The tiny town of Dargaville
I managed to get up “early” this morning! I had a quick breakfast of a lin yong pow and waited for the MainCoachLine bus to come pick me up. True enough it wasn’t a bus, but it was a van with a trailer. I didn’t get a photo. I didn’t really have time to take as we were hurrying to put my things in and I got onto the “bus”.
We were quite on time; I was very surprised. They picked me up about 8.30am, and we were scheduled to arrive at Auckland at Quay Street at 9.30am, which we did. We had a full coach of 11 passengers, and we made our way northbound to Dargaville. I fell asleep most of the way, I guess I was just too tired. From what, I don’t know. But I slept 
There wasn’t much to see along the way anyway, except a lot of green. We did make a stop at a restaurant called the Swinging Cow, but I didn’t eat there; I only made the washroom stop.
There were a pair of ladies in front of me, one of whom was the mother of a baby girl and a toddler boy, and I assume the other lady was her sister or at least a relative. The boy was very very cute, with a hair of golden curls; and while he initially was rather well-behaved, towards the later part of the journey (especially after the stop) he became very hyperactive and hysterical and screechy. Finally as we dropped off a passenger at the stop before Dargaville, the lady who wasn’t the mother retrieved the child carseat from the trailer which contained all our luggage, and strapped the child down. The child was surprisingly good and willing to be strapped in, and for the rest of the journey was very quiet.
We were scheduled to arrive at Dargaville by 12.45pm, and we were on time. It’s so unusual for me, given how “Malaysian time” everything is back home (for the uninformed, it means being late is just a Malaysian way of life).
Jin had told me to wait at the Blah, Blah, Blah cafe, so I walked over to it which was just around the corner from my drop-off point. I thought that Jin’s break was at 12.30pm (she was still at work in school) as she had passed a message through my aunt last night when I was out to dinner, so I decided to wait outside instead of having tea inside as I didn’t want to make her late for her next class, if she had one. I waited until 1.30pm before she finally arrived, but I didn’t mind as I got to enjoy the sun for a bit. When she came, she had an errand to run and sat me in Blah, Blah, Blah for a cuppa, and then she drove me to her home before she went back to school for her last class of the day.
I fried myself two eggs and had a cup of tea, and worked on my photos (for my blog). I also got a bit trigger happy in her house.. but I won’t post the photos here. Except for the pot stove which is really interesting and new to me
Jin came back, and wanted to let me use her Internet access but she didn’t know what the password was. I eventually figured out her router settings using her laptop, found her password, and connected myself to her broadband. She made a Chinese meal with rice, omelette and pak choy, and her American friend Suzie came over to discuss with her about the 4th of July party tomorrow. Suzie also helped to light up the pot stove in the living room before she left for home, as Jin wasn’t very good at it 
But she managed to keep the fire going though.
I also met Jin’s husband, Matthew who is a charming man (and looks much better than in his photo). He went out with his friends later, while Jin drove me out in her new car (woohooo!!!) to the Warehouse where she bought some supplies, and extra pillow, and a birthday present for me – a warm woolcap which would cover my ears from the cold!!
On our return, Jin and I pored through the brochures as well as looked up online for our trip the coming week. Jin turned in early though because she was exhausted. Me? I’m here in front of my laptop blogging about my uneventful day at Dargaville…
July 2, 2008
Auckland Sights
I didn’t oversleep today!!! I managed to wake up at 9.30am. Well, actually I wanted to wake up at 8am but I had to stay up last night due to some problems back home in KL (was up sending text messages… my phone bill might hit the roof!) so I couldn’t wane up early if I wanted to. Erm, so I guess I did oversleep, but not as badly as yesterday. Had breakfast of siew gao dumplings that were freshly pan-fried.
Today’s visit was not as pretty as yesterday’s. We started with a visit to the Maria Villa wineyard, where our tourguide (Andrew) took us around explaining the process of making wine. Maria Villa is an award-winning wine label which has come up with / uses a lot of the latest technology to make the best quality wine. Maybe later I’ll write about the Science of Wines (I just came up with that myself ).
It wasn’t a very pretty visit, because it was winter and all the grapevines were empty and looked dead. The greenery was beautiful nevertheless. Our visit all indoors as we were taken from room to room to see the vats and the laboratories.
I’m not really a fan of wine (I don’t like wine!!), and neither is my aunt, so we didn’t do any wine tasting. There were no free glasses of wine anyway; if we wanted to do wine tasting, we’d have to buy a package. The tour itself costs $5 per person.
The tour was at 11am, and finished about an hour later; thereafter we rushed home, and then grabbed the bus to the city. There, we started with lunch at Cafe Tasca. My aunt had asked me what my favourite foods were, and she took the trouble to look up a restaurant which serves Italian pizza. When I say Italian pizza, I mean the authentic Italian thin crust pizzas, not the American imitations of Domino’s and Pizza Hut. Cafe Tasca’s Chicken & Mushroom pizza was DELICIOUS; I don’t like mushrooms or tomatoes but the combination of the whole ensemble made everything superb. Oh, and did I mention that it was cooked over a real wood fire?
We then walked over to the Sky Tower where I was just in time to see a staff member trying out the Sky Jump! I really wanted to try it, but we just had lunch and I didn’t want to see my pizza a second time (plus, I had to eat more than half the pizza because my aunt wasn’t a big eater!), so we went to the Information Center where I took a lot of the free maps and books instead.
Then we took the free city bus around, and made a stop at a souvenir shopping mall. The free city bus was great; it takes people around the city with no charge. My aunt said it was probably to serve the university students (the bus goes right through the Auckland University campus) and tourists, but it was also great for locals.
We went window-shopping and I bought a few souvenirs (so for the few of you whom I’m buying for, be prepared for some cheesy touristy souvenirs). By the time we were done, it was nearly 5pm, and I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner by 6.30pm, so we couldn’t go back to the Sky Tower for the jump 
We managed to catch a bus by 5.40pm and reached home about 6.15pm. Oh well… I’m planning to go to Lake Taupo for the bungy jump anyway, but it would have been nice to do the Sky Walk and the Sky Jump. The weather wasn’t too great though (it rained occasionally and there was strong winds) so I might not have been able to do either, although fortunately whenever my aunt and I were walking around, the rain stopped.
My dear friend Selvi from uni days picked me up from my aunt and uncle’s home about 6.40pm, and we went to Banque for dinner. She had lamb and I had chicken, and the food was EXCELLENT! We caught up and chatted … I haven’t seen her in years! She had been in Auckland for 4.5 years and is now working in Westpac as a bank manager. She sent me home by about 9pm as she was tired (she had to work nights the past few days) but it was great to have caught up with her.
I haven’t transferred the photos from my camera to the laptop yet, so I can’t post the photos yet. However, I will update this blog entry (hopefully by tomorrow) with the photos, so stay tuned! Update: I’ve updated this blog with the photos!
Tomorrow morning I have to wake up early (this time, early=7am) as I have to catch a bus to Dargaville (about 3 hours from Central Auckland). OK, it’s not really a bus, and I don’t have to catch it. It’s run by a husband-wife team and they drive passengers from Auckland all the way up to Dargaville via a minivan, I think. I’ll see tomorrow. And they’re going to pick me up from my aunt and uncle’s house (for an additional nominal fee) before going to the city to pick up the rest of the passengers, and then it’s off to Dargaville we go. Because we have to get to the city by 9.30am, they will come to the house by about 8.15am. So… I guess it’s time for me to sleep now
July 1, 2008
Auckland Parks
Day 2 in Auckland. I wanted to wake up early (early=9am) but I overslept and woke up at 11am. Hey, cut me some slack. That’s 7am back home in PJ.
After a quick breakfast of two lotus paste pows (Australian-made. Nowhere near as good as Malaysian pows), my aunt drove me out to some Auckland sights. We didn’t go into the city today though, because we didn’t have time. My aunt had taken the whole week except Friday off, so she could entertain me these few days before I went to Dargaville to meet Jin, my friend whom I’m going snowboarding with.
We started with by going to a Taiwanese souvenir shop that didn’t only sell souvenirs; they also sold herbal supplements (including Manuka honey) and lots of winter clothes. I didn’t buy anything, of course. Not this early in my trip.
We also went to Tai Ping which was one of the largest Chinese grocers in this area; they sold a lot of vegetables and fruits as well as groceries targeted at the Chinese community; but quite a number of non-Chinese shoppers bought things there too.
My aunt also showed me where they used to stay; it was one of four units of a linkhouse. It was interesting, because the houses shared the same lot, and the driveway goes down past the four houses into the shared compound; i.e. the four houses don?t face the main road.We then made our way to Cornwall Park, where my aunt showed me all the greenery, and some of the free open-air barbecue pits which anyone can use (but they’d have to bring own food and charcoal). I think this is so cool – to have a public barbecue pit which you can use, and a park to serve as your party venue.
Along the way we saw some council workers planting seedlings in the park. My aunt told me that they plant different flowers according to the season, and when the flowers come in bloom, the park was very beautiful. Right now few of the flowers have bloomed as it was still early in the winter.
My aunt then took me to the top of One Tree Hill (the ?one tree? was now but a stump) where the obelisk monument constructed by Sir John Logan Campbell stood. The wind was very biting and chilly, so we didn?t stay too long there.
Because I’ve never tried the flying fox before in my life (how sad is that??) I got to try the children’s one in the playground… twice!!
We also went for ice-cream where I had a double of scoop of cookies n’ cream – my absolute favourite! The ice-creams here in New Zealand are heavenly – rich and creamy. Yes yes I know it’s winter but how can you say no to delicious ice-cream?
The ice-cream store was part of a restaurant next to an Information Center which was opposite Acacia Cottage, so we poked our noses in Acacia Cottage (constructed by Sir John Campbell) before going into the Info Center to take lots of brochures. Interestingly NZ gives out a lot of free road maps and flyers, and many of them come with discount vouchers.
Cornwall Park was HUGE and GREEN and LOVELY. You can see people jogging and cycling and walking their dogs, and mothers with their children in the parks. Sigh… I would love to have a park like this to go to!
The above photo shows but a mere TINY portion of the ENTIRE park… and as you can see that portion is huge! This isn’t even the part where people walk or jog in. It’s just a piece of flat greenland. My sense of area measurement is not very good (strange for a Physics teacher, I know) so I can’t tell you the rough acreage of the park. All I can tell you is that to get around the park, we needed to drive.
My aunt wanted to show me another huge park called the Domain, but on the way we swung by a public library. NZ really has got some things right. The library was small, but well-equipped; it had a small children’s area, and a section with computers and free Internet access. There were many schoolkids hanging around the library as it was after school hours. What an excellent way to past the time! My aunt told me that there were many libraries here as each zone would have its own library, so although the libraries were small and may not have as many books as a large library would, they were accessible and inviting. The library was so cosy and clean!!
The same appears to be for schools as well. The schools in Auckland were small (about 200-500 students) with small classes (about 20 students per class); each zone had its own school as well. Students here are not very competitive – my cousin Ben who’s 14 years old has tests this whole week and he has not bothered to study at all, and it’s so strange to me, especially since I was a former teacher in Malaysia.
We went to the Domain which was another huge green park, and made a stop at the winter garden. It has two greenhouses: one cold house (with plants that grow in the cold) and a tropical greenhouse (with plants that grow in humid weather). The cold house was abloom with lovely colours… the tropical greenhouse had a manmade lily pond as the centrepiece (with GIGANTIC lily pads) and a lot of green plants. My aunt said in April there were a lot of chillis (yellow/red/orange) in the tropical house, but it seems like they have been replaced by weird things like “midnight horror”.
The Auckland War Memorial Museum was at the Domain too, so we made our way up there. I didn’t go into the museum though, because for one I’m not really a museum person, and for another it was 10 minutes till closing time. Plus I was pretty reluctant to pay $5 donation as the admission fee… call me a cheapskate but I had less than 10 minutes to explore the museum so it’s still not worth it, OK?! I did take many photos outside though.
We then threaded our way back home before it turned dark at 5pm. My aunt made a delicious meal of mashed potatoes, lasagna, pan-fried vegetables and siew gao dumplings. Last night we had fish and chips. I guess it’ll take me a while to get used to the idea of not eating rice, hehe. That just goes to show how inherently Asian I am.
I think I’m also starting to get used to the weather. Yesterday after my arrival, I was sneezing and coughing, and had to take a nap before dinner because I was feeling rather miserable. This morning when I woke up, I was sneezing a little, but as the day wore on, I stopped sneezing and sniffing. Let’s hope this lasts
June 30, 2008
NZ Travelog #1
I think I’ll start off with my handwritten log I scribbled when I was on the plane last night…
| 29th June 2008 – 9.28pm
My flight was supposed to have taken off at 8.40pm, but here I am on the plane, still grounded in KLIA. Bronya and her 2 boys drove me to the airport (as opposed to my earlier plan of taking a quiet ride via KL Sentral) because the boys wanted to see me off. They saw me off at the departure hall, and I managed to grab the connecting train to the international gates the moment I went through the gates, and spent the next twenty minutes browsing. Then, at about 8.20pm as I was in the washroom, an announcement was made to all passengers for flight MH0131 (my flight!) to board the plane – and I rushed. For nothing, really. At 8.46pm, the pilot announces that the engineers were taking a look at the plane and hoped to take off in 10 minutes. At 9.01pm he announces that the engineers had to change the batteries and it would take 1-1.5 hours. However we were required to remain onboard as they would like to take off the moment they were cleared to do so. Not that I mind – I’d rather they got the plane in working order before a long flight. But that meant 1-1.5 horus of no entertainment (because the “batteries were being changed”). I wished they had checked BEFORE we boarded. If my flight was to be delayed, I’d rather spend 1-1.5 hours looking at jewelry and chocolates in the departure lounge rather than be strapped down to a stiff chair being compensated with nothing but a tiny pack of salted peanuts and fake juice. I’ve exhausted the inflight magazines and |
And at precisely the moment I wrote that last word, the lights went off.
Well, after the batteries were changed, we were finally good to go about 10pm. It was an uneventful flight, and we touched down safely in Auckland at about 11.20am local time. When I got to the passport counter, I was taken to the immigration department where one of the ladies explained nicely to me that they were doing random checks on passengers. However my uncle had written an email warning me that NZ has turned away many single ladies before as they had suspected them of coming to NZ to find a job. Even Bronya told me that when she came here with her mother to visit her sister, because her occupation was a professional dancer, they were very suspicious (in case you’re wondering, some “dancers” don’t just dance) and she hadn’t even had her sister’s contact number or address on her, but fortunately her sister was outside waiting for her and they could clarify with her. For me, I had printed my itinerary as well as my emails with my uncle and my friend Jin, but I hadn’t needed to show them the prints. All the lady asked me was who I was staying with, and the full names of my uncle and Jin. After my uncle’s name and address checked out, she said that I was cleared to enter Auckland.
After I collected my baggage, I was waiting in line to go through the Declarations counter and almost cut line. It was totally unintentional 
I was behaving in the typical Malaysian way where “if one line was free, just go there” as opposed to this style of one line only,which would stream itself into the different available lines. Fortunately before I had even jumped straight into the available lines, I caught myself and stayed behind the couple in front of me. Phew!
I finally exited the customs about one hour after landing, where my uncle and aunt had been patiently waiting for me. They took me for lunch at a popular Chinese dim sum restaurant. Portions were quite big, compared to our tiny dishes back home. Still, I’d have to say nothing beats food like in Malaysia
My aunt and uncle then took me to a hilltop park where I could see most of Auckland. I’ve never seen a sky so beautifully blue, and where green was really green. The wind was chilly and biting though… well, it is winter.
Along the way home, my aunt pointed out and explained how the houses were here. Unlike Malaysia, most of the houses here were individually built as opposed to the common terrace houses. Even the few linkhouses I saw here are strung in only about 8 or less units. I thought it was really nice as you get to choose the kind of house you wanted, in the design you wanted, and the layout you wanted, as opposed to the Malaysian’s way of having one standard design (selected by the developer) for all houses in the neighbourhood, and if you want to customize it, you’d have to renovate it – and the cost of renovation could equal the cost of the house!
My aunt also pointed out some of the houses which belong to the government but are rented out to the “poorer” folk. The look of the house can be misleading, she explained to me. They may look rundown and shoddy from the inside, but the inside could be very posh.
The houses here are a lot smaller than the ones I’m used to back home. Everything was cosy and compact, and this goes for my aunt and uncle’s own home too. But it’s nice because the place is fully utilised, and it doesn’t feel so cold even in winter. Auckland doesn’t snow, so it feels like a very cold autumn to me (comparing UK, of course). My aunt is such a generous hostess, as she has offered me many of her spare winter clothes, a bedroom of my own (decorated with a sprig of fresh flowers from this morning), and even now I’m blogging from my uncle’s home office.
I do have photos, but I haven’t transferred them from my camera yet, so that will probably get done later.
I’m still running in Malaysian time! It’s 4.22pm here but it’s only 12.22pm back home. I’d probably adjust to the local time by tomorrow.
Photo Updates:
I had followed my aunt to Countdown, a 24-hour supermarket after dinner… and found a Malaysian shop right outside it!