Bungy!

The pictures describes it all. My brother and I went bungy jumping at the original AJ Hackett bungy jumping site, the Kawarau Bridge. It's only 43m high and it's over a river that you can choose to dip into the water. Enjoy the pics!

NZ: North Island

I spent 3 days total with my folks exploring North Island of New Zealand. My brother and I went to check out the Auckland Fish Market, which is a smaller version of the Sydney Fish Market. We had some great mussels there
Next stop Rotorua and the thermal spas. We went to Te Puia which is a Maori Cultural center. We had a chance to see the shy kiwi birds and also see the boiling mudpools. The air had a heavy sulfur smell because of the volanic activities. We had a chance to enjoy the thermal spas overnight, making it a nice relaxing experience.

boiling mudpools

Te Puia

Agrodome Sheep show

After we got back from the South Island, my brother and I went to Tiritiri Matangi Island which is a bird sanctuary. We had a fabulous tour guide who helped us spot the various different bird types on the island, some of which has been brought back from brink of extinction. We also went to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, spotting some king penguins.

hiking through the beaches of Tiritiri Matangi Island

Stitchbird

Skyline of Auckland

King penguins in Kelly Tarlton's

Mission bay

Lastly I spent a delightful couple of days with Scott, Meg, baby Georgia and Meg's parents. We got a chance to go to the Auckland museum to see the Maori presentation. What was the most amazing was that Baby G was not scared by the Haka presentation but instead was really memorized by the presentation! We also went to the Waitomo Caves where I explored the Ruakuri caves with them. These are one of the most beautiful limestone caves I have seen.

Meg and I with the Maori dancer

Ruakuri Caves.

NZ: Dunedin, Moeraki Boulders

After the train arrived at Dunedin, we spent a pleasant day checking out the world's steepest street, Baldwin Street, University of Otago and the Cadbury chocolate factory. No matter what age, I am sure that everyone would enjoy a tour of the factory and also sampling the Cadbury chocolate. The chocolate seems to be a bit more creamy and a bit too sweet for my taste. However it is still a worthwhile stop.

Dunedin Train station

Cadbury World

A mountain full of Crunchies!

We went up the East coast to the Moeraki Boulders. These are huge spherical rocks along Koekohe Beach. We also stopped by the fairy penguin colonies at Oamaru. There are not as many penguins there as compared to Australia, however we can still see a few of them around. These penguins have elaborate huts compared to the rocks for the Australian ones :p

Moeraki Boulders

Oamaru Penguins

NZ: Lord of the Rings and tranzAlpine train

My brother and I spent a bit of time traveling by ourselves. We went on Hassle Free tours to go to Edoras, the capital city of Rohan, which translates to Mt Sunday in Mt Potts high station area. It is a great tour, my brother's favourite part of New Zealand. Both of us are not Lord of the Rings fanatics, but this tour took us to the middle of nowhere in South Island and the weather was cooperating, so the scenery was gorgeous.

So for those who are not LOTR fans either, this is part of the second movie, the Two Towers, where Aragon, Legolas, Gandolf and Gimli went to Edoras to warn King Theoden. They have the Golden Hall constructed on that hill in the middle of the picture which is on private land. They had to construct a road up to the hill, and also a nursery for the vegetation on the top of the hill to be transferred to the bottom. It is easy to see why the film costs so much to make!

Edoras

Sword of Aragon

Flag of Rohan

We went on the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth. It was one of the world's best train ride and it was definitely popular as all the seats were filled. For NZ$138 you can stay on board for 4 hours and travel through the Southern Alps to the West coast. There were two stops, one at Springbrook and one at Arthurs Pass. We took the train over and the bus back to Christchurch, as it was a cheaper option. It also went through areas that were not covered by the train. While we were at Greymouth, we took a tour up to Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes. However the tide was out so there weren't any blowholes to see but we could walk far out on the coast. The Pancake Rocks were neat but overall there really isn't much over at Greymouth.

Arthurs Pass

One of the lakes passed enroute to Greymouth

Pancake Rocks

Back to Christchurch with the bus

NZ: Queenstown and Milford Sound

In the second half of the New Zealand travels, we went down from Christchurch to Queenstown. We missed some of the scenery the day before of Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo, thanks to Pacific Blue and their flight delay. However getting down to Queenstown, we have the fantastic view of the town from the Skyline gondola. We were definitely blessed with great weather during this time.
Day 2 was Milford Sound cruise. We took off bright and early from Queenstown and the trip took 4 hours by bus to get to the cruise ship. Then we had a one hour boat ride and piled back into the bus to head back into town. The scenery was beautiful and I would definitely consider coming back to do the Milford Track during the summer months

Mirror Lake

pair of Kea parrots

Cruising along Milford Sound

Dolphins frolicking around the boat

We then went from Queenstown to Dunedin and we took the Taieri Gorge railway from Pukerangi to Dunedin. It was a good point to take the train ride as it started raining and throughout the trip, we saw many beautiful rainbows. We also saw tons of sheep around the fields as well

scenery on the railway

Baaaaaaaahhh

Fitting end

The first meal I had in Sydney was at Ajisen Raman with my cousin at World Square, having Japanese ramen. It would only be fitting that I end my work period in Sydney with a delicious bowl of ramen from Gumshara Ramen in Dixon Square Haymarket.

Interestingly I didn't think too much of this place before and actually thought I had gone to the wrong place b/c this is in a little stall at the food court in Chinatown. However I finally made it there again and I was not disappointed. The reviews for this restaurant has been raving about how thick their soup is and how tasty the whole meal was. There is two people working the stall, the chef and the front desk lady who also helps with dishing out the meat and filling the bowls. These guys were super busy but super fast. The noodles were perfect texture and the soup was just as thick as the reviews promised. The best part is that there was no salty aftertaste of MSG and if you can read the sign the soup is made from pork bones and water, nothing else. It was definitely a fitting end to my stay in Sydney!

delish bowl of soup for $10!

UGG boots

I am sure most people have heard of or own a pair of UGG boots. These were superbly popular a few years ago and now are still very popular especially in North America. I have always looked at these boots and thought that they were very expensive in Canada and pretty impractical. The boots are suede with sheepskin lining the inside, there is no waterproof mechanism in them and in the snow they look terrible with the salt stains, so I have never bought a pair. However coming to Australia, I see them everywhere and some of them are very cheap so I thought I would check them out.

Reading a little bit about the UGG boots (amazing what wikipedia will tell you), these were made back in the 1920s for the shearers in Australia and New Zealand. They were used by the aviators in World War I to keep their feet warm. So these were worn way before the trend started in 2000. Ugg boots is actually a generic term used since 1970s, but in 1979 it was registered as a tradename by Brian Smith, a surfer. He then sold his company to Deckers and that's the company who makes the Uggs that is sold mostly worldwide. Deckers then told all the Australian companies that they can't use Uggs for their product. The Australian companies fought back and won in Australia, but not in the US / in Netherlands, so it is still a brand name in pretty much anywhere apart from Australia.

I thought I'll definitely be more interested in buying Uggs from an Australian company especially since this is where it started. Then the research into what different companies started and amazingly I was reading that there are now some Ugg boots made in China (What isn't made in China!) which would explain how there's some dirt cheap uggs in Chinatown.

Finally I picked out one pair (after trying a lot on) and it is now my souvenir from Australia, my chestnut long Ugg boots! Hopefully they'll keep me warm for the fall, the salesperson tells me I am supposed to wear them without socks!