I can fly!

Firstly, many thanks to The Dear Friend who not only occupied the blog and wrote some wonderful stuff, but also even cleaned it up in the manner I always wanted to but was too lazy to get round to doing... despite what you will likely say when I make this offer, I want you to know that I'd be most delighted to give you an account so u can blog here anytime you want! Just no pink color! hee hee..

This is the nicest photo I took in NZ, which doesn't say very much about my photography skills, considering there were tons of photo opps, but I was just too lazy / inept. There was quite a lot of things that crossed my mind or wanted to blog about whilst I was there, but most of it seems to have been left there.... It's amazing how much real thinking abt the stuff that really matters u can do when u have nothing else to do during those 6 hours drives every other day... and I say 6 hours even though I drove only half of that cos I can't sleep in the car knowing there's a possiblity HJ might drive us to our deaths off a cliff without my knowing how I died (I'm not kidding).

I'm the kind who likes to be in control of the situation, and has things planned out to a large extent before I reach the place, particularly since this was a short trip and we didn't have too much time to waste... so you can borrow my Manual of places to go and things to do, which is all nicely ring-bound... heh...

What we did:
a. swim with dolphins (8/10),

b. hiked up and down 200+m for a full day in the Queen Charlotte Track (6.5/10; would have been 8.5/10 if not for the fact that it was so shack and if someone had carried me up on a sedan chair.. haha),

c. sipped Sauvignon Blanc (to my unsophisticated palate, a $17 Shingle Peak SB still tastes mostly like a $17 Oyster Bay SB still tastes mostly like a $35 Cloudy Bay SB),

d. stared at stars (10/10) - we stayed at this quiet town along the West Coast called Hokitika... we had a splendid Indian curry dinner, found that there was no tv in the B&B at all and so had to amuse ourselves by making mugs of hot tea and wrapping ourselves in our bedroom comforters whilst talking nonsense (inevitably the topic moves to the ones who got away) on the deck chairs in the verandah waiting for the clothes dryer to finish (never knew it takes 3 cycles to be done with half a load)... when it was time to go to bed, I took off my specs, switched out the lights, and noticed that there were white spots outside the window... put my specs back on, and Goodness, they were the brightest and many-est stars I've seen in a long long time! It was truly amazing... I must have stared for a good half hour lying in bed before succumbing to the z-monster...

e. got a free upgrade on the car from a 2-litre Holden / Opel Vectra to a 3-litre Mitsubishi Airtrek... at some point when we were overtaking a Triumph Spitfire, we realised we were more than twice as tall as the really beautiful Spitfire!

f. played golf - we got fined NZD200 each upon entry into NZ because we failed to declare that we had used golf shoes (yeah yeah, nag me all you want, and rub in the fact that I am a lawyer too)... we managed to play only twice, but at beautiful places... once on a links course by the beach, and once in Hagley Park with people strolling across the fairways

g. climbed walked up glaciers (7/10)

h. Water-water rafted (5.5/10 cos it was no where near as scary as they made it out to be) and Hang-glided (9/10.. amazing! Believe me when I say u really feel like a bird and that you can actually fly!) I was just going to black-out the eyes part in my photo on the right, but considering I had the widest grin possible, which showed my yellow-ish teeth, the latter had to go as well)

i. watched Pride & Prejudice in Dunedin... if nothing else, the music's perfect! (check out this site for some of the music) It's always been my bugbear that you can't really find a mainstream movie these days where there is no gratuitous sex and kissing, and this was a really refreshing change... trust me, they could have made Jane Austen turn in her grave and put in some kissing scenes really easily, but thankfully they refrained from that.... as I was watching the movie, I kept thinking that in my view the perfect person for the role would have been Colin Firth, and it was only later that I found out he acted in the BBC adaptation some years back... for the record, I think Rosamund Pike is prettier than Keira Knightley.. now HJ and I are totally convinced that behaving like Mr. Darcy is the way to get chicks... hee hee... very tempted to go buy the DVDs of Sense & Sensibility and Emma on Ebay... hope they don't cost too much! Doubt they sell copies in JB anyway

There's so much backlog to be cleared over the next week or 2... am just hoping that the regular work does slow down towards the end of the year, and let me have a peaceful November and December... hopefully some travel is in the works too! heh.. in the meantime, I shall be poring over a copy of Pride & Prejudice as I eat Yong Tau Hoo in the office at lunchtime to save time and money...

HJ has definitely caught the travel bug, and might do a backpacking trip to Europe over CNY... I wanna do Hokkaido sometime next year! hopefully with The One... :o)