cove. better to be the first few hundred visitors to this part of the new sentosa. well, auntie joy booked a room at the one of the marina clubs on the sentosa cove areas and invited the rest of the family over for a short afternoon while enjoying the facilities. this place is exactly one degree north of the equator and 15 off the latitude. cool name to a place. geographically graceful name for a marina club ill never ever set foot in again.

i ended work and had to meet auntie joy to go together because my cousin is also coming from town. so i had to take a bus from work to town to meet them at 4pm. and with more than an hour to wonder around town i naturally did some walking around and a tiny weeny bit of my fair share of shopping. come to think of it, i never really did any shopping since i came back from new zealand. and for the past two weeks i have been controlling myself during the MNG sale period.

i hate the crowd and the queueing up for the fitting room, the cashier and then the train home. so usually i shop in the middle of the week where there is no one to hinder my queueing processes. i know there is the robinson sale and the zara which have been the two most recent sale i want to set foot in, but due to the recency of it i decided to go shopping at these two places when the crowd have died down and there is no one to fight for the dressing room with me.

anyway. i manage to do some shopping at MNG. i am 2 weeks late and i know 75% of all the sale items are out and gone already but at least that will cause me to buy less clothes. you should see my closet man. i came back from new zealand with a little shopping of my own and my closet have no more space for much things left. and MNG is left with almost nothing so that means that i have lesser chances to fill up my already full wardrobe. that is good because that will mean that i am going to be spending less money too.

one of my new year resolutions is going to be saving money.

anyway. i ended up buying a dress from MNG and two spec tops, that is a total of $75 of my hard earned money. that is like half my week's pay. if only i had not decided to meet up with my aunt and had gone directly to sentosa. well... too bad for me. and my pockets. i realized why i suddenly have this urge to buy dresses. i think after jessica's wedding the other day where i borrowed lynette's dresses i decided that i liked them. and besides, seeing lynette wear a dresses for christmas made me want to own at least a piece or two.

i am going to go searching for dresses for the next shopping trips.

ONE*15 is a very nice place. apart from all the construction around the area and your view of the coast blocked and destructed with construction sites for the future houses of rich singaporean men. the marina area is very pretty. my aunt, my cousin, me and my sis manage to whore around for a while.



inspired by shireen and our new zealand fun, we decided to put my sis's camera to the test and do a few jump shots of our own. the shuttle speed was not too bad and we managed to take decent jump shots. the color of the camera photos are pretty unique too.

and then my aunt who was taking the shots said "why not do a crouching tiger hidden dragon" and then before we knew it this was the next shot that was captured. i love this shot. it is so damn funny. everyone saw this photo and asked me how i managed to sit in mid air. well.. the is for me to know and for you to find out.



i know why i have been very lazy to blog recently. i am very busy with my life with constant work and trainings when i can find the time to. and plus i dont have that many pictures to display out for everyone to see. then again, this site is basically for my own records for me to look through the archives in the furture. i hope the internet will never go out of style. then i can keep my diary entries forever

lazy to blog alr.
since i came back i have been MIAing from blogland.
even turns out that i am also too lazy to take pictures anymore.
this blog is going to turn into lynette's blog

nelle: quick send me photos so i can put up a decent post

a moment

from the diaries

i suddenly looked up from my book. i just had a moment. it was a whole minute in my life that i felt so comfortable and so at home. (which by the way i am) but it dawned on me that it has been quite a long time since i last a moment like this. the rain is pouring musically outside, and the bass and the treble turn on max while playing my norah jones CD. and the lounging at my table with my feet on the table reading my chick flick from the library.

feels so good.
the cool air, the good music and the perfect book for a nice sunday morning.

it is that perfect feeling that i use to have almost every month when i was in JC. i almost did forget how it felt like already. it has been years since i got a moment. it feels like everything is just there and you are fading into the background. i miss this feeling so much. i think i no longer get it due to the very hectic time i am having traveling to and fro hall and home and everywhere in between.

i thought to myself that i would need to write this down. i opened my drawer and i saw the little pink NZ breast cancer foundation notebook i used to write all my thoughts in NZ in. a little bit of nostalgia as i flip past the old entries to reach an empty page.

must enjoy the moment while i can

that's all folks

i think that is the end of my very late blogging of my NZ post exams trip. i have to much blogging backlogs to clear. suddenly i am not very much in a mood for bloggin my other trip. i think ill rather spend my time watching all the episodes of house, ugly betty and greys that i have missed in the last few weeks due to my work schedule.

at least i managed to finish all my NZ ones. i still have tonnes of photos i want to put up but have to space to squeeze between the ones that i have already published.

i think i am a very busy woman. i have 9-6 work on weekdays, upcoming weddings and birthdays as well as simple gatherings. time to be busy as a bee.

somewhere over the ocean

15th nov 1.20am NZT or 14th nov 8.20pm SGT

i have already clocked 10 hours on the plane and i have about another 2 hours to go before i touch down at changi airport. i decided to bring out my laptop to type a few words after looking at one of my seat neighbours taking out his mac and started typing off on his computer too. so since i cant jolly well cant sleep on this stupid moving vehicle, might as well make good use out of something like that to type out a potential blog entry.

bed and breakfast for the first night in christchurch. and this one is a nice BnB. i stayed in the BnB for two nights while trying to sell shireen's car.

the interesting thing about car washes here in NZ is that you have to drive your car to the washing station and you get to put coins in to wash it yourself. so you have this car washing water and soap firing gun and it was fun to watch pravin wash the car.

for the last two days i have been staying at michelle's place. it is in fact a luxury BnB call clearwater lodge which is tucked off in one of the corners of christchurch near the airport. it is one really majestic house with a really nice garden. in fact it was a hug garden. and when i said huge i meant 10 acres of land attached to the house. 10 acres of land blooming with spring flowers and grape vines and olives trees and apple trees and walnut trees. (i never knew walnuts grew on trees)

there are so many plants in her garden like a lemon tree where real lemons grew on it you can just pluck it from the tree and start eating it just like that. then there was a whole patch of coriander and all the small garden herbs you can use like basal and things i never knew you could put in food.

there are even goats and cows and her three cats (missy, chester and poppy) roaming her backyard. me and katie shared her oldest sister's room down stairs where the large windows of her backyard opens to the house's swimming pool and spa pool. and i really love the kitchen where it is really the really typical setting of a upper middle class household you see on american tv where there is the dinning table with real table clothes and flower arrangement freshly plucked from their own garden. there were irises sitting on the table as a centerpiece and they really are beautiful looking and beautiful smelling flowers.

if only we could plant out own little garden in singapore and fill it with daffodils and irises and pennies and lilies and gerveras. too bad a piece of land that big is singapore is probably illegal to own and even if you do own a 10 acres land it will cost you close to a billion dollars. the think i like about nz and every where BUT singapore is that you can own large pieces of land and still be so close to the city at the same time.

i can say that i kinda learnt some new things from staying at micelle place. firstly i learnt how to make pavola. which in fact tops my list of deserts. i am actually dying to go back to singapore and try cooking out of my own oven at home. then there is gawkamoly. which is the salsa dip that tastes so damn good with nachos.


the first day was in the swimming pool soaking some sun up. it was a really nice sunny weather. and the moment katie picked me up from the city center during her lunch break and dumped me at michelle's front door i almost headed on to the swimming pool the moment i set eyes on it. two deck chairs and a nice blue pool waiting for me.

then there was a dinner with basal chicken, baked potatoes and asparagus. and pavola for desert. yum. i was so happy with katie came back from work for dinner. and i even help with putting the dishes into the dishwasher and drying the dishes as katie washed it western style. (using a sink of hot water and a little dish washing liquid) and the act of drying the dishes make me feel very western also. funny how we asian just leave the plate there to dry and just use it off the rack when we need it. the western people actually have a whole ritual where they wash and dry and put everything back in their rightful drawers and shelves ready for the next use. and we in singapore never seem to use hot water to wash our dishes, is it because no one runs hot water to the taps? or it because there is no need to? notice dishwashers always use hotwater, so is there some thing we singaporeans are doing wrongly?

i can never get used to western lunch at all. there is the pies that never seem to fill you up and the cold sandwiches that makes breakfast seem like it is happening all over. one of the few things that living in nz for 4 and a half months cant seem so accustom to. i have never like lunch where they give you the option of havin food like cold cut or chicken sandwiches or sasuage rolls and beef and cheese pies. or even pizzas. i am one of those asian people that have been living in asia for too long you will always need to have rice or noodles in your system or else it is not going to be considered a meal.

i think i am going to be suffering badly from jet lag when i get back to singapore. i kinda know now what people mean when they mean when they jetlag. the 5 hour time difference is not really helping much. i m so tired not i dont know how i am going to be lasting another 6 hours in singapore.

somewhere on the road east and down south

waking up to roaring waves is like the coolest feeling in the world. the fresh sea breeze against your skin and the gulls soaring above your heads. we are going to the pancake rocks today. i am in holiday mood now. there isnt a feeling of me permanently leaving this country at all. is it because i am actually very satisfied with the time i have spent here? i have done everything that could have been done in NZ, everything fun and amazing there is to offer.

the night sky from punakaiki is another amazing thing. you can always watch amazing things from places you dont get phone reception. i guess where there is no street lights there is probably no phone reception and yet when you just look upwars into the sky you can see everything that is different from the places that the people and urbanisations touch.

and where people cannot build their houses, the waves crash into to form the most magnificent landforms. the pancake rocks, or other known to geographers as layers of sedimentary mud and sand stone. the erosion game gave rise to blowholes and splash pools. funny how i never knew that blowholes can be 10m in width. i have always thought that it was very small. it is so big you can fit a whole whale in it to blow the water out for you.

we were right there waiting for the blowhole to blow something. waiting and waiting for the blow that never came. we were there are the right time. it was high tide and we were supposed to see amazing blowing. in the end we just saw crabs climbing along the walls and falling down the almost verticle clifts. at least we manage to see some blowing from the small blowhole called the chimney pot. and that one was pretty fun to watch.anyway, the pancake rocks really are unique.

then the whole stretch of coast we were driving along was so pretty. we had a short detour to cape foulwind to see the fur seal colony. and just standing there, you can see a whole family of seals. you can see the seals prancing and dancing each other on the rocks and watching them just doing that was fun. they are like little children head butting their friends. they are so cute.

funny how you actually cant see them until they move. this is a picture of the rocks and the seals. click on it to enlarge and see if you can spot the seals.



we had a small detour to hammer springs to go use their hot thermal springs. the one that we went to was not as nice as the one we went to in rotoroa in mid sem break. but i think i managed to get a small tan there since the weather was nice hot and sunny. lets hope with all the exposure to the sun recently i am not going to be getting skin cancer when i get back. NZ ozone layer is almost non-existent. and the amount of UV rays can kill you - literally.

but nevertheless it really was a good break from the drive. not like i was the one doing the driving but who cares. i practically anchored myself to the back seat since i joined pravin and shireen and i have only touched the driving wheel once. seems like a luxury holiday where i get to be driven around.

anyway. the interlocking spurs and the gorge passes are super photo moment for another jumping shots and as usual we wasted again the many amount of energy jumping and trying to get a decent shot. it really is hard trying to balance a camera on the car and counting down from 10 and jumping just as you say one.

we manage to get one or two decent shots but all of them where tummy bearing shots. and this one is a very tummy bearing shot. (sorry shireen but my blog is more impt than your tummy)

kaikora backpackers was one of the nicest backpackers i have stayed in. the main hall is just so intensely nicely and warmly decorated. it made me want to renovate my future house in this way. with blue and cream walls and wooden couches and tables and chairs.

we went for a swim with the dusky dolphins. well... have you ever swam with dolphins being strapped in a wet suit, a rubber tudong, flippers and a snorkel? i have. and at the same time being thrown on a boat in bad weather? i have too.

for one the wet suit was actually easy to get into. everytime i see a wet suit it just reminds me of waitomo caves where the stupid wet suit was just so damn hard to get into and we were also made to jump into freezing cold water. and then after that was water sledging where same time happened and now it is already spring but i bet you the water is almost as cold.

and our little speed boat was traveling so bumpily on the waves we were literally at the edge of our seat and clinging for our lives. the wind was so strong and the waves were so big. but lucky i got to see albatross. all this time i was staying in dunedin where they have one of the largest colonies in NZ at the otago peninsular and i have never seen one until today. funny how they take off. because they cant flap their wings they have to take off like an airplane, poor birds have to run on the water surface to get moving air under their wings so that they can take off. and they look so stupid running on the water surface.

swimming with the dolphins is so cool. you are so close to the dolphins and there they are just within arms reach waiting for you to reach out and touch them. just that they move so fast you cant touch them at all. remember when you watch those seaworld shows where the dolphin gave people rides on their backs? wild dolphins DO NOT give people rides on their backs.

and there were so many dolphins all over the place. it was a really nice experience. shireen quoted this as the best thing she have done in NZ. for me? i still like caving better. might be because half the time when i was swimming there and staying afloat in my wetsuit, i was drinking so much sea-water and i had water in my eyes. and when we finally got back to the boat, i puked out my spaghetti in the little bucket they provided. and besides the water was so cold my rubber tudong kept sliding upwards and the cold water was biting my hairline. and my neck was so tired looking up.

they let us have ginger biscuits and hot chocolate and a nice warm water bath. i tell you it feels so good to have warm water running through your wet suit. and we had to strip out of our wet suits and change into dry clothing. and all i have was a face-towel sized towel to use. and i officially declare that i am a pro in changing in public. being in a girls school have taught me some skills but coming to nz have taught me more life experiences like changing with a face-towel into your underwear and clothes.

we could see dolphins and baby dolphins swimming along side the boat. then they did their over the surface jumps which were supposed to be mating dances or something. funny how dolphins swimming together can syncro their jumps together and at the same time.

overall, the dolphins where fun.

on the way down from kaikora to christchurch we made a sudden stop due to my amazing ability to spot a fur seal on the road 30 meters away while traveling at 100km/h. and thanks to my amazing observation skills we manage to catch a fur seal really really close up. it was just sitting there and looking at us. in this photo, i manage to catch the seal yawning. so damn cute.

somewhere between ice and pancakes

have you ever walked on moving ice before? first activity for the day is to get our bags and attempt to get our free soup (which we did not have in the end). the night before we arrived late and was even given the wrong keys to someone's room on the first floor. that was a little story for embarrassment for the three of us. i pity the ones who were trying to sleep in the room and having to be awaken by us.

but anyway. strapped in thick leather hiking boots we had to make a really long long walk over rocks and boulders to the base of the glacier. it was only 12-2(approx.) degC on the ice. franz josef glacier is one of the three glaciers in the world where the glacier runs into a equatorial rain-forest. one of the other one is the neighbouring glacier. apparently new zealand have 3000 glaciers in total. who would have known that such a small country would have so many glaciers.

the three of us wanted to take our own sweet time to walk and photo whore along the way by attempting to old the last group at the back. but they chased us away to make us join the first two group. that automatically means that we will have less time and chance to whip out our cameras to take photos. so no we are stuck with people who walk and climb too fast for their own good and having to suffer away from our destined "granny group"

the first half of the climb was up steep "walls" and all we had was a rope to cling on to. i think you can see form the photo that it is really steep. and our guide had a nice red jacket, shorts, leg warmers and very cool photo moment worthy places to stand.

it was quite a bit of climb up in ice claps up the almost vertical section of the base of the glacier. the spikes are so sharp you can confirm kill a live possum in a single stamp. from the bottom there is almost no sign of ice for a good 200m because everything was covered in debris from the mountain cliffs. but as you get higher up you will begin to see special landforms that exists today and will not exist tomorrow. you will see ice so blue you are amazed by the color and the cavis that are so narrow that you have to walk in one line to get through.

isnt it a better time then to start photowhoring between the ice? pravin finally found out the powress of the girls in this tough industry. imagine how hard whoring is when for every moment you have to find a pose in no more than 2 seconds. whoring is an art i tell you. pravin just took out his camera and shouted "girls" (referring to me and shireen) and immediately the two of us found ourself a wall to pose against. synchronization. it is an artform that only few can do.

armed with a banana and the ice pick, you have the chance for a short break among the ice.

driving along the coast to punaikaiki and stopping along the way to take jumping shots against the sunset. this time around there were so many failed attempts that we simply got too tired using the self timer we just dint bother with it anymore.

reaching the beach hostel at punaikaiki where we had a tiny little beach shack where we just could open the windows to listen to the waves crashing against the beach. and when you look up, you can see a whole wide paranomic spectrum of starts. STARS and MORE STARS as far as the eye can see. if only i have taken some astrology classes in some point of my life then i would know how to tell more constellations other than orion and the big dipper.

just in case you did not know - im back

i have been back for some time now (1week) and have many things to rush to finish. some of you people might have actually seen me running about here and there in hall. so pardon the lack of extra post exams trip info. give me some time to get my journal notes together. honestly, i have been pretty lazy.

and since now that i have started work you can expect less or no post. i finally got myself a part time job for the holidays thanks to jilly.

somewhere between wanaka and the west coast

there is always more time to sit and relax by the lake even though you have already spent 6 hours of the day before doing just that. just that this time it was done in the company of shireen and pravin (shireen bro). shireen even brought out her little guitar from the back of the car and started playing tunes on it while looking at past the lake to the distance. just lying there for a good hour seeing random dogs running off from their owners and prancing all around you.

there was always some time to sit there and do abit of photo whoring. i think whoring runs in the mahtani family. pravin has his own share of whoring in his blood. apparently he learn much from this trip. the sun was up and there was plenty of time to roll up your shirt for a nice tanning session along the lake. you can even see family picnics and little kids playing with water. i think new zealand people have a good life, if you are rich you can afford a summer home in the mountains of wanaka and on the weekend there is always time for you to drive down to the lake for a little skinny dipping or swimming. it is just like what you watch on hollywood tv. imagine the chance for you to go out to the lake at night for a small skinny dipping session with your girlfriends.

there are so many things to see from wanaka to haast to franz josef. there are the countless number of waterfalls that you have already seen all over new zealand and since the landscape on the west coast is rustic and rugged, there are more natural natural things to see. there was plenty of beautiful things to see just in that little few hours drive west.

the thing i love about mountain passes is that at every turn around the bend, you can always find a moment to be wow-ed. the car turns and you are splashed with an imagine you cant seem to get out of your memory, even up to now. and along this drive there are so many places where you can just stop your car and take a breather and maybe attempt taking jump shots.

and for the record. i think we are very horrible jump shot takers. we had to attempt a few shots just to get a single decent shots. wait tilll you hear the story of us trying to use pravins phone's self timer to time jump shots. i think those moments were classic and i think the number of times i have spent jumping for self timer shots have made me lose 2 kg.

have you ever drank river water? well... i have drank river water so clean you can fill it in a bottle and see no sign of any particles in it. pravin have been wantin to walk across the river we passed and he kept saying in the car that he wanted to do it. so we did a random stop somewhere on the upper course of the river to do that only to find that the river was too deep and too fast for normal barefooted walking. but this gave us a small opportunity to take a sip of fresh river water. just hoping that no one or no animal have decided to pee in the river further up.

the water is sweet. as corny as it really sounds, it REALLY IS SWEET. it taste nothing like the bottles spring water or mineral water you get from the supermarket. and it really is SWEET. that is the only word to describe the water. the moment it touches your tongue it becomes SWEET.

we even filled it in our water bottle and we were so surprised to see that there is NO SIGN OF DIRT. just very clear clean water. new zealand is one of the few places in the world that it so pollution free that you can drink sweet clean water right straight from the river.

i cant remember what is the name of this falls. something creek or something. but who cares when you tried to reach to river bank by climbing over bushes and rock only to find out that the normal path actually reaches there. so much for leaving markers along the path for fear of getting lost and not knowing how to get back.

we tried to hop over rocks, keep our balances just to get a photo moment. i assure you that it was no easy task trying to get these photo taken coz both cameraman/women and subject have to spend some effort doing a balancing act.

sunset along the coast is a pretty picture. what is better than seeing the orange sky as a simple background of the sea and the coastal landforms? just a tiny little time of your life when you wished you could just park your car at the coast and enjoy it. too bad for us we had to make haste due to falling night (although sunset is at 9pm) but this gave us a moment to look at LIVE POSSUMS. you know why they get run over by cars all the time? because they just sit there, in the middle of the road, and await for the car to come running over them.

somewhere between dunedin and wanaka

the morning passed like a quick blur. it almost felt like it never happened. it was all a big fat rush to wake up, bathe, have my last breakfast in unicol, pack the last bit of my room into my green backpack, buy sushi, buy a cafe latte and hop on the bus in all less than 2 hours.

it is only on the bus that it dawned on me that ill never see this place again. how many times i have seen the sheeps and cows row pass the vehicles and yet it is only now that i stop to think to myself how beautiful green grass look splatted with white or black spots.

funny how you will not appreciate something until you have so little time left with it. th green grass, the rolling hills and even the wild flowers. you never knew how many types of cows there can be in a single field. how the sun and clouds cast shadows on the open field. how my brain automatically apple landform to what i see. how long i have been here to see empty bare trees blooms flowers and then grow leaves. how some trees grow in one direction. the magnitude of the wind i will never feel in singapore even in a typhoon. the random lakes. the random dead possum. how it rain but it never pours.

rented a bike and made it almost half way around the lake. i have always wanted to see lake wanaka on two wheels. wheels take you where your feet cannot in a given time frame. further out from the track where we left off the last time, there is really more to see. another 30 mins ride and you get to a portion of the late where half your view are the snow capped mountain ranges. and the best thing of all are the rocks. random large boulders sitting on the edge of the lake screaming out to you to snap a picture of it. my soft spot.

i spent so much time just sitting there and just staring into the distance, hearing the waves splash along the beaches, seeing the ripples spread out with every rock you throw in. seeing the point where the lake reflected the landscape. there i was trying to balance my poor camera on some rock 10 meters away, hoping that it will not fall into the water with a small blow of the wind and then setting the timer on and running 10 meters back to where i was bare footed and trying to look like i never was in a rush to take the photos.

i did a ride around the suburbs of wanaka and i tell you these people really have the money to know how to live life. imagine a VERY large house with a your choice of a swimming pool or a tennis court facing the lake looking into the mountains and multiply this imagine by 1000. 1000 very pretty looking large houses all in a single area. and i assure you that the houses here are way bigger than the ones you get in 6th avenue or andrew road.

black snake moan

dont watch this even if you need to entertain yourself. shireen and pravin can tell you that. the only special thing about this movie was that we had a small screening in a little cinema that have have sofas instead of chairs and you can even watch your movie from a car. eat homemade ice cream and slouch all over the place with a big screen.

you could possibly see the whole milky way from wanaka on a cloudless night like tonight. wanaka never seemed more magical. i love wanaka. it is gorgeous in the day and absolutely fantastic in the night. sad tat it is one picture moment you will never be able to capture on camera. at least on my camera. some of the stars are so small that even if you cannot see the star you can see a faint aura of light around it.

one last time

finally. my classics paper is over and done with. i am a free woman!!!!! my duty to my exchange programme is serviced for at 5.30pm today with the handing in of my last exam paper. the last paper i had written so little for i dont care.

this is the end of my stay here in dunedin. im leaving for my little trip to the west coast tomorrow morning before flying back to singapore, where my first stop is going to be for food. nice beautiful singapore food. i cant believe that i have spent the last 4 months here. 4 whole long months of weather you will never get in singapore. i dont know how i am feeling now. will i miss this place? how come i dont feel anything. just a void. a nice big black void. mayb ill start to feel it later when i have more to think of.

i will start to miss my room where the sun never reaches. i will miss walking pass that little garden in hall where i sit sometimes when it is sunny and warm. then there is my little dungeon where i stayed in north lower ground. and my little dungeon toilet where you can always find a cubicle to shower in or take a dump. ill even miss the cold corridors

then there is the dinning room where the food is really not that great after all and where i spend hours talking to people and having our little food fights. then there is the main common room where i always go to buy my bag of chips from the night cafe and the vending machine. or my floor common room i spend watchin the family guy at 7pm every night.

i am not feeling the missing yet.

i really cant believe that ill be leaving this place so soon. as much as i feel like leaving this place behind like it was a distant part of my experiences and memory. i am really happy and very satisfied on my stay here. the time i have spent here is long enough for me to see the place and appreciate those people at home. and yet it is short enough to make me crave for more and to be back in singapore eating what singaporeans love the best.

there will still be no where like home. ok people. the next time i blog i will most likely back in singapore

time to start packing my room into a backpack. chao!

somewhere in dunedin

dunedin is a big city. apparently it is called a city although to me dunedin is like the smallest of the cities i have ever stepped my foot in. to me city = high rise. not a small "town" with one street as the equivalent of orchard road. what you get in george street you will already find the same number of stores in junction 8.

well i have lived in such a "city" for the past 4 months and today, i finally got to get my butt into a far away place which is a apart of dunedin. 10km from school there is a smaller suburbia township of a place called port charmers. it is dunedin's own version of pasar panjang. shireen was saying that the name charmers sounds very posh like as if linked to the word "charm". well... this place really is a pretty interesting place.

there are a few shops only the main street and most of them are actually old antique and arts shops and i have got to say that the very shops that we set foot into, it has very interesting bits of history i could use.

there are shops that sells even old cameras and 1940 badges and old weighing machines that have rusted till you could almost not be able to tell that it was a weighing machine. it is nice to walk into shops like these where you know the past never seems to run away from.

and it is so fun just to be able to get around to things you could never really find even in singapore antique stores. shireen and i were doing our own little gift shopping around port charmers after doing major damage to our pockets and bank account in george street earlier in the afternoon (all thanks to timsum and jayjays)

i love it how churches here all look so beautiful in their little gothic architectural designs. well. i guess that is when the weather permits you to make buildings out of limestone and rocks that will dissolve in acid rain.

even the school beautiful clocktower is made out of the very same rocks.

all thanks to the location of the country and the fact that there cant possibily be acid rain here as New Zealand is a carbon neutral country. they doing even burn fuel to generate electricity. all the energy you use to generate the lights or the tele is from either wind or water or geothermal. cool right?

we followed the road signs and ended up somewhere along aramoana where they had salt marshes (or as i call it -swamps) and there was a nice stretch of beach that reach passed the end where you can see taiaroa head of the peninsular tip. you could see the light house from there.

the pretty thing about this beach is that there are so many shells all over the beach you cant even open your eyes and avoid one. the entire stretch was shell fill with tiny little shells that looked so pretty. shireen started to pick up shells only to throw them 5 mins later because she dint know what to do with them.

and even i have to say myself that this photo is a really good photo of the shells with the beach in the background. i do make a good photographer without the fancy camera.

well. i have already found out the countless times i spent picking shells off the beaches in thailand and malaysia that there is nothing you can do with them unless you are finding powal shells or finding those shells you can eat the meat and sell the "cateye" you find at the end of it.

there is this store in the main street that sells really cool looking jewelry and the guy working there told us where cateyes (the shell not the meow meow) come from and even showed us what powa shells look like unpolished. you learn something new everyday.

me and shireen where trying to do typical photo shots that people always do when they are at the beach. first there was the writing on the beach shot where you either write your own name or draw a heart around yours and your significant other. it is funny how no one ever writes things like "world peace" or "i want to donate one million dollars to charity" in sand. usually people who write things in sand are sentimental or just a total self absorbed idiot. well... i am the latter.

then there is the "shadow of friends" shot where you align yourself and your camera to take your shadow. aimless piece of shit but it does make good fun.

then there is the jumping and trying to catch a photo of yourself in mid air thing which i think we have done too many time over our little north island trip every time we got to new plymouth black sand beach or the 90 mile shellfish fill beach. so today we tried a little different shot. a photo of me trying to cartwheel across the sand. too bad to say that the photo dint really turn out nice due to shireens photo abilities.

we found pile of mossy rocks sitting on the beach in a clump so why not make use of the beauty in the greeness to take a photo of myself? this photo look like open coffee shop. blame it on the girls school history and their ineffective teaching of how to keep our legs closed.

i have to say that today was a nice day for a good last few days in dunedin. it hasnt dawned on me that i am going to be leaving this city where i have lived and celebrated over the last 4 months in another 4 days. it feels nice to be knowing you are spending your last days here well and still exploring the place. there is so much to see in this city. i think what i have explored is only 10% of the entire city. there are the many suburbs that i have not stepped foot onto.

shireen was right. spending the last few days exploring the place is not the same as exploring it in your first few days. exploring a place when you just arrive is just finding amazement in a place you have never been to. but after living here for some time and you have that little time left, exploring new places just make you appreciate its beauty more.

it wasnt that bad after all

i think i am just slightly further away from failing phil 223 (aka metaphysical questions). the exams wasnt that bad considering that i only studied like half of what i am supposed to. coz i just did not understand anything enough to have studied everything and anything else. philosophy is not easy, and studying if unicorns exist is even worse.

i spent 30 mins thinking of what to write for the next 30 mins. and i only written like 1.5 pages of words. i hope that was enough. i really wish i am not going to fail this shit.

please please remind me never to take philo ever again.

i am so sure i am going to have to redo this module

someone please remind me again WHY THE HELL DID I DO PHILO AGAIN? now i am looking at my notes and i dont freeking understand a single point. i think i will never understand it for the rest of my life no matter how hard i try. i am so prepared to take 6 modules when i get back alr. if i am going to be taking 6 modules next sem i'll need to use up all my SUs. i hope this goes well man. i saw the past year paper and i dont know what the hell to do because i dont know how to do everything.

shit.

why did i take philo? interesting as it sounds it is not easy to understand.
why
why
why
shot me, hang me, stab me, poison me, burn me alive.

its almost summer. i can feel it

i was really almost sure that i could not wake up this morning considering that i went to bed at 1 but din not fall asleep until 4 am in the morning. then i kept waking up in the middle of my "sleep" for god knows why to toss and turn around. i was trying my best to get to bed if not i will not be able to keep my eyes open for my paper. i had horrible sleep last night.

but anyway. dint expect the urban paper to be so easy. i thought i would need to struggle through my only level 3 paper here and all i have have been pretty good. ended up using singapore as a case study. they did teach singapore as a urban regeneration case study. what a waste of study time the day before to study other topics. could have used that time to watch more anime or drama. this module have been pretty decent. i already have 48% without sitting for the exams. got a A+ for the reading log and full marks on my presentation and presentation report and a B for the essay. internals are already 60%. so all i had to do to pass is to turn up and write a paragraph for each question.

anyway, the highlight for the day was the weather. it was a nice cloudless sky with plenty of sun and little wind. rare to have such nice weather here in dunedin. so since i wanted to embrace the western university culture, i decided to go take a bask under the sun in front of the clock tower by the river. and mayb at the same time attempt to study philo.

i have never worn so little clothing in nz before. i had my shortest shorts and a small tee. and i thought i had on little. never did i know that there were people sun-tanning there in their bikini in the middle of school on the grass by the clock tower. they were just lying there without their shirt on and just basking in the sun like a hibernating reptile.

wow.

imagine you sitting in front of the arts canteen or behind LT11 in your bikini. i think NUS campus security will just come and drag you away to the psychology department to get you tested for abnormality. you will be running like a lab rat. singapore will not be able to accept that you are tanning on sch grounds. but instead might charge you for flashing or indecent sexual behavior. but here in places NOT IN SINGAPORE. there is simply no sin and no offense for taking off your shirt. and you might be able to take of your shorts without anyone caring a shit about what you are doing.

if you look closely in this picture you can see someone tanning in their bikini at the bottom right hand corner.



the sun was so nice though so i did my fair share of tanning. i hope the sun in NZ does make people tanner. i was sitting there in the sun for a good 2 hours. attempting to read my notes and to be honest i really dint care much for the reading. it was so different to be able to sit out in the sun in nothing but shorts and a shirt and feeling the light breeze on your face. the grass feels so cool under your thighs and on your stomach. the thing i like about this is that you can sit there with your back or tummy in full view of the sun and tan and no one will care and give you a second look.

now i can understand how that description in your story books feel like.

it is nice to be out once in awhile. well. one of my goals for this exchange is to do just that. i have to admit that that clock tower was one of the driving force for me choosing otago. all i wanted to do it to sit on the grass in front of the clock tower and i accomplished that today at 2.30pm. well done shanny.

i am so doing this the next time the weather is so fine. mayb the next time ill wear spec top to make sure i get more sun.



i swear the grass feels really great. that is the difference between the grass in singapore and the grass here. singapore you can feel ants crawling all over you, but here everything is just so perfect, just like smooth carpet grass. you can just sit there and read your book and you get seagulls and ducks walking all around you like you dont exist. plus the sound of the river just makes everything so serene. and the occasional chime of the clock tower every 15 mins.

i could do this the whole day.

i never thought that the simple act of sitting on the grass can take up so many paragraphs. the kiwis seem to do it all the time once the sun is up, and it makes me wonder if they actually take it for granted. to be able to sit on grass everyday for 4 months of the year, this simple routine is a whole new experience for this equatorial babe.

happy birthday katie

our dear katie turned 20 today.for the whole week she kept complaining how old being 20 is in front of me. and everyone was making granny jokes. like hello? no matter how old you are, this friend of yours called shanny is older and one year nearer retirement compared to you.

katie has many faces. every meal time she displays part of her collection of faces and today i got her to do some of her thousands of faces. you must know that our dear katie doesnt like being in front of the camera. and since it is her birthday we all should do something different. she promised to give me 16 shots of her face before i leave so when is it a better place then to do it on her birthday?


the double daters :
evan and claire (left)
jon and emelia (right)

these four people are always together. and since they are tow couples we have decided to call them the double daters. they are real fun company esp when you put the two guys together. evan talks almost non stop and very animatedly. and jon is there always to throw random insults all over the table. claire was telling us her own boyfriend reminds her of an animated insect. like an ant out of ants of something. and emelia is like the sweatest thing ever.


the gang :
zaid and sam (upper left)
sam and jennifer (upper right)
nadie and adi (bottom left)

the where making a whole hell of noise the whole dinner with the random laughter.


and this is my dearmichelle. good friend of mine who feeds me weekly episodes of house, greys and private practice. michelle and katie and khanatha is my three bestest of the best friends here at unicol. meal times will be really boring without them. not that the term is really at an end i dont know what they will do without me.

me and michelle were all over town the whole week trying to get katie a birthday present. we got her a singlet that says "its coz im british" and it is actually custom made for not cheap. im looking forward to bunking in at michelle's place after the exams. i promise myself to take photos of us all. katie is staying over too so we are going to be having a nice dinner the night before i leave.

when nadie took this photo she was going on and on on how michelle looked so white like a ghost.


here is katie, khan and me!

these are all the photos i have in my camera. we did take other shots but they were all in khans and katies camera. i look like shit here man. my hair and that smile is so creepy.

oh yeah. this place where we are at is a pizza place at north dunedine had to walk 15 mins past the botanical gardens in the cold wet rain. and the weather so cold i think it was only about 5 degC last night.