waterbaby!
finally woke up in time for farmers market after about 3 months of trying to! reminded me of a church fun-fair where everyone knows everyone and these little tents are set up for the different stalls and you can buy a pork roll and a coffee and sit at a table and have breakfast or walk around and browse the wares or listen to buskers (the coffee shop aunty was clearly showing her irritation with the boy playing the same songs on his trumpter or clarinet (i forget) over and over again (haha can you imagine calling a kiwi a coffeeshop aunty? but she was selling coffee...shrug)).
i didn't buy a single thing to bring home, only stuff to gorge my mouth with on the spot.
and because i woke up so early, i didn't know what to do for the rest of the day. walk? but it was getting cloudy and cold. then i thought about swimming and starting searching the net and decided to head down to the moana swimming complex, mostly because it had waterslides, followed by jacuzzis. waterfalls, rapids, wave pools and whatnot. all restless and agitated and determined not to wait (i'm not gonna wait anymore), i put on my swimming costume and hopped in the car and drove down to the place. it was quite expensive to get the swim and slides package..$9. but i did it anyway! after asking the lady whether i was too big for the slides and getting a negative. woohoo!
the laps pool looked half the length of a normal pool or maybe a bit less, so i told myself that if i didn't finish 40 laps, there'd be no waterslides for me. finally cleared them all and went to get a massage in the jacuzzi before heading off to the slides. fun! despite the fact that water suddenly shoots up through your nose and knocks you out in certain parts of the slide. and despite the fact that there were all these little kids slightly taller than my knee-level scurrying up to the slides and sliding down like 3 at a time.
went to the rapids too. and the wave pool where everyone just bounced ridiculously, riding the waves. and the waterfalls. i was happily sitting under one of the waterfalls and these itchy-finger kids just kept coming every once in a while and adjusting the pressure of my waterfall and turning it on and off. it was quite annoying but then who was i to say anything? i was in their territory!! lol.
on the way back after my swim, saw some pretty interesting places along the route and realised just how much i haven't been discovering. shireen, you have a car! do what you love to do when you have a car! drive! explore! while you can!
my eyes are all red and tired now. swam without goggles. can someone at home reading this please check whether they're still hanging behind my bathroom door?? if not, they must be somewhere in my room in haka.
going for the south pacific christianity conference now at elim. just heard about it half an hour ago from kevin so i'll be heading down with some of them later. don't really know what i'm going for! haha.
enjoying my freedom while i can, hence i'm trying not to keep stagnant too much. out!
Friday, September 21, 2007
i've seen and done some crazy things but i think this takes the cake.
i was taking my shower this morning, sometime near noon i think. i heard a really really loud sound and i thought to myself, wow that's really loud thunder. and after a while, wow, really long thunder and simultaneously, hey there's no thunder in new zealand (i haven't heard thunder once since i arrived) and then, hey why did the thunder cause the cars to horn so crazily??
and why does the horn sound like it was coming from right outside my bathroom?? and then i turned off the shower for a while, and then i thought, i better get out of here! and turned on the shower again to wash off all the soap on me, wrapped myself in a towel and ran out where i saw winnie running towards me telling me a car had crashed. no, not infront of our house, but behind! in that 2m-wide alleyway! we walk to the kitchen window (mind you i'm still dripping wet in a towel) and see these 2 guys (or was it one? i only saw the driver) staring at us from behind their cracked windscreen, airbags all puffed up. they were alright after all that, the airbags saved their lives man!
what are the chances of that happening man?? the car had turned in to the driveway one level above us (the street is sloped), went out of control and spun left towards the fence, crashed into it and plunged down straight outside our kitchen, caught between the wall and our house. i mean, just look at this. yes, the picture is the right way up.
the place started getting crowded and everyone was out in their pyjamas and it felt like a saturday morning. yes, 12pm on a friday and everyone's still in pyjamas with that just-got-out-of-bed-what-the look. soon, the ambulance, fire-engines, police-cars, tow-trucks and reporters were at the scene. everyone had their own version of the story to tell. we all know mine now and how if it had crashed any further, the drivers might have gotten a mini free show of a hysterical girl in a shower! haha.
and then there was mykhail from the flat above who woke up, and then went back to sleep!!
and caesar was on his laptop and felt everything shake and probably thought it was an earthquake.
and the girls in bavani's flat were cooking when they watched open-mouthed as the whole scene unfolded in slow-motion in front of them.
and vani, she was supposed to meet the guys in the car at night n' day (a convenience store outside toroa) and wondered why there were not there yet. she walked back up and imagine her shock when she saw the car in that state! apparently, those guys had been watching cricket till 6am and were damn hero driving around on pure adrenaline since they had no food in their stomach and no sleep to boot!
funny how it said "angel with attitude" below the license plate number! funny how a whole big bunch of indians suddenly turned up at the scene and were making the most noise (the driver was indian).
oh and mansi just came in my room and she was telling me the driver was actually sitting next to us during indian cultural night but i couldn't recognise him because he was in a dhoti and looked like a 50-year-old man that night haha.
we had to be evacuated from our flat when they were towing the car out just in case it came crashing back into our flat again. so, this was some footage taken outside our flat while waiting.
crazy.
i was taking my shower this morning, sometime near noon i think. i heard a really really loud sound and i thought to myself, wow that's really loud thunder. and after a while, wow, really long thunder and simultaneously, hey there's no thunder in new zealand (i haven't heard thunder once since i arrived) and then, hey why did the thunder cause the cars to horn so crazily??
and why does the horn sound like it was coming from right outside my bathroom?? and then i turned off the shower for a while, and then i thought, i better get out of here! and turned on the shower again to wash off all the soap on me, wrapped myself in a towel and ran out where i saw winnie running towards me telling me a car had crashed. no, not infront of our house, but behind! in that 2m-wide alleyway! we walk to the kitchen window (mind you i'm still dripping wet in a towel) and see these 2 guys (or was it one? i only saw the driver) staring at us from behind their cracked windscreen, airbags all puffed up. they were alright after all that, the airbags saved their lives man!what are the chances of that happening man?? the car had turned in to the driveway one level above us (the street is sloped), went out of control and spun left towards the fence, crashed into it and plunged down straight outside our kitchen, caught between the wall and our house. i mean, just look at this. yes, the picture is the right way up.
the place started getting crowded and everyone was out in their pyjamas and it felt like a saturday morning. yes, 12pm on a friday and everyone's still in pyjamas with that just-got-out-of-bed-what-the look. soon, the ambulance, fire-engines, police-cars, tow-trucks and reporters were at the scene. everyone had their own version of the story to tell. we all know mine now and how if it had crashed any further, the drivers might have gotten a mini free show of a hysterical girl in a shower! haha.
and then there was mykhail from the flat above who woke up, and then went back to sleep!!
and caesar was on his laptop and felt everything shake and probably thought it was an earthquake.
and the girls in bavani's flat were cooking when they watched open-mouthed as the whole scene unfolded in slow-motion in front of them.
and vani, she was supposed to meet the guys in the car at night n' day (a convenience store outside toroa) and wondered why there were not there yet. she walked back up and imagine her shock when she saw the car in that state! apparently, those guys had been watching cricket till 6am and were damn hero driving around on pure adrenaline since they had no food in their stomach and no sleep to boot!
funny how it said "angel with attitude" below the license plate number! funny how a whole big bunch of indians suddenly turned up at the scene and were making the most noise (the driver was indian).
oh and mansi just came in my room and she was telling me the driver was actually sitting next to us during indian cultural night but i couldn't recognise him because he was in a dhoti and looked like a 50-year-old man that night haha.
we had to be evacuated from our flat when they were towing the car out just in case it came crashing back into our flat again. so, this was some footage taken outside our flat while waiting.
crazy.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
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!Tuesday, September 18, 2007
winning a battle, losing a war
Even though I'll never need her,
even though she's only giving me pain,
I'll be on my knees to feed her,
spend a day to make her smile again
Even though I'll never need her,
even though she's only giving me pain
As the world is soft around her,
leaving me with nothing to disdain.
Even though I'm not her minder,
even though she doesn't want me around,
I am on my feet to find her,
to make sure that she is safe and sound.
Even though I'm not her minder,
even though she doesn't want me around,
I am on my feet to find her,
to make sure that she is safe from harm.
The sun sets on the war,
the day breaks and everything is new...
-Kings of Convenience
Even though I'll never need her,
even though she's only giving me pain,
I'll be on my knees to feed her,
spend a day to make her smile again
Even though I'll never need her,
even though she's only giving me pain
As the world is soft around her,
leaving me with nothing to disdain.
Even though I'm not her minder,
even though she doesn't want me around,
I am on my feet to find her,
to make sure that she is safe and sound.
Even though I'm not her minder,
even though she doesn't want me around,
I am on my feet to find her,
to make sure that she is safe from harm.
The sun sets on the war,
the day breaks and everything is new...
-Kings of Convenience
Sunday, September 16, 2007
oh man, what is SHE doing back here again?? ready to feed us more crap??
yes siree! and not because i'm still stuck on my depression report (it's done, complete with cover page and all!! woohoo!!). and not because i have something smart and philosophical to say [hey, i actually might, i always do! ;) [ am very strict about these bracket things thanks to my early math education and am really anal about this]]. rather, it's only just because.. I CAN!!! neninenipoopoo!!
popped by to shanny's blog and she's started talking to herself. popped by to my blog and i found traces of similar conversations with myself. and i'm pretty sure if i popped over to more blogs, i'd find the same pattern. freud would be pleased to see these debates going on between our ids and our superegos on the world wide web in the 21st century, wouldn't you, freud? now i'm talking to a dead psychoanalyst.
i keep watching that OMD video below over and over again. and you should too. the use of colours are amazing! the song itself is beautiful! and i can imagine myself humming that in my mind a few years down the road as i recall the adventures i embarked on when i was younger. but i hope i never reach the stage where i can't bring myself to believe in anything, like how he says he doesn't believe in destiny, love, miracles and truth. for someone who was once walking on the milky way, invincible and iridescent.
speaking of not believing in anything, i just finished a book called, "i'm a believer" by jessica adams, about a guy who didn't believe in anything. it's a strange book, one i picked up as i casually loitered into a second-hand bookshop in kaikoura (aren't 2nd hand bookshops so alluring?). i made the poor old lady at the counter recommend me all sorts of books and churn out synopses from memory and finally settled for the book i laid my eyes on in the first place. isn't that always the case, ladies?
so in this book, this guy's girlfriend dies in a car accident and her spirit starts communicating with him. and suddenly, this guy starts meeting all the different kinds of people he's been avoiding for so long. new age hippies, holy-moly christians, buddhists, psychics. (strangely, almost everything described in the book has happened in my life or around me to people i know!) but seriously, don't be put off by all this. the book isn't about which way is the right way and all that. it's about believing. can you honestly say you know everything? and just because you don't, does that mean you shouldn't believe in anything, not until you know everything? dude, you only have like one lifetime as peter or raja or macy gray or whoever you are. if that's the case, do you think you could get every question answered? and even if you did get every question answered, do you think you would know everything finally? what if there were things you didn't even know you didn't know, where are the questions for those things? what would life be if it were drowned with downright skepticism and cynicism? what would life be without believing, in anything? just wondering, really. i honestly don't know whether it's better believing in something or not believing in anything at all just because it doesn't seem logical. i do know that if i didn't believe in anything, i wouldn't be the shireen i am today. would my life be grey or still as colourful as it is now? would i be a scrooge living in my closet? would i love as dangerously? would i roam as wildly? i don't know really. and it's not like i can try because you can't just throw your faith away like that, especially if it's who you are. what an experiment that would be! i shudder.
yesterday, the hindus were commerating the elephant god, ganesha. and i recalled one such celebration some years back where reports were flying around that the ganesha idols were drinking milk! in india, there was a shortage of milk in many places because people were queuing up at temples to feed it to the ganesha idols. i asked mansi about this yesterday (she's hindu) because she told me that her family would be celebrating back home in india and she would be missing out on all the delicious food. she told me that it really had something to do with the porousness of the idols and some surface tension thing. i searched the net about this and i found these similar explanations. the thing is, most of them probably still believe that ganesha drank the milk and their belief in this would be totally unshakable! then, i was researching about those statues of mary or jesus which were reported to have shed tears or blood. there have been cases where these incidents were a hoax or just a result of some natural process. yet, throngs of people would rush to see them.
i'm not ruling out the fact that miracles don't happen. in fact, i do believe such things are possible. what is amazing about this whole thing though, is a person's immense need to believe in something. even before jesus, even before buddha, people still believed in something. whether it was the greek gods and goddesses or the gods of nature. they still needed to believe in something and believed with all their hearts. now, it's easy for us to sit back here and scoff at their ignorance but, i ask once again, is it really better to believe in nothing? and, so what?
alright, so this is what i'm gonna do. i'm going to finish up the posts for the north island trip and the ski trip which was the week before north island trip. and then, i can get back to the normal, sporadic rants that i so often love to blog. teeheehee.
yes siree! and not because i'm still stuck on my depression report (it's done, complete with cover page and all!! woohoo!!). and not because i have something smart and philosophical to say [hey, i actually might, i always do! ;) [ am very strict about these bracket things thanks to my early math education and am really anal about this]]. rather, it's only just because.. I CAN!!! neninenipoopoo!!
popped by to shanny's blog and she's started talking to herself. popped by to my blog and i found traces of similar conversations with myself. and i'm pretty sure if i popped over to more blogs, i'd find the same pattern. freud would be pleased to see these debates going on between our ids and our superegos on the world wide web in the 21st century, wouldn't you, freud? now i'm talking to a dead psychoanalyst.
i keep watching that OMD video below over and over again. and you should too. the use of colours are amazing! the song itself is beautiful! and i can imagine myself humming that in my mind a few years down the road as i recall the adventures i embarked on when i was younger. but i hope i never reach the stage where i can't bring myself to believe in anything, like how he says he doesn't believe in destiny, love, miracles and truth. for someone who was once walking on the milky way, invincible and iridescent.
speaking of not believing in anything, i just finished a book called, "i'm a believer" by jessica adams, about a guy who didn't believe in anything. it's a strange book, one i picked up as i casually loitered into a second-hand bookshop in kaikoura (aren't 2nd hand bookshops so alluring?). i made the poor old lady at the counter recommend me all sorts of books and churn out synopses from memory and finally settled for the book i laid my eyes on in the first place. isn't that always the case, ladies?
so in this book, this guy's girlfriend dies in a car accident and her spirit starts communicating with him. and suddenly, this guy starts meeting all the different kinds of people he's been avoiding for so long. new age hippies, holy-moly christians, buddhists, psychics. (strangely, almost everything described in the book has happened in my life or around me to people i know!) but seriously, don't be put off by all this. the book isn't about which way is the right way and all that. it's about believing. can you honestly say you know everything? and just because you don't, does that mean you shouldn't believe in anything, not until you know everything? dude, you only have like one lifetime as peter or raja or macy gray or whoever you are. if that's the case, do you think you could get every question answered? and even if you did get every question answered, do you think you would know everything finally? what if there were things you didn't even know you didn't know, where are the questions for those things? what would life be if it were drowned with downright skepticism and cynicism? what would life be without believing, in anything? just wondering, really. i honestly don't know whether it's better believing in something or not believing in anything at all just because it doesn't seem logical. i do know that if i didn't believe in anything, i wouldn't be the shireen i am today. would my life be grey or still as colourful as it is now? would i be a scrooge living in my closet? would i love as dangerously? would i roam as wildly? i don't know really. and it's not like i can try because you can't just throw your faith away like that, especially if it's who you are. what an experiment that would be! i shudder.
yesterday, the hindus were commerating the elephant god, ganesha. and i recalled one such celebration some years back where reports were flying around that the ganesha idols were drinking milk! in india, there was a shortage of milk in many places because people were queuing up at temples to feed it to the ganesha idols. i asked mansi about this yesterday (she's hindu) because she told me that her family would be celebrating back home in india and she would be missing out on all the delicious food. she told me that it really had something to do with the porousness of the idols and some surface tension thing. i searched the net about this and i found these similar explanations. the thing is, most of them probably still believe that ganesha drank the milk and their belief in this would be totally unshakable! then, i was researching about those statues of mary or jesus which were reported to have shed tears or blood. there have been cases where these incidents were a hoax or just a result of some natural process. yet, throngs of people would rush to see them.
i'm not ruling out the fact that miracles don't happen. in fact, i do believe such things are possible. what is amazing about this whole thing though, is a person's immense need to believe in something. even before jesus, even before buddha, people still believed in something. whether it was the greek gods and goddesses or the gods of nature. they still needed to believe in something and believed with all their hearts. now, it's easy for us to sit back here and scoff at their ignorance but, i ask once again, is it really better to believe in nothing? and, so what?
alright, so this is what i'm gonna do. i'm going to finish up the posts for the north island trip and the ski trip which was the week before north island trip. and then, i can get back to the normal, sporadic rants that i so often love to blog. teeheehee.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
by now you should know what it means when you see more posts here. ok, give up? means that i either have an indescribable unshakable urge to spew my thoughts through kilobytes across the internet universe or am attempting to tackle an assignment whose deadline is near, thus not allowing myself the luxury of roaming around town or finishing leftovers at bavani's or planning roadtrips, but rather, releasing the pent-up frustrations of my itchy backside, here. and that is, if i'm not eating chocolate or playing my guitar or grabbing a random bottle of ginger beer from the fridge or hoping mutu sends me an sms or flooding mutu's phone who the hell is mutu you ask.
so now it must be clear it is the latter because i have said absolutely nothing constructive in the past few sentences and am causing you to tremble with a desire to throw something at this screen.
aaargh, c'mon c'mon just read like 50 pages more about depression and summarise them into 2 pages and write your abstract and design a pretty cover page. what's so hard about that! c'mon c'mon!!!
at the moment, i have a sudden craving for music from the era of bad hair and bad fashion and bad dance moves and poses on mtv. i feel like driving in my car, with omd, the cars, dire straits, the cure, new order and what-not blasting through my speakers and creating that feel-good, sunday afternoon feeling in me that even sunday afternoons don't create so often anymore. sigh.
walking on the milky way!
so now it must be clear it is the latter because i have said absolutely nothing constructive in the past few sentences and am causing you to tremble with a desire to throw something at this screen.
aaargh, c'mon c'mon just read like 50 pages more about depression and summarise them into 2 pages and write your abstract and design a pretty cover page. what's so hard about that! c'mon c'mon!!!
at the moment, i have a sudden craving for music from the era of bad hair and bad fashion and bad dance moves and poses on mtv. i feel like driving in my car, with omd, the cars, dire straits, the cure, new order and what-not blasting through my speakers and creating that feel-good, sunday afternoon feeling in me that even sunday afternoons don't create so often anymore. sigh.
walking on the milky way!
sidetrack: what did shireen do today??
finally woke up after so many hours of sleep, probably to recover my sleep debt. spent the day finishing the later half of my abnormal psych lab report but i still have the introduction left. yea, introduction sounds like chicken feet but you're wrong! more article critiquing and lit reviewing is, enough to drive me mad and make me eat 2 bars of chocolate at a go. i mean the big bars! c'mon shireen, get your act together!!
eugene almost gave me a heartattack today. i told you, he's trying to kill me! i had opened my curtains and windows to let some fresh air in and i was there, totally engrossed in my work when i hear a loud, "MUTTON-NI!!!" and see this figure at my window. i literally exclaimed like i never have and swear i could have thrown something at him! haha.
so yes, i finally finish that report, trying to multi-task like mad as winnie and i are trying out baked-rice from scratch and intuition (which didn't taste too bad and i'm hungry now but she finished everything and i have none left sob sob stomach-growl sob!) and changing my clothes in between and trying to do everything as fast as possible so i can talk to mutu for a while. then, suddenly we're off to south dunedin for ice-skating. after warming up for a while, i was on my way making rounds without holding walls anymore! hey, my 2nd or 2rd time only, give me a break. i fell twice, once when i got distracted by some pro skating right across my path and once, when i was just standing somewhere doing nothing. what! you have to focus when you're standing even! it was nice falling on my bum and feeling the shocks sent up from the ice to my bum. as i was telling the others, thank god for my fleshy bum (yes, the one that makes it so hard to find that perfect pair of jeans!). i don't have much photos or whatever to document this event so i'll just put up what i have i.e. some photos and a 5-second video providing evidence i CAN ice-skate! from time to time, i'd stop and look around trying to find those prodigies and those super-talented people making jumps and twirls and what-not on the ice and just drool and wonder when i'm gonna do all that!
blades of glory in the making! oh i can't wait to do all that!!!
finally woke up after so many hours of sleep, probably to recover my sleep debt. spent the day finishing the later half of my abnormal psych lab report but i still have the introduction left. yea, introduction sounds like chicken feet but you're wrong! more article critiquing and lit reviewing is, enough to drive me mad and make me eat 2 bars of chocolate at a go. i mean the big bars! c'mon shireen, get your act together!!
eugene almost gave me a heartattack today. i told you, he's trying to kill me! i had opened my curtains and windows to let some fresh air in and i was there, totally engrossed in my work when i hear a loud, "MUTTON-NI!!!" and see this figure at my window. i literally exclaimed like i never have and swear i could have thrown something at him! haha.
so yes, i finally finish that report, trying to multi-task like mad as winnie and i are trying out baked-rice from scratch and intuition (which didn't taste too bad and i'm hungry now but she finished everything and i have none left sob sob stomach-growl sob!) and changing my clothes in between and trying to do everything as fast as possible so i can talk to mutu for a while. then, suddenly we're off to south dunedin for ice-skating. after warming up for a while, i was on my way making rounds without holding walls anymore! hey, my 2nd or 2rd time only, give me a break. i fell twice, once when i got distracted by some pro skating right across my path and once, when i was just standing somewhere doing nothing. what! you have to focus when you're standing even! it was nice falling on my bum and feeling the shocks sent up from the ice to my bum. as i was telling the others, thank god for my fleshy bum (yes, the one that makes it so hard to find that perfect pair of jeans!). i don't have much photos or whatever to document this event so i'll just put up what i have i.e. some photos and a 5-second video providing evidence i CAN ice-skate! from time to time, i'd stop and look around trying to find those prodigies and those super-talented people making jumps and twirls and what-not on the ice and just drool and wonder when i'm gonna do all that!blades of glory in the making! oh i can't wait to do all that!!!
Friday, September 14, 2007
funny. we just got back from murphy's, an irish pub near the octagon. and some of the songs being performed were almost unrecognisable. i got a shock when i realised that one of the songs being played was times like these by the foo fighters. and strangely enough, it has started playing on my itunes right this second. synchronicity.
day 7, 30th august 2007: aukland to waitomo, i can't believe we're drinking coffee in a cave, with these crazy wet suits on!
thankfully, there were no flat batteries this time and we blew flying kisses to aukland as he headed on to waitomo. i don't know why but doesn't the word "waitomo" sound like a place full of bats??
we were looking forward to waitomo though. because of the motel we were going to be staying in!! i mean, have you ever stayed in an aeroplane motel??
i'm not talking about stretching yourself horizontally on those sleek business class seats on singapore airlines, you lucky *peep*!! i mean, we cooked, bathed, shat, slept, watched tv, played bridge (not me) and whatever else on a real-life aeroplane! and it was the first time i experienced sleeping on an electrically-heated bed/blanket? i don't know exactly know what was heated but off came the socks and jacket and blanket because it felt like i was sleeping on warm coal!
here's a video tour of the motel. you can even hear the farm animals trying to get their say in. this video was taken the morning after so you can get a glimpse of our morning routines during the trip i.e. breakfast and packing!
so...my faithful lonely planet guide says that "waitomo is a must-do on the NZ adventure activities pilgrimage and justifiably so." and i don't think they're very far off really. just one or two hours upon arrival, we were already squeezing ourselves into these crazily tight wet suits and some other gear and of course, our bob the builder helmets and heading off towards some caves!
let me explain some stuff first. the name waitomo comes from wai (water) and tomo (hole or shaft) and waitomo is apparently full of these limestone caves. and the other thing is that, bavani was really afraid. but you did well, girlfriend! giggle giggle.
so, we began by abseiling down one of these shafts. it was the most interesting abseiling experience i've had. the beginning part was sooo narrow, and after that, i kept wondering whether my hands were brushing against glow-worms everytime i hit the wall because i was so paranoid about the slimy things i was feeling. it's nice to look at glow-worms really, amazing even! but i don't think i want to touch them!! haha. so anyway, our heroine for the day, bavani, was petrified coming down for some reason. so there i was, standing next to the cute, hungover kiwi belayer at the bottom, singing UNDER THE SEA to bavani, with some occasional alterations to the lyrics. and then, we ran out of words and had to change song. so we sang hakuna matata. even the belayer joined in because he knew the lyrics this time haha.
once we all were through, we walked through some passage way and reached the flying fox where we were hooked onto a rope and sent hurtling down into darkness! every time someone went, we would hear a really loud thud at the end of it and i was so convinced that they had landed onto a giant beanbag or something. don't ask me why i thought they would bring a giant beanbag into the cave. so when my turn came, i got a pleasant shock! yes, everything went dark BUT...suddenly i found myself staring at "glow-in-the-dark stars"!! so many of them, glow-worms of course! then i reached the end of the line, and there was no loud thud! it was just our crazy guide banging the tubes to frighten all those yet to come flying down.
it was at this point where they got us to sit in one line and dangle our legs over the edge of some rocks while they distributed cups to each one of us. then they went down the line saying, "coffee or tea?" what the hell!!! haha. and they also gave us some yummy cake to eat. i was hesitant about drinking the coffee because i knew i would be needing the toilet real soon should any enter my gullet. unfortunately, i was right and i had to pee in the cave sometime later. no, it wasn't the fact that i had no proper toilet that irked me. it was having to remove the stupid wet suit and put it back on again!!! peeing has never been more tiring!!!
so after having our high-tea, we were asked to take a tube each and then, jump off some cliff into the icy water below! there i found myself again, giving a pep talk to bavani. and i'm thinking, ever since when did i get so brave that i could be giving pep talks to other people instead?? truth is, i was like, shit do i have to jump off that thing?? then bavani tells me to go ahead off her after all that pep-talking and i'm thinking, who's gonna pep talk her now??? eugene definitely isn't helping!! haha.
so i take a leap into the water and oh my gosh, i think i got a brainfreeze for a few seconds. ICY!! the next part was fun. we floated on our tubes through a cave, and lay down on one another, as we stared towards the cave ceiling and oooh-ed and aaaah-ed at the galaxies of glow-worms above us. galaxies, because they looked like stars! and i started singing, "man you should have seen us, on the way to venus, walking on the milky way, it was quite a day hey hey..." remember that song?? by OMD?
my head is vibrating alot though, because i had placed it on dias' leg and he was shivering AGAIN. shiver, shiver, shiver. and after all that, he'll still tell you, "i love this!".
ah too bad, like MOST good things, not all, miss nelly, it came to an end. the next part saw us negotiating all these jagged uneven pieces of rock as we walked on further into the caves. i was amazed by our guides who knew exactly where to step, which rocks to step on, everything! amazing!! this was the part i had to go pee, when we stopped for another one of those coffee-breaks! and they were even handing out cadbury MILK CHOCOLATE, no nuts!! and i declined!!! haha. the cute belayer was so shocked that i wouldn't have any chocolate but i was busy strategising about my pee la!
we finally reached a fork in the path. robert frost's words echoed in our minds. "two roads diverged in a wood, and i--i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." drama la, you shireen. but really, we now had to make a choice whether to take the easier route or the harder route, with waterfalls and all that. and yeap, we chose the harder one. i really felt like indiana jones the whole time. squeezing in between rocks, climbing up waterfalls against the flow of the falling water, crawling through tunnels, climbing up more waterfalls! oh gosh! exciting! (tiring!)
but not as tiring as the walk back i tell you! can you imagine, we go through all that in the caves but the most tiring part is the walk back from the caves to the van once we are on land already? crazy! i find alot of things crazy huh? i'm one to say that!
the cute belayer probably went off to nurse his hangover so we took a photo with the other guide alone. caving like that was so fun (save for those wet suits) and i really felt like the adventurer i always dreamed myself to become one day when i was say, 6 or 7. really, people would ask about my ambition and i would say, i wanted to be an adventurer! haha. crazy (stop saying crazy, shireen!!) (i can't stop!!!) (stop it right now!! everyone's gonna think you're crazy now!! talking to yourself on your blog!!) (i thought i was always talking to myself on my blog!) (shoooosh!)
dinner was CRAZY. really, it's apt to say crazy now. bavani and i cooked chicken curry and some genius amongst us said we should eat outside because the sky was so clear. really, it was, totally powdered with stars it looked like we were in those glow-worm caves again. so eugene and dias are hard at work preparing the ambience outside i.e. lighting up kerosene lamps or whatever gadget dias has brought along. i knew from the beginning it would be disaster. the wind was on a rampage or something man. i had to put on socks and shoes, and more layers over the ones i was already wearing just to eat outside!!! we went back in after a few minutes because 1. it was toooooooo windy 2. everything was getting cold too fast 3. the wind was not funny anymore 4. it was too windy 5. it was too windy 6. it was too...
will never forget it. i think i was really hungry after dinner that night. i thought about you , mervin prakash. because you like aeroplanes and adventure. and i knew you would like what we were planning to do tomorrow as well, quad-biking!! that's coming up tomorrow!
day 7, 30th august 2007: aukland to waitomo, i can't believe we're drinking coffee in a cave, with these crazy wet suits on!
thankfully, there were no flat batteries this time and we blew flying kisses to aukland as he headed on to waitomo. i don't know why but doesn't the word "waitomo" sound like a place full of bats??
we were looking forward to waitomo though. because of the motel we were going to be staying in!! i mean, have you ever stayed in an aeroplane motel??
i'm not talking about stretching yourself horizontally on those sleek business class seats on singapore airlines, you lucky *peep*!! i mean, we cooked, bathed, shat, slept, watched tv, played bridge (not me) and whatever else on a real-life aeroplane! and it was the first time i experienced sleeping on an electrically-heated bed/blanket? i don't know exactly know what was heated but off came the socks and jacket and blanket because it felt like i was sleeping on warm coal!here's a video tour of the motel. you can even hear the farm animals trying to get their say in. this video was taken the morning after so you can get a glimpse of our morning routines during the trip i.e. breakfast and packing!
so...my faithful lonely planet guide says that "waitomo is a must-do on the NZ adventure activities pilgrimage and justifiably so." and i don't think they're very far off really. just one or two hours upon arrival, we were already squeezing ourselves into these crazily tight wet suits and some other gear and of course, our bob the builder helmets and heading off towards some caves!let me explain some stuff first. the name waitomo comes from wai (water) and tomo (hole or shaft) and waitomo is apparently full of these limestone caves. and the other thing is that, bavani was really afraid. but you did well, girlfriend! giggle giggle.
so, we began by abseiling down one of these shafts. it was the most interesting abseiling experience i've had. the beginning part was sooo narrow, and after that, i kept wondering whether my hands were brushing against glow-worms everytime i hit the wall because i was so paranoid about the slimy things i was feeling. it's nice to look at glow-worms really, amazing even! but i don't think i want to touch them!! haha. so anyway, our heroine for the day, bavani, was petrified coming down for some reason. so there i was, standing next to the cute, hungover kiwi belayer at the bottom, singing UNDER THE SEA to bavani, with some occasional alterations to the lyrics. and then, we ran out of words and had to change song. so we sang hakuna matata. even the belayer joined in because he knew the lyrics this time haha.
once we all were through, we walked through some passage way and reached the flying fox where we were hooked onto a rope and sent hurtling down into darkness! every time someone went, we would hear a really loud thud at the end of it and i was so convinced that they had landed onto a giant beanbag or something. don't ask me why i thought they would bring a giant beanbag into the cave. so when my turn came, i got a pleasant shock! yes, everything went dark BUT...suddenly i found myself staring at "glow-in-the-dark stars"!! so many of them, glow-worms of course! then i reached the end of the line, and there was no loud thud! it was just our crazy guide banging the tubes to frighten all those yet to come flying down.
it was at this point where they got us to sit in one line and dangle our legs over the edge of some rocks while they distributed cups to each one of us. then they went down the line saying, "coffee or tea?" what the hell!!! haha. and they also gave us some yummy cake to eat. i was hesitant about drinking the coffee because i knew i would be needing the toilet real soon should any enter my gullet. unfortunately, i was right and i had to pee in the cave sometime later. no, it wasn't the fact that i had no proper toilet that irked me. it was having to remove the stupid wet suit and put it back on again!!! peeing has never been more tiring!!!so after having our high-tea, we were asked to take a tube each and then, jump off some cliff into the icy water below! there i found myself again, giving a pep talk to bavani. and i'm thinking, ever since when did i get so brave that i could be giving pep talks to other people instead?? truth is, i was like, shit do i have to jump off that thing?? then bavani tells me to go ahead off her after all that pep-talking and i'm thinking, who's gonna pep talk her now??? eugene definitely isn't helping!! haha.
so i take a leap into the water and oh my gosh, i think i got a brainfreeze for a few seconds. ICY!! the next part was fun. we floated on our tubes through a cave, and lay down on one another, as we stared towards the cave ceiling and oooh-ed and aaaah-ed at the galaxies of glow-worms above us. galaxies, because they looked like stars! and i started singing, "man you should have seen us, on the way to venus, walking on the milky way, it was quite a day hey hey..." remember that song?? by OMD?
my head is vibrating alot though, because i had placed it on dias' leg and he was shivering AGAIN. shiver, shiver, shiver. and after all that, he'll still tell you, "i love this!".
ah too bad, like MOST good things, not all, miss nelly, it came to an end. the next part saw us negotiating all these jagged uneven pieces of rock as we walked on further into the caves. i was amazed by our guides who knew exactly where to step, which rocks to step on, everything! amazing!! this was the part i had to go pee, when we stopped for another one of those coffee-breaks! and they were even handing out cadbury MILK CHOCOLATE, no nuts!! and i declined!!! haha. the cute belayer was so shocked that i wouldn't have any chocolate but i was busy strategising about my pee la!
we finally reached a fork in the path. robert frost's words echoed in our minds. "two roads diverged in a wood, and i--i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." drama la, you shireen. but really, we now had to make a choice whether to take the easier route or the harder route, with waterfalls and all that. and yeap, we chose the harder one. i really felt like indiana jones the whole time. squeezing in between rocks, climbing up waterfalls against the flow of the falling water, crawling through tunnels, climbing up more waterfalls! oh gosh! exciting! (tiring!)
but not as tiring as the walk back i tell you! can you imagine, we go through all that in the caves but the most tiring part is the walk back from the caves to the van once we are on land already? crazy! i find alot of things crazy huh? i'm one to say that!
the cute belayer probably went off to nurse his hangover so we took a photo with the other guide alone. caving like that was so fun (save for those wet suits) and i really felt like the adventurer i always dreamed myself to become one day when i was say, 6 or 7. really, people would ask about my ambition and i would say, i wanted to be an adventurer! haha. crazy (stop saying crazy, shireen!!) (i can't stop!!!) (stop it right now!! everyone's gonna think you're crazy now!! talking to yourself on your blog!!) (i thought i was always talking to myself on my blog!) (shoooosh!)
check out the lord of the rings thingy on the right!!
dinner was CRAZY. really, it's apt to say crazy now. bavani and i cooked chicken curry and some genius amongst us said we should eat outside because the sky was so clear. really, it was, totally powdered with stars it looked like we were in those glow-worm caves again. so eugene and dias are hard at work preparing the ambience outside i.e. lighting up kerosene lamps or whatever gadget dias has brought along. i knew from the beginning it would be disaster. the wind was on a rampage or something man. i had to put on socks and shoes, and more layers over the ones i was already wearing just to eat outside!!! we went back in after a few minutes because 1. it was toooooooo windy 2. everything was getting cold too fast 3. the wind was not funny anymore 4. it was too windy 5. it was too windy 6. it was too...
will never forget it. i think i was really hungry after dinner that night. i thought about you , mervin prakash. because you like aeroplanes and adventure. and i knew you would like what we were planning to do tomorrow as well, quad-biking!! that's coming up tomorrow!
crazy. 'nuff said.
p.s. gavin didn't snore. he can be an ambassador for the beds at woodlyn park. "i totally didn't snore last night thanks to the comfortable beds at woodlyn park. thanks, woodlyn park! every traveller's dream!"
p.s. gavin didn't snore. he can be an ambassador for the beds at woodlyn park. "i totally didn't snore last night thanks to the comfortable beds at woodlyn park. thanks, woodlyn park! every traveller's dream!"
Sunday, September 09, 2007
interlude: random thoughts on the road to cape reinga
in nature, males always look better than females i.e. peacock & peahen. so why do women try to look so good all the time?
what do fetuses in their mothers' wombs think about and when they are born, what are they thinking when they first see the world? similarly, what about calves? and when they are born, do they wonder about the life they have been born into? do they immediately learn how to eat grass all day long? i can't imagine eating grass all day long.
out here, i wonder alot about animal societies and how mob mentality breeds amongst them. why mayhem seems to suddenly spread amongst the gulls, causing all to start flying in every direction, only to come to rest at the same place and position again. or why all the sheep suddenly start to walk in a line towards another corner of the field, even when there are no sheepdogs around. i wonder why stray dead possums are found on the road so often and why i've not seen a single live one around.
i wonder about the co-existing of cows and birds and the chemistry between sheepdogs and sheep and farmers.
i see the cute little lambs and their mommies and how they walk so awkwardly and i think of reno and the happy smile on his face and his awkward way of walking towards the end of his joy-giving existence. i feel a tinge of sadness, thinking about the inevitable, unavoidable separation that will occur between the lambs and the calves and the new-born babies and their mothers and fathers one day. and i know it has to be that way. i hold on to my faith that everything in this universe springs from and returns to the same source and that we are all inexplicably connected, more than we can ever know, such that there is no separation between life and death, a separation which exists only in thoughts.
Alpha & Omega.
THANK YOU, GOD! the experience of expressing these thoughts on paper gives me the sense that i am here and this is me and i am exactly where i should be, and in this moment, i am in balance.
p.s. once in a while, i pen down stuff in my notebook/on random scrap of paper, tissue, etc when i have the urge to write.
in nature, males always look better than females i.e. peacock & peahen. so why do women try to look so good all the time?
what do fetuses in their mothers' wombs think about and when they are born, what are they thinking when they first see the world? similarly, what about calves? and when they are born, do they wonder about the life they have been born into? do they immediately learn how to eat grass all day long? i can't imagine eating grass all day long.
out here, i wonder alot about animal societies and how mob mentality breeds amongst them. why mayhem seems to suddenly spread amongst the gulls, causing all to start flying in every direction, only to come to rest at the same place and position again. or why all the sheep suddenly start to walk in a line towards another corner of the field, even when there are no sheepdogs around. i wonder why stray dead possums are found on the road so often and why i've not seen a single live one around.
i wonder about the co-existing of cows and birds and the chemistry between sheepdogs and sheep and farmers.
i see the cute little lambs and their mommies and how they walk so awkwardly and i think of reno and the happy smile on his face and his awkward way of walking towards the end of his joy-giving existence. i feel a tinge of sadness, thinking about the inevitable, unavoidable separation that will occur between the lambs and the calves and the new-born babies and their mothers and fathers one day. and i know it has to be that way. i hold on to my faith that everything in this universe springs from and returns to the same source and that we are all inexplicably connected, more than we can ever know, such that there is no separation between life and death, a separation which exists only in thoughts.
Alpha & Omega.
THANK YOU, GOD! the experience of expressing these thoughts on paper gives me the sense that i am here and this is me and i am exactly where i should be, and in this moment, i am in balance.
p.s. once in a while, i pen down stuff in my notebook/on random scrap of paper, tissue, etc when i have the urge to write.
day 6, 29th august 2007: paihia to cape reinga to paihia to aukland, alpha and omega
oh man oh man where do i start????
ok, we woke up pretty early today (as in before 7am!!) to board the bus to cape reinga. our bus-driver-cum-tour-guide was a real interesting fella who never seemed to run out of stories to tell and spoke with a pirate drawl. he's half-irish, half-scottish and just plain crazy. haha.
well, some of the stuff was pretty touristy but i didn't really mind. we were brought to the kauri forest to oooh and aaah at the gigantic kauri trees. i enjoyed listening and reading about how these trees can heal themselves using their own sap, which coincidentally has various uses like fuel and rubber. in fact, almost every part of the tree can be used for one thing or the other. 
it was thus not surprising that the next stop was the kauri shop with all the kauri furniture and what-not. i bought a wooden postcard to send home from the postbox at cape reinga (it's like a must-do thing, haha. after all, cape reinga is the northernmost point of new zealand).
finally, we headed off to...no not yet. first we headed off to lunch. lunch was great! but i was so sore that we only had one piece of steak and sausage each! how disappointing!!! ok, now we finally head off to cape reinga.
the drive there was really pleasant and we were introduced to alot of maori culture through the stories of our guide and the various sights we saw on the way. the guide seemed to know everything by heart. like the shop with a huge flip-flop collection placed as an art piece outside, the fence with random bicycles hung on them, the dog on its regular morning walk with its owner...i tuned into my ipod as the rest went to play bridge at the back, lost in my thoughts and my own world. we passed a maori church where "alpha and omega" were written at the top and i thought, how apt, really. just how apt.
cape reinga, the maori believe, is the final place of departure of spirits from the earth. as we approached it, surrounded by views of the ocean from both sides, the guide sang a maori hymm for our loved ones who have departed and i thought of reno and decided i would finally say bye to him there. what better place?? strangely, or not, bavani also lost her grandma that day, god rest her soul.
when we reached cape reinga, i posted my wooden postcard and took a slow walk alone to the lighthouse, plugged into my ipod with the most perfect song for the most perfect setting and just let everything wash over me. i sent thoughts of reno to the sky and said goodbye to him. you can't imagine the beauty of the place, really. and i do have a weakness for lighthouses.
didn't take that many photos but i took alot of videos. i really don't know where to aim when i'm in such places. sigh.
next stop was the dunes! reminded me of the time in michigan when auncle jackie's kids and melt and i went running up sand dunes to run down them i.e. TIRING!!! UNTIL CAN DIE!!! haha. i don't know how dias could do it 5 times. by the 2nd time, i thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest really. and the first time i tobogganned down, i think i ate alot of sand, and since then, kept tasting sand in my mouth the whole day. hmmm. it was fun though. glen's specs flew off into the sand and one of the lenses dropped off. amazingly i found a shiny little object just staring up at me from the sand and glen managed to fix everything back in one piece again. now he has a different view on life, so he claims.
right after that, we headed to the 90-mile beach, where, yes, the bus really went along the stretch of the beach. we stopped for a while and little-miss-rainbows-and-butterflies-shireen thought everyone was looking for pretty shells to bring home so she started picking her own. and when she went back to join the group, she immediately threw back her shells in embarrassment.
there, my friends, i found bags being filled with live clams...there were soooo many of them. and i questioned the driver about it and you know what he did next? he broke a clam shell right infront of me and poured the contents of the living, squirming clam into his hungry mouth!!! and then, everyone started doing it!!! yours truly joined in too after much resistance and surprisingly, it didn't taste sooo bad! and again, i started feeling sand in my mouth. hmmm...
gavin feeding shireen a live clam!! cos she's too chicken to do it herself!!
that was pretty much the gist of the day. when we got back to paihia, we had to leave immediately for aukland to spend the night there before heading off to waitomo the next day. dias was pretty grumpy the next morning about having very little sleep because apparently the walls of the yha were so thin he could hear us having our heart-to-heart talks in the next room and also because leonard's alarm went off at 530am. poor dias.
oh man oh man where do i start????
ok, we woke up pretty early today (as in before 7am!!) to board the bus to cape reinga. our bus-driver-cum-tour-guide was a real interesting fella who never seemed to run out of stories to tell and spoke with a pirate drawl. he's half-irish, half-scottish and just plain crazy. haha.
well, some of the stuff was pretty touristy but i didn't really mind. we were brought to the kauri forest to oooh and aaah at the gigantic kauri trees. i enjoyed listening and reading about how these trees can heal themselves using their own sap, which coincidentally has various uses like fuel and rubber. in fact, almost every part of the tree can be used for one thing or the other. 
it was thus not surprising that the next stop was the kauri shop with all the kauri furniture and what-not. i bought a wooden postcard to send home from the postbox at cape reinga (it's like a must-do thing, haha. after all, cape reinga is the northernmost point of new zealand).finally, we headed off to...no not yet. first we headed off to lunch. lunch was great! but i was so sore that we only had one piece of steak and sausage each! how disappointing!!! ok, now we finally head off to cape reinga.
the drive there was really pleasant and we were introduced to alot of maori culture through the stories of our guide and the various sights we saw on the way. the guide seemed to know everything by heart. like the shop with a huge flip-flop collection placed as an art piece outside, the fence with random bicycles hung on them, the dog on its regular morning walk with its owner...i tuned into my ipod as the rest went to play bridge at the back, lost in my thoughts and my own world. we passed a maori church where "alpha and omega" were written at the top and i thought, how apt, really. just how apt.
cape reinga, the maori believe, is the final place of departure of spirits from the earth. as we approached it, surrounded by views of the ocean from both sides, the guide sang a maori hymm for our loved ones who have departed and i thought of reno and decided i would finally say bye to him there. what better place?? strangely, or not, bavani also lost her grandma that day, god rest her soul. when we reached cape reinga, i posted my wooden postcard and took a slow walk alone to the lighthouse, plugged into my ipod with the most perfect song for the most perfect setting and just let everything wash over me. i sent thoughts of reno to the sky and said goodbye to him. you can't imagine the beauty of the place, really. and i do have a weakness for lighthouses.
didn't take that many photos but i took alot of videos. i really don't know where to aim when i'm in such places. sigh.
next stop was the dunes! reminded me of the time in michigan when auncle jackie's kids and melt and i went running up sand dunes to run down them i.e. TIRING!!! UNTIL CAN DIE!!! haha. i don't know how dias could do it 5 times. by the 2nd time, i thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest really. and the first time i tobogganned down, i think i ate alot of sand, and since then, kept tasting sand in my mouth the whole day. hmmm. it was fun though. glen's specs flew off into the sand and one of the lenses dropped off. amazingly i found a shiny little object just staring up at me from the sand and glen managed to fix everything back in one piece again. now he has a different view on life, so he claims.right after that, we headed to the 90-mile beach, where, yes, the bus really went along the stretch of the beach. we stopped for a while and little-miss-rainbows-and-butterflies-shireen thought everyone was looking for pretty shells to bring home so she started picking her own. and when she went back to join the group, she immediately threw back her shells in embarrassment.
there, my friends, i found bags being filled with live clams...there were soooo many of them. and i questioned the driver about it and you know what he did next? he broke a clam shell right infront of me and poured the contents of the living, squirming clam into his hungry mouth!!! and then, everyone started doing it!!! yours truly joined in too after much resistance and surprisingly, it didn't taste sooo bad! and again, i started feeling sand in my mouth. hmmm...gavin feeding shireen a live clam!! cos she's too chicken to do it herself!!
that was pretty much the gist of the day. when we got back to paihia, we had to leave immediately for aukland to spend the night there before heading off to waitomo the next day. dias was pretty grumpy the next morning about having very little sleep because apparently the walls of the yha were so thin he could hear us having our heart-to-heart talks in the next room and also because leonard's alarm went off at 530am. poor dias.
day 5, 28th august 2007: rotorua to paihia, it's just a flat battery
i woke up in the morning to an sms. "i can't start the car. can one of you come down?" turns out my car battery was flat and dias was trying to move my car so that we wouldn't get a parking fine. in the end, paid a whopping $225 in total to get everything fixed. sian! that's so going into the resale price! new battery with 3 years guarantee!!
i was pretty out of sorts today though. i would say this was the lowest point for me in the trip so far. but it got better. read on.
so after everything got fixed, we headed off to the sky tower in aukland where dias and glen were to do their skyjump. yeap, they were to jump off from the top off the sky tower and plunge down 192m. not bad ar glen and dias, skydive, skyjump. sure makes the portfolio look good!
still, my heart was pretty restless and i had a strong urge to find a church and be infront of the eucharist. little did i know that i would be able to RECEIVE the eucharist. god is great indeed. small little insignificant me with small little insignificant things to cry about, he takes care of everything. i parted from the group and went to the isite office (tourist office) to find out where the nearest catholic church was and it turns out that it was just two streets down! so i find my way there and am elated to find that there's mass in half an hour in the chapel!
my heart was bouncing and beating so fast with excitement that i was half-running back to check with the others whether it was ok for me to go. turns out the rest have boarded a free tour bus on impulse and are stuck on a city tour and dias and glen are waiting for their skyjump photos and video.
i was quite amazed to find that the chapel actually got filled up and there were people from all over the world, all putting aside sometime in the middle of a work day to come spend those few minutes to receive nourishment for their soul and give thanks to god for the wonder and joy of their being. as if that was not enough, the priest said he would hear confessions after mass and i just knew i had to go. there was so much unforgiveness in my heart, so much selfishness (me! me! me!), so much indifference...and i think that was the most penance i ever got from any confession haha. but praise god!
after lunch, we headed on to paihia at the bay of islands. the sky was awesome on the way there, with rays of sunshine bursting through clouds, as though the light of heaven was piercing through to reach the earth.
when we reached our hostel at paihia, we were greeted by news that there was going to be a lunar eclipse that night. and what was even better was that the sky was spotless! while waiting for dinner, shanny and i borrowed tennis rackets and balls from the reception and ran to find a tennis court where we played speed-tennis for 15 minutes. we had to rush because the lady was closing her counter in 20 minutes. but it was worth it. i love tennis! i love sports where i get to hit things. haha.
after dinner, i was torn between watching the eclipse and...UGLY BETTY!!! i was elated! ugly betty episode 23, the last episode of season 1! i've been trying to watch it since like forever and suddenly it's just there on tv infront of me. and the thing is, i hardly watch tv in new zealand and on one of the rare occasions that i do, ugly betty episode 23 is on!!! thank you, god!!! we did manage to catch the lunar eclipse too and i felt so special, like a character from heroes. well, there was an eclipse in the first episode of heroes what!
as usual, the bridge club continued their shenanigans and i felt like a mother telling them to go sleep. eugene was damn noisy la!
i woke up in the morning to an sms. "i can't start the car. can one of you come down?" turns out my car battery was flat and dias was trying to move my car so that we wouldn't get a parking fine. in the end, paid a whopping $225 in total to get everything fixed. sian! that's so going into the resale price! new battery with 3 years guarantee!!
i was pretty out of sorts today though. i would say this was the lowest point for me in the trip so far. but it got better. read on.
so after everything got fixed, we headed off to the sky tower in aukland where dias and glen were to do their skyjump. yeap, they were to jump off from the top off the sky tower and plunge down 192m. not bad ar glen and dias, skydive, skyjump. sure makes the portfolio look good!still, my heart was pretty restless and i had a strong urge to find a church and be infront of the eucharist. little did i know that i would be able to RECEIVE the eucharist. god is great indeed. small little insignificant me with small little insignificant things to cry about, he takes care of everything. i parted from the group and went to the isite office (tourist office) to find out where the nearest catholic church was and it turns out that it was just two streets down! so i find my way there and am elated to find that there's mass in half an hour in the chapel!
my heart was bouncing and beating so fast with excitement that i was half-running back to check with the others whether it was ok for me to go. turns out the rest have boarded a free tour bus on impulse and are stuck on a city tour and dias and glen are waiting for their skyjump photos and video.i was quite amazed to find that the chapel actually got filled up and there were people from all over the world, all putting aside sometime in the middle of a work day to come spend those few minutes to receive nourishment for their soul and give thanks to god for the wonder and joy of their being. as if that was not enough, the priest said he would hear confessions after mass and i just knew i had to go. there was so much unforgiveness in my heart, so much selfishness (me! me! me!), so much indifference...and i think that was the most penance i ever got from any confession haha. but praise god!
after lunch, we headed on to paihia at the bay of islands. the sky was awesome on the way there, with rays of sunshine bursting through clouds, as though the light of heaven was piercing through to reach the earth.
when we reached our hostel at paihia, we were greeted by news that there was going to be a lunar eclipse that night. and what was even better was that the sky was spotless! while waiting for dinner, shanny and i borrowed tennis rackets and balls from the reception and ran to find a tennis court where we played speed-tennis for 15 minutes. we had to rush because the lady was closing her counter in 20 minutes. but it was worth it. i love tennis! i love sports where i get to hit things. haha.
after dinner, i was torn between watching the eclipse and...UGLY BETTY!!! i was elated! ugly betty episode 23, the last episode of season 1! i've been trying to watch it since like forever and suddenly it's just there on tv infront of me. and the thing is, i hardly watch tv in new zealand and on one of the rare occasions that i do, ugly betty episode 23 is on!!! thank you, god!!! we did manage to catch the lunar eclipse too and i felt so special, like a character from heroes. well, there was an eclipse in the first episode of heroes what!
as usual, the bridge club continued their shenanigans and i felt like a mother telling them to go sleep. eugene was damn noisy la!
day 4, 27th august 2007: rotorua to aukland, like rolling down a hill in a big ball
didn't take much photos today. kept thinking about reno. look at the sheep, think of reno. look at the birds, thing of reno. everything also reno. what to do? he's so unforgettable.
we began the day with zorbing. i didn't do it, but eugene and dias went for it. they did the hydro zorb where they roll down a hill in a great big ball filled with some water. heroes lar these two guys. dressed in a mere pair of shorts and a t-shirt each, each time they hatched out of the ball, they were shivering like munchkins. i don't know why i said munchkins.
since that day, i always laugh to myself whenever i picture dias shivering. he will shiver like there's no tomorrow and tell you at the same time that he's loving it. dias loves a piece of challenge any day. fact of the day, he has only 5% body fat. how unfair! haha.
zorbing!
how duh is this right? that's dias for you!
after zorbing, we went luging, but we don't have pictures for that because we were all busy luging. the highlight was actually the skyswing which glen, bavani and shanny went on. you should have seen bavani. she screamed and screamed and...screamed. she screamed before the ride started, she screamed throughout the whole ride, she screamed even while the ride was ending when shanny and glen were pretending to scream already. there were even residual screams in short bursts. it's amazing. the video is really huge and it's taking so long to upload. i'll put it up some time for comic relief.
and after all that, we decided to go treat ourselves at a hot springs spa since we got so wet in the rain while luging. yes, shanny was right in her post. it was a day of firsts for bavani and me, haha. thank you shanny. you have opened up a whole new world of possibility for us!! we are eternally grateful!!
no pictures to show. but i recall a mental image of dias shivering again because the pools are all open-air and every time you come out, you are hit by a blast of cold air. and our dear dias kept running to the cold showers to get a shot of cold water sprayed on him so that he could come out shivering and grinning like an insane skeleton, only to do it again! mad!!! and the other image i recall, the crazy seagulls!!! they're crazy, seriously! they're all just gathered right infront of you, on the edge of the lake, making a really big racket, and suddenly, they start flying in all directions as though disaster has struck, only to fly back to the same place again and make more noise. what are they making so much noise for?? and why do they suddenly disperse? what is going on with them???? i need to know!!!!!!!
thanks to the hot springs, shanny and i totally knocked out in the car for a while as we headed to aukland. we're doing laundry so much the big cupboard of a suitcase in my car has been rendered redundant and i am only alternating between 3 different tops and pairs of undies these days! haha. i should have just brought all my belongings in a little basket.
didn't take much photos today. kept thinking about reno. look at the sheep, think of reno. look at the birds, thing of reno. everything also reno. what to do? he's so unforgettable.
we began the day with zorbing. i didn't do it, but eugene and dias went for it. they did the hydro zorb where they roll down a hill in a great big ball filled with some water. heroes lar these two guys. dressed in a mere pair of shorts and a t-shirt each, each time they hatched out of the ball, they were shivering like munchkins. i don't know why i said munchkins.since that day, i always laugh to myself whenever i picture dias shivering. he will shiver like there's no tomorrow and tell you at the same time that he's loving it. dias loves a piece of challenge any day. fact of the day, he has only 5% body fat. how unfair! haha.
zorbing!
how duh is this right? that's dias for you!
shireen: so how was it?
dias: well (thinks a bit), it was like rolling down a hill in a big ball.
shireen: ...
after zorbing, we went luging, but we don't have pictures for that because we were all busy luging. the highlight was actually the skyswing which glen, bavani and shanny went on. you should have seen bavani. she screamed and screamed and...screamed. she screamed before the ride started, she screamed throughout the whole ride, she screamed even while the ride was ending when shanny and glen were pretending to scream already. there were even residual screams in short bursts. it's amazing. the video is really huge and it's taking so long to upload. i'll put it up some time for comic relief.
and after all that, we decided to go treat ourselves at a hot springs spa since we got so wet in the rain while luging. yes, shanny was right in her post. it was a day of firsts for bavani and me, haha. thank you shanny. you have opened up a whole new world of possibility for us!! we are eternally grateful!!
no pictures to show. but i recall a mental image of dias shivering again because the pools are all open-air and every time you come out, you are hit by a blast of cold air. and our dear dias kept running to the cold showers to get a shot of cold water sprayed on him so that he could come out shivering and grinning like an insane skeleton, only to do it again! mad!!! and the other image i recall, the crazy seagulls!!! they're crazy, seriously! they're all just gathered right infront of you, on the edge of the lake, making a really big racket, and suddenly, they start flying in all directions as though disaster has struck, only to fly back to the same place again and make more noise. what are they making so much noise for?? and why do they suddenly disperse? what is going on with them???? i need to know!!!!!!!
thanks to the hot springs, shanny and i totally knocked out in the car for a while as we headed to aukland. we're doing laundry so much the big cupboard of a suitcase in my car has been rendered redundant and i am only alternating between 3 different tops and pairs of undies these days! haha. i should have just brought all my belongings in a little basket.