I had cause for panic this morning.

I had a bad night’s sleep. I couldn’t sleep until about 3-4am, and I woke up at 6am itching all over. First I cursed the mosquitoes. My sister constantly gets attacked by mosquitoes in her room at night, and complains about it frequently. I thought the mosquitoes attacked me this time, until I switched on the light and took a good look at my rashes. They weren’t mosquito bites. They were hives!!

I’ve had hives before, about 3 years back, so I knew very well what they looked like. They look identical to mosquito bites actually, except that there are way too many of them, some forming a huge “island”. The first time I had them, I thought they were really insect bites, and suffered for a few days before someone told me they were allergies. I was trying multigrain bread, and I suppose I was allergic to one or more of the grains in the bread. Back then, I couldn’t find anything that worked. I went to the doctor who gave me antihistamines and steroid cream, which didn’t work. I went to a pharmacist who gave me another type of antihistamine and calamine lotion, which didn’t work (the calamine lotion soothed the itches though). A nurse friend gave me another antihistamine. Nope. Nothing helped.

Finally a friend who is in an MLM company which sells exclusively health drinks and products gave me a vitamin drink which was expensive, but very very good. And finally, my hives started to go down. I had to suffer with hives for 3-4 weeks, and still had to go to work. I remember that I was emceeing a sports event for school, and I just stayed behind the mike in the shade. Poor me… in spite of my sickness, I still had to find the enthusiasm to create excitement for the sports events via the PA system.

Anyway this morning when I saw the hives on my legs and arms, the nightmare of my first hives came back to me. I did not want to suffer another 3-4 weeks, and I certainly cannot take an MC… not when I have no job! Well right now my income comes mainly from my classes, and if I don’t go for my classes, I don’t get paid!!

My mum was awake, so I rolled off the bed and went downstairs to ask if she had calamine lotion. Fortunately (for me, anyway) my mum is susceptible to allergies too, and she has her own regular antihistamine. She gave me one of her tablets, and a bottle of calamine lotion. I then rolled back into bed.

When I woke up about 9am later, THE HIVES WERE GONE!!! HALLELUJAH!!!

When I saw the hives this morning, actually the first thing I did was to send an SOS SMS to Bronya who I consult as my dietitian and nutritionist. She asked where my hives were, and concluded it was a digested allergy, i.e. hives triggered by something I ate, rather than something I wore and/or came into contact with. I’ve been racking my head for any foreign foods I’ve eaten in the past few days. The most unusual is a delicious tapioca cake my friend made, and I know I’m not allergic to tapioca so it made no sense. Other things were biscuits my sis and dad brought back from Penang, but they’re just regular biscuits. Unless some of them used grains or nuts that I was allergic to, they shouldn’t be my allergy trigger. My worry is that I have an allergy to another food item, and I honestly don’t know what it is!!

But anyway, I’m glad that my hives are gone!!!

OK, OK, here’s an update. I didn’t have much time to update my blog recently because I’m so busy with so many things - tuition, websites, etc. However I did manage to watch Hancock, only because I made it a point to. I caught the very last show at GSC today (it stops showing tomorrow) at One Utama, and I found out that there is free parking there on Wednesdays until 1st September 2008! If you already knew this, sorry lah. I haven’t seen the inside of a shopping mall for a very long time.

Well, the movie wasn’t too bad. Interesting twist. I think that Will Smith has become a very good, serious actor, but the problem with his movies of late is that they’re very self-indulgent. Take I Am Legend, for example. Everyone says it should have been named I Am Will Smith.

Next on my must-watch list:

TOTAL MUST-WATCH!!! I think Christian Bale is hot. Well, his body is, anyway. I’m choosing to ignore that alleged assault on his mother and sister because his muscles are just too good to pass up. Batman Begins was excellent, and I loved The Prestige (partly because of Hugh Jackman, too). I already missed Edward Norton’s Hulk (it ended right after I came back from NZ!!) so I’m not going to miss this superhero movie!

OKOK, the assault news was rather disturbing. I only hope it wasn’t true.

In other news, I sent my PC (the one with the constant sudden deaths) to the shop for fixing last Monday, but it’s been more than a week now. I’ve waited patiently because it was the PC fair last weekend and I knew that they would be busy… but it’s already Wednesday (well, Thursday now) and I still haven’t heard from them. Must remember to call them tomorrow to ask what was going on.

In more other news, I’m uploading the photos from Bronya’s party to Facebook. Sorry it took so long, my virtual in-tray was full to the max. It still is. But I’ve seen the photos, and they do look good, if I do say so myself. Maybe I should add photography to my list of “other hobbies to pursue”. But then I was using a DSLR camera (not mine, belongs to a friend). Still, not everyone who has a DSLR camera takes good shots (I have seen horrible looking things that have come from a wannabe photographer who honestly thought he was doing a great job). Will provide some links here when they’ve finally been uploaded. I have trouble using Facebook’s multiple uploader with my home Maxis connection. Curse you again, Maxis.

And… that’s it for now, I think. I really ought to be sleeping. I have a lot of work to do and so little time

(I had typed this up in my laptop at the end of the day, but had no Internet access so could not upload it until July 21st because I had no time…)

My aunt wanted me to try some lamb before I left NZ, so she made me breakfast of lamb and mashed potatoes. It was pretty heavy, but it was more like brunch than breakfast as I knew I’d be skipping lunch. It was 10am before I knew it, and I rushed through a hot shower, and did my final packing, including a box of fruits for my mother.

Jin and Auntie drove me to the airport, and helped me check in my luggage and the fragile box of fruits and honey. They saw me off about 11.30am, and I wandered around the duty free shops before boarding my plane which was scheduled to depart at 12.50pm.

I had been sniffling all morning, and was sneezing a lot before I boarded. I was like… my first day in Auckland I was sick; now my last day I’m sick too!!

I was fortunate as my seat was 11J which was the front row where there was plenty of leg room; plus there was no one sitting next to me! I put all my spare stuff into that seat.

I took a nap after taking off, but it was very light sleep as everytime the stewardess came to give us something, I woke up. For example, when she came to give us salted peanuts; and later when she came by with the lunch trays.

After a hot lunch of fish and potatoes, plus custard buns and potato salad, I felt much better and stopped sneezing. I didn’t really want to sleep, so for the next few hours I watched movies and played TV games. I managed to watch three movies (Be Kind Rewind, Spiderwick Chronicles, Over Her Dead Body) and one episode of Everybody Loves Raymond before I had to surrender the headphones at 7.30pm.

I took a light nap as we were touching down, and wandered about the duty free shops at the international terminals before catching the train to the arrival hall.

And… I was back in hot ol’ Malaysia.

Well, I did swear not to complain about the heat anymore after the cold in New Zealand…

I’ll be back, NZ! And this time, I plan to swim with the dolphins in summer!

(I had typed this up in my laptop at the end of the day, but had no Internet access so could not upload it until July 21st because I had no time…)

We woke up a little later than usual… We rolled out of bed at 8am, and started packing up. Unfortunately my bag was too full and I yanked too hard… and broke the zip. As it was, the bag had already lost one side of the zip (it was supposed to be double zipper), and now that this zip broke, the bag was virtually useless

We went for breakfast, where Jin finished the last Indomie Goreng, and I had four pieces of toast with margarine and maple syrup. We then checked out, and Jin and I had to carry my luggage bag to the car.

We drove over to Hell’s Gate thermal park where we had a free entry voucher (free from yesterday’s Maori Village package), and walked through looking at the bubbling, boiling mud. It was really boring and smelled of sulphur, and I wished we had gone to Wai-O-Tapu instead.

At the end of the walk, we came across a small workshop where people were carving into the wood. I felt a bit lazy and didn’t really feel like doing it, but we did anyway and I’m glad we did. I didn’t think I did well at all and the carvemaster, David, kept saying that I was only looking for compliments. But I told him that I was merely highly critical of what I do, and when he found out I used to be a teacher, he said, no wonder. He pointed out correctly that I didn’t need to fix my carving except for one tiny area to be rounder, compared to the others. He helped chisel my name into my piece of wood. We then soaked our wood carvings in lacquer, and left them to dry.

I decided to sign up for the mud bath and spa even though it was a bit expensive ($70) but I figured I might as well try it since I was already there. The mud bath and spa were mud and sulphur waters taken from the thermal park itself. It starts with a mud bath (even though it was in the open, I had sort of a private one. They were all enclosed by wooden fences) in a concrete tub, where the muddy water temperature was between 38 to 41 °C. I could only sit in there for about 20 minutes, and I rubbed mud all over my body to exfoliate. I was not allowed to dunk my head underwater nor rub mud on my forehead because the water was acidic and would sting the eyes badly, but was allowed to rub mud on my cheeks and chin.

After the mud bath, I had to take a super cold shower to balance my body (or something like that. I don’t know what it’s supposed to balance), then I was allowed to sit and soak in the public sulphur water pool for as long as I like. The temperatures of both pools were about 40 °C, I think, with one slightly hotter than the other.

I sat there for about half an hour (until 1.30pm) before taking a shower and rescuing poor bored Jin. We then hit the road onto Auckland, stopping by the Zorb on the way.
When we got to the Zorb, I was so calm and relaxed that I didn’t really feel like doing it. I found out that only the wet one was available, as there had been an incident that morning - the dry Zorb had rolled down, hit the fence and bounded in the air. So because of that, they had to stop the dry Zorbs for the day. The wet ones were still available because it was safer, as there was weight.

Bummer… I wanted to do the dry one because I didn’t want to get wet again, even though the dry one was more expensive. I know it’s a fun activity and ordinarily I would want to do it, but I just wasn’t in the mood.

I thought about it, and decided to do it, because I know that I would regret it if I didn’t. So I signed up, stripped down to my bikini (plus a sleeveless shirt so that I wouldn’t get too cold), and waited. A white van came down to get me and six Australian girls, and even though I had been there first and they had already gone down the Zorb, the girls were not considerate enough to let me go first. They quickly chatted up the guy and jumped in 3 at a time in the Zorb.

I wasn’t eager to get jumping though, so I patiently waited in the cold for my turn. Because I was solo, I had the option to choose the straight path down, or the zigzaggy. I chose the zigzag path because it was longer and looked way more fun.

I got in, had some warm water splashed in with me, and when given the signal, I got up and walked the ball into the zigzag path. And when I started slipping and sliding in an out-of-control ball, I screamed with delight. It was really super fun… I am so glad I did it; I had no regrets!

There was a photographer taking photos, and the photo CD cost $25. It was really expensive, but I bought it anyway because I figured that memories were more important than money. And the photographer did a good job.

Jin was feeling too queasy to drive, so I drove all the way to Auckland. We took longer than we anticipated, possibly because there were many vehicles on the motorway. By the way, the motorways are free (no toll) and most of the time are one-laned each side, although in some parts there are two lanes for overtaking.

We reached Auckland about 6pm, and Jin called Auntie Geok Hong to find out how to get to her house. Auntie Geok Hong said to turn off at Greenlane, head towards Newmarket and make our way to Dominion Road, but Jin was not familiar with the place and made me get back on the motorway and took a longer way that she was familiar with to Dominion Road. Better to be safe than sorry!

I managed to find the way to Hillsborough Road towards Lynfield, and I kept driving until I saw the Countdown supermarket I recognised!!

We reached the house about 7.30pm where everyone was patiently waiting for us, and I met Esther, my cousin for the first time.

Dinner was rice with Nando’s chicken, and we had the caramel mudcake which was Ben’s favourite. I even managed a bit of ice-cream.

Jin and Auntie dominated the dinner table conversation with talk of Asian foodstuff and spices which Jin was dying to get to take back to Dargaville with her. Esther found it hilarious. Esther left soon, and we hugged goodbye.

Uncle and Auntie lent me one of the luggage bags to replace my broken one. Thank goodness I have relatives here to lend me a bag!!!

I was quite sad to know that it was my last night here… I was reluctant to leave because I liked and enjoyed my stay in New Zealand. But I had to go back to Malaysia because I … have to save up for my next trip back here!

(I had typed this up in my laptop at the end of the day, but had no Internet access so could not upload it until July 15th)

We woke up about the same time again today. Jin said she was too sore to go snowboarding, but I couldn’t really decide. I wasn’t sore or stiff - just a little around the shoulders and shins, but I barely felt the stiffness at all. Anyway we rolled out of bed about 7.20am, and started packing up before going down for breakfast. We had pancakes again, with lemon juice + maple syrup, and banana and kiwi.

We checked out about 8.45am, by which time I made up my mind that I would snowboard for half a day. Jin said I could use her boots and snowboard so I didn’t have to rent any, and see if we needed to get a lift pass for Happy Valley.

It was a little colder than yesterday, and as we were driving to Whakapapa Village, Jin asked me if I really wanted to do this. I told her that I think I would regret it if I didn’t.

It was a beautiful day just like it was yesterday, and we didn’t need chains to drive up. Because we arrived a little later than yesterday (about 9.30am), we had to park even further down, at Daypark 6 I pulled on the ski pants and my jacket, and put on her boots in the carpark, and then we trudged up towards the entrance to Happy Valley.

The signs didn’t indicate whether we needed a lift pass for Happy Valley, and Jin went to customer service to ask, but there were too many people in there so we just jumped onto the chair lift down to Happy Valley.

I strapped on the board and I attempted to snowboard… only to realise that I had forgotten everything I had learnt! Jin helped me down the slope as I tried the toe edge, but did quite badly. We then took the chair lift back up the slope and this time Jin tried to guide me down using the heel edge, but I fell a few times and cursed really loudly.

Finally halfway down I started to get the hang of it, and managed it on my own although I fell a few times. I went up the chair lift again and tried both the toe and heel edge all the way down. I managed it, even though I was pretty slow.

I had promised Jin that would be my last, but I wanted another go again and she said OK, so I went down the slopes again. While I was tempted to try another round, at the chair lift someone was checking the tags and I heard her telling a couple of boys that they needed a lift pass, although she let them go. When she saw me, however, she didn’t stop me, and I thought OK… maybe that means it’s time to stop!!!

So back at the top, I found Jin sitting comfortably inside the Bistro, and I bought myself a hot chocolate before we made our way up back to the car. I stripped off all the cold and wet things before we made our way onto Rotorua.

I had already binned my sunnies yesterday, and could barely keep my eyes open anyway, so I took a short snooze before Jin woke me up at Taupo, as she wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the bungy again. I thought about it, and decided against it even though I had a $55 voucher. I didn’t feel up to doing the bungy again, and I was feeling a little queasy for some reason.

We stopped by Lake Taupo as it was too beautiful to pass by. I took some scenic shots, before we walked right up to the water edge where an Australian black swan, green-headed ducks and some mallards were. Jin even made me climb a small tree for photo shots before we made our way onto Rotorua.

On the way we stopped at Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland which Jin said was really worth it (entry fee $27.50 pp) because the champagne pools, colours, and boiling mud pools were beautiful. However I suggested we come back the next morning because there was a sign which said that the Lady Knox Geyser erupts every morning at 10.15am, so why not catch that?

We went on to Rotorua where we stopped by i-Site to enquire about the Maori villages. We signed up for the Mitai Hangi and concert ($92 pp) because not only were there a hangi dinner and concert, but we could also see glowworms… plus it was slightly cheaper than the other village ($95pp). However with this package, we could get a free entry to either the museum, Hell’s Gate Thermal park, or the Wildlife Park. We ruled out the museum immediately, and I tried to decide between the thermal park or the wildlife park. In the end we opted for the thermal park because I wasn’t really interested to pet lion cubs… and anyway we were told that the lion cubs were now too big to carry for petting. I didn’t really want to see lions because it’s not like I haven’t seen any before!! However because Wai-O-Tapu and Hell’s Gate were in opposite directions (Wai-O-Tapu was in the south whereas Hell’s Gate was in the north) we couldn’t really see both, so it looks like I have to give up Wai-O-Tapu

We also enquired about lodges, and were recommended the Treks Backpacker’s Lodge. It was only $68 per night for a room with ensuite bathroom and we could pay at i-Site, so we did.

We drove over and found it was a new lodge - so many of the facilities were still in excellent condition. In fact, it was the first decent backpacker’s lodge I’ve stayed in!! There were plenty of salt and pepper and herbs, unlike the others; and everything was so clean and tidy. Instead of open cabinets under the sink where everything was randomly placed, they had closed cabinets with labels on to make it easy to find things. There were signs on the fridges that “Everything will be cleared out on Monday (or Wednesday or Friday, on different fridges) at 11am. No exceptions!” which I guess is how they keep their fridges free from rotting food. The lounge was so comfortable and inviting; in fact I’m sitting in their dining area at the bar typing away.

Our room doesn’t have a heater but it was still hot; Jin said it’s probably because the room is very well insulated and keeps the heat from the afternoon. We have a twin bed room, and it’s really very cosy. We even had a key card and a key each.

We had checked in about 4pm, so after dumping our things in the room, we went for a walk in town. We stopped at a few souvenir shops, and finally bought some things from a souvenir shop owned by a Pakistani because the things there were so much cheaper. Jin bought some bone carvings, whereas I bought some cheap metal bling-blings and some paua necklaces.

On the way back to the lodge, we stopped by the Pig & Whistle which was a bar, because Treks gave us each a voucher for a free drink (house wine/beer/soft drink) so we sat in there and chatted while enjoying our drinks before making our way back to the lodge.

Jin took a quick hot shower because it was cold. I had on only my jeans, a sleeveless and a long sleeve shirt, and I was freezing colder than she was because she had more layers than I! She called me crazy for wearing so little but hey I thought I was acclimatising. I just pulled on my reversible waterproof jacket though and strapped on my knee guard and ankle guards because my legs felt a bit weathered from the skiing and snowboarding from the past 2.5 days.

Our voucher indicated that the pickup from our lodge would be between 5.45 and 6.10pm; and we were at reception by 5.50pm but the lady told us that the bus had already left. In fact, before we had even got back to our room, we had told her that we would be in our room in case the bus did come before we were there, but she told us she had been so busy that she was unable to tell the driver to wait. Plus, two more people had only just signed up, so the bus driver thought that he had everyone as he thought he was only supposed to pick 3 people up, not 5. She called him and he said he would turn around to pick us up.

We waited and waited and waited, and it crossed my mind that if we didn’t get to go tonight, we’d have to ask for our money back, although it was indicated that no refunds would be given. But damn, I wanted to go!

Our bus finally came about 6.15pm, where the nice jolly man apologised. He told us there would be about 100 people tonight, which was only “a few”… there were about 240 last night. We made it to the village by about 6.25pm, and went in and sat at table 9 to wait for the show to start. It started about 6.40pm, where a local speaker started the ball rolling. He gave us a brief description about what was going to happen tonight, and then asked for someone to be the “chief of the tribe of four winds”. He told us that ladies were excepted, because we were too precious. “As we used to say,” he explained, “if a man dies in battle, it’s only one life lost. But if a woman dies, a whole line of generation is lost.”

An elderly Englishman called Paul volunteered, and then the speaker asked all of us about the countries we came from. There were about 11 nations altogether: England, Australia, New Zealand, Guatemala (apparently it’s the first time in 6 years they have someone from there), Malaysia (us plus a whole bunch of other Chinese), Holland, Switzerland, India, Russia, and other places I can’t remember. So he called us the Tribe of Eleven Nations.

We then went outside to look at the hangi where our dinner was being cooked. The hangi is this big hole in the ground, and they cooked lots of stuff over fire and hot rocks. There were kumaras (sweet potatoes), potatoes, chicken, lamb, stuffing, etc.

We were hungry, but dinner wasn’t ready yet. We were going to take a little walk into the forest, and fortunately blankets were provided as it was cold!! We went to a shallow stream and waited for the Maori men to arrive. They came in a 10-men canoe and did a brief performance for us on the water. Their coordination was amazing.

After that (at about 8.10pm), they led us to a “theatre” with plastic chairs and a wooden stage, where the Maori performance was conducted. The performance was about half an hour, with many different dances, weapons demonstration, and ‘games’ - they even made us stand up and learn some of their “sign languages” (just different hand movements which mean different things). They finished with a haka dance before adjourning for dinner. I recorded their performance on video, although during the haka was I hoping they would finish soon as my battery was really low!! The performance was good - I was very impressed by their level and their ability. But I must say that it was a little below expectations as I felt it was so commercial. I guess I shouldn’t have such high expectations.

Dinner was buffet style, and there were heaps to eat. And they were all really good!!! There was ranch salad, fried rice, potatoes, kumaras, simple salad, lamb, chicken, stuffing, and garlic bread. I had a cup of tea, too. I took a little bit of everything and managed to eat almost everything on my plate but couldn’t quite manage the last of the potato and kumara. Dessert was chocolate log (just chocolate cakeroll with cream), trifle (which was really sweet), and fruits (which tasted like they came out of a can).

At about 9pm, they split us into two groups - one group had paid to see Rainbow Springs or something like that. The rest of us grabbed a torchlight per pair, and followed our guide into another trail in the forest which was really, really dark. Along the way he made a a stop where he explained about the different types of ferns which the Maori men used. One of them was the silver fern, which made a silvery reflection when the moon shone upon it, and they used that to help them find their way back to their village if they got lost. The base was poisonous, so they dipped their darts in them to kill their enemies more quickly. Then he pointed out some other types of ferns (I can’t remember their names) which were used for weaving, house construction, food and medicine. I remember thinking, my god if they used the wrong fern they could accidentally kill themselves. How do they tell the difference? They looked the same to me!!!

Then we went on to another stop where he showed us a wooden fence which he explained was constructed around the village to protect it from enemies. The horizontal posts were typically very far apart to prevent enemies from climbing over, and the vertical posts were typically much closer together. He also explained that when an enemy was killed, its head would be placed on top of a post. If there were many heads on the posts, it means the village was strong. If there were few heads, he said, “it means that it’s a new fence!”

We then went onto a trail and saw some glowworms by a bank. I couldn’t take any photos though because it was too dark. The glowworms cannot be seen if there are any lights, so the flashlights have to be switched off. They were just tiny pinpricks of fluorescent light, so the camera couldn’t pick them up.

We walked on a little further to Sacred Springs, which had bubbling sand and super clear water. There were eels and trouts swimming in there. The trouts were from California, he joked.

“We can’t eat the eels and trouts from this spring, because if we do… there’s only bubbling sand to look at and it’s really boring.”

And that was the end of the tour. The guides were really funny, which made it quite enjoyable.

We got back on the same bus we arrived in, and reached our lodge about 9.45pm. Jin went straight to bed, whereas I made myself a hot chocolate and sat out at the lounge. I’ve just moved myself to the couch because I felt a bit cold. Didn’t make any difference though. I guess I just don’t have enough layers on

There are no fires or heaters in this lodge; I guess it’s just the insulation that keeps it warm. There are coffee machines ($2 per cup) and a junk food dispenser. I’m still cold, but I need to take a shower before bed. I didn’t want to shower before I sat out and typed because I wanted to be nice and warm before I snuggled into bed.

Did I mention that this lodge also provides towels and a bottle of handwash? It’s super!! Too bad we’re only staying here one night. And too bad that now that we’ve got oil and salt and pepper and stuff, we’re only making toast in the morning…

(A little later)

Just had a nice hot shower. The water smells of sulphur. I guess it’s because the water here are all from the ground, all naturally thermally heated.