day 8 & day 9, 31st august - 1st sep 2007: waitomo to new plymouth to wellington, jump around! jump around!
so the memories are getting more and more dissolved with each day i procrastinate. and i'm not happy i had to bathe in cold water just now! what's up with that!
we started the day with QUADBIKING!! oh my gosh it's so fun! mervin prakash you would love this! again we had to dress up like bob the builder without the wet suits this time oh thank god i would rather have frozen to death than wear those again!
we quadbiked up and down hills, revving especially in the mud puddles. i stopped doing that after some time cos i realised that a hell lot of smoke came out from my bike everytime i did it and i think the mud flew up to my face once!
oh you should have seen the faces of those sheep and cows. a little lamb saw us approaching and started crying hysterically, struggling to get up on its feeble legs. there was this moment where we stopped next to a herd of cows. and you should have seen them, all standing in a line, all in a different colours. but most of all you should have seen their faces. they were staring at us so carefully, negotiating their next move. i purposely revved my engine and approached a little closer and each time i did it, they moved back a few steps, still looking cautiously at the bunch of us. i think animals are so human-like sometimes. reno was. or maybe, it's the other way round huh?
after taking a good bath in the mud, we finally headed off for lunch in the next town and then proceeded on to new plymouth, where you can find the 2518m volcano named mt taranaki. did you know....
...that the last samurai had scenes filmed here because it was found to resemble mt fuji in japan? yes ladies, tom cruise was here. not that i care really. haha.
i think my favourite part about this leg of the journey was the spontaneity that came along with it, though that really was the case for most of the trip. you see, we stopped at some little town for a toilet break and next thing i know, we're all on the see-saws, slides, and whatever our big bums could fit. after laughing alot, as we did throughout the trip, we headed on to new plymouth.
at our holiday park at new plymouth, there was a trampoline. and ladies and gentlemen, nothing compares to the thrill of bouncing on a trampoline and laughing till you could die of it. we were like little kids, bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. we couldn't stop.
but we had to...to catch the sunset. nothing beats that either, watching the last few waking seconds of the sun for the day. just like watching a shooting star, you know you're witnessing the last few seconds of its glorious existence.
the picture at the top of my blog right now was taken at the beach in new plymouth where we went to witness the sunset. we saw people parasailing into the sunset and i thought they were giant kites at first and got so excited i started running to the beach, not without slipping down a hill first. only gavin saw that..haha. gavin (high-pitched voice), where are you??
anyway i got so excited because believe it or not, in my 22 years of existence, i've never flown a kite. attempted once unsuccessfully, just got my slippers stuck in mud. and i really wanted to fly a kite before i left singapore. it was on my list of unfinished business. and then as i was getting serious about it and asking around about where to get kites from, pravin told me that he had just watched a documentary that new zealand was one of the kite-flying capitals of the world. yea right! i haven't seen a kite flown once here since i arrived!!!
so we got back to the holiday park and i just felt that we couldn't waste a second not playing ping pong (it's been a while!!) or bouncing on the trampoline. so while waiting for leonard and gavin (high-pitched voice) to prepare dinner, we played table tennis in KING fashion. i was queen for a while and then we started taking turns haha. reminded me of the times i played with my family. we take king very seriously. this coming from a family who has bowling championships amongst ourselves and trophies to boot! when we got tired, we went off to bounce on the trampoline some more in the dark. we made dias take out all his light gizmos. you should have seen him wearing his headlight and bouncing. totally blinded me and i got so disoriented i kept falling!
next morning, we woke up, we went to bounce somemore. but before everyone came, i managed to get it alone and bounced and bounced and bounced to my heart's content with noone to disrupt my momentum and make my knees buckle and cause me to sink down again! and boy did i jump! and when i got tired i fell again and lay on my back as i watched the clouds whiz by above me, or was it me whizzing by? as i lay there with the wind caressing my face that saturday morning, it was the most perfect feeling in the world. of course, the rest of the kids came along and we had fun too. i wish i could show you the video. it's crazy!! haha.
we had to leave eventually. and after visiting the visitor centre where dias, gavin and i wondered into a theatre with glowing seats which changed colours, we headed off to climb mount taranaki!
yes, yes, sounds impressive but we just did like a 2 hour trek. with alot of uphill oh gosh. we finally reached wherever we were supposed to reach and took some crazy photos and went back down again. haha. i make i sound so exciting right? c'mon, it would have been way more exciting if the volcano was erupting or smoking or something!
after that, it was a long, long drive to wellington. the joke of the day (as usual) was bavani for thinking that we were still somewhere at palmerston north when the signs all around showed we were clearly in wellington. ah, bavani. so anyway, upon checking in, we finally settled at a moroccan restaurant for dinner. i was actually quite insistent on it because the signs outside promised belly-dancing! little did i think WE would be the ones belly-dancing. oh i saw sides of these people i've never seen before. oh gosh. should i be mean and upload all the videos? i shall! cya! don't wanna be ya!
so the memories are getting more and more dissolved with each day i procrastinate. and i'm not happy i had to bathe in cold water just now! what's up with that!
we started the day with QUADBIKING!! oh my gosh it's so fun! mervin prakash you would love this! again we had to dress up like bob the builder without the wet suits this time oh thank god i would rather have frozen to death than wear those again!we quadbiked up and down hills, revving especially in the mud puddles. i stopped doing that after some time cos i realised that a hell lot of smoke came out from my bike everytime i did it and i think the mud flew up to my face once!
oh you should have seen the faces of those sheep and cows. a little lamb saw us approaching and started crying hysterically, struggling to get up on its feeble legs. there was this moment where we stopped next to a herd of cows. and you should have seen them, all standing in a line, all in a different colours. but most of all you should have seen their faces. they were staring at us so carefully, negotiating their next move. i purposely revved my engine and approached a little closer and each time i did it, they moved back a few steps, still looking cautiously at the bunch of us. i think animals are so human-like sometimes. reno was. or maybe, it's the other way round huh?
after taking a good bath in the mud, we finally headed off for lunch in the next town and then proceeded on to new plymouth, where you can find the 2518m volcano named mt taranaki. did you know....
...that the last samurai had scenes filmed here because it was found to resemble mt fuji in japan? yes ladies, tom cruise was here. not that i care really. haha.
i think my favourite part about this leg of the journey was the spontaneity that came along with it, though that really was the case for most of the trip. you see, we stopped at some little town for a toilet break and next thing i know, we're all on the see-saws, slides, and whatever our big bums could fit. after laughing alot, as we did throughout the trip, we headed on to new plymouth.
at our holiday park at new plymouth, there was a trampoline. and ladies and gentlemen, nothing compares to the thrill of bouncing on a trampoline and laughing till you could die of it. we were like little kids, bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. we couldn't stop.but we had to...to catch the sunset. nothing beats that either, watching the last few waking seconds of the sun for the day. just like watching a shooting star, you know you're witnessing the last few seconds of its glorious existence.
the picture at the top of my blog right now was taken at the beach in new plymouth where we went to witness the sunset. we saw people parasailing into the sunset and i thought they were giant kites at first and got so excited i started running to the beach, not without slipping down a hill first. only gavin saw that..haha. gavin (high-pitched voice), where are you??
anyway i got so excited because believe it or not, in my 22 years of existence, i've never flown a kite. attempted once unsuccessfully, just got my slippers stuck in mud. and i really wanted to fly a kite before i left singapore. it was on my list of unfinished business. and then as i was getting serious about it and asking around about where to get kites from, pravin told me that he had just watched a documentary that new zealand was one of the kite-flying capitals of the world. yea right! i haven't seen a kite flown once here since i arrived!!!
so we got back to the holiday park and i just felt that we couldn't waste a second not playing ping pong (it's been a while!!) or bouncing on the trampoline. so while waiting for leonard and gavin (high-pitched voice) to prepare dinner, we played table tennis in KING fashion. i was queen for a while and then we started taking turns haha. reminded me of the times i played with my family. we take king very seriously. this coming from a family who has bowling championships amongst ourselves and trophies to boot! when we got tired, we went off to bounce on the trampoline some more in the dark. we made dias take out all his light gizmos. you should have seen him wearing his headlight and bouncing. totally blinded me and i got so disoriented i kept falling!
next morning, we woke up, we went to bounce somemore. but before everyone came, i managed to get it alone and bounced and bounced and bounced to my heart's content with noone to disrupt my momentum and make my knees buckle and cause me to sink down again! and boy did i jump! and when i got tired i fell again and lay on my back as i watched the clouds whiz by above me, or was it me whizzing by? as i lay there with the wind caressing my face that saturday morning, it was the most perfect feeling in the world. of course, the rest of the kids came along and we had fun too. i wish i could show you the video. it's crazy!! haha.
we had to leave eventually. and after visiting the visitor centre where dias, gavin and i wondered into a theatre with glowing seats which changed colours, we headed off to climb mount taranaki!yes, yes, sounds impressive but we just did like a 2 hour trek. with alot of uphill oh gosh. we finally reached wherever we were supposed to reach and took some crazy photos and went back down again. haha. i make i sound so exciting right? c'mon, it would have been way more exciting if the volcano was erupting or smoking or something!
after that, it was a long, long drive to wellington. the joke of the day (as usual) was bavani for thinking that we were still somewhere at palmerston north when the signs all around showed we were clearly in wellington. ah, bavani. so anyway, upon checking in, we finally settled at a moroccan restaurant for dinner. i was actually quite insistent on it because the signs outside promised belly-dancing! little did i think WE would be the ones belly-dancing. oh i saw sides of these people i've never seen before. oh gosh. should i be mean and upload all the videos? i shall! cya! don't wanna be ya!