Me, and Then Some: New Zealand Part I

I’m ganna break the NZ trip post into 2 parts, just because I’ve got tons of pictures (and things to rant about). I think I’ve got close to 2000 pictures but if I show everything, it’ll take forever to load.

First part is ganna be the introductory part-Auckland-Rotorua-Christchurch, and second Queenstown-Te Anau-Milford Sound.

New Zealanders are extremely nice and they give helpful directions so I arrived at the university bus stop right on time (taking bus in foreign land alone: checked!) and my travelling buddy, Skin was already there waiting for me. First thing I said to her was, “Skin! So cold!” And she was like, “Eh, I thought it’s warm.” It was 16 degrees Celsius and I was wearing a thin cotton shirt ok!

Obviously, I was extremely jet-lagged so I went to sleep for a few hours upon reaching her apartment. 3 hours later, my friend woke me up and we went sightseeing!

DAY 1 CHAWABUNGGA

First destination: Skytower of course! Skytower is the tallest structure in Auckland, and in New Zealand. It is far taller than any other building that it stood up even from the airport which was about 30 minutes away.

We took a 15 minute walk to the skytower from Skin’s apartment. (which btw is in the middle of the city!) On the way we passed by a big group of partygoers running on the street wearing something like plastic wrap. I looked around but nobody seems to care!

When we reached the ground floor, i-site greeted us. I-site is the one-stop visitor information centre for tourists and as I was about to discover, they have it in every city around New Zealand. So integrated and efficient for tourists. I was amazed…

We got into the lift, which climbed up and up and up until the top…

Auckland skyline is as far as eyes can see. Love it. No pretentious tall buildings ahah.

At first we both didn’t want to walk on the glass area. I know it’s silly. Obviously it’s been stepped on thousands of times. They even made a sign to say the glass is built as strong as the concrete we were stepping on but looking down can make you really dizzy. There was this group of people, they walked together on the glass, then they started jumping on it.

Where do these people come from?! I honestly don’t think New Zealanders are afraid of heights at all because they try to jump from every bridge and building possible! O.o

Also had to have video of me walking on that glass.

Auckland is known as the city of sails. Know why? The picture above says it all.

We got excited when we saw the Tikki tikki…er…or trishaw. Whatever. We were like, hey, can you take our picture together? Snap!

This guy went crayzay zig zagging through the streets and walkways. Thank goodness you were cute and we didn’t get knocked down by a car.

We got off at the ice-cream parlor near the harbour.

Flavours were yummilicious.

Skin eating first of many ice-creams.

After the harbour, we went to Skin’s university to print out our flight & bus details and we passed by Albert Park. Skin’s university is the university of Auckland, one of the top established university in New Zealand.

Got the papers and we were out of there!

At the end of first day. I know macam mak cik. Shut up. It was cold!

DAY 2 CHAWABUNGGA

Next day, bright and early we walked to the bus station to take the bus to Rotorua.

The bus service was so efficient! I was so impressed that we departed on the dot. They had a name list ready, so all we did was to give our names and board the bus. So simple! No pushing, no missing tickets.

Funny thing happened when we took this picture. I set the tripod (never travel without one!!!!!) and ran backwards to pose beside Skin. Then a few cars passed by shouting whoooooo hello! Let’s take pictures!!! Nobody said anything when I was just holding the camera, but when I set it on a tripod, everybody starts hooting and shouting –__-

Had fun in front of the bath house aka Rotorua museum. We enjoyed the weird things in the museum but didn’t want to take any photos in there because honestly it was bit creepy.

After museum, we walked 6 km towards Te Puia…

…only to find it closed.

So we took silly pictures.

And watched the sunset, then walked back another 6km.

DAY 3 CHAWABUNGGA

This was an interesting day. Actually, we didn’t plan to go whitewater rafting. This was Skin’s idea. So, knowing her, I was gila surprised because Skin does not do sporty stuff. I repeat. She does not ever attempt nor appear interested ever. Even more surprising, I was the one initially saying no when she suggested it.

My thought was just that we might get injured, or too tired for our travels. We still had 5 days ahead and 3 more cities to travel to! But Skin was like, “it’s now or never!”

One thing about me, I can’t hearing that phrase. It’s like, “buy first, then think!” Suddenly it was clear to me, we had to do it. So the whole day we were saying “YAAY tick whitewater rafting off the bucket list!”

The shuttle taking us to the water rafting center.

Chose this picture so that you can’t see our horrific faces!!!!!!!

Later in the shuttle back to our hostel, we found out this guy Bernard was from Sarawak. We had no idea ok. I thought he was from China –_- until he says that he knows we’re from KL. I then thought he’s a well-travelled chinaman –_- Turns out he’s Sarawakian. Lol moment. We also met other cool people from Britain, US and Spain. I was kinda proud because at least we represented Malaysia as well. hahah

The day was far from being over. We then took the shuttle to Wai-o-Tapu to see geothermal lakes whatnot.

Honestly speaking, we were only there because the place is a MUST see place in Rotorua. We weren’t geologists so we have no idea at what we’re looking at most times. I would say something like, hmm. It’s green. Then Skin would say, water-colour green. Then I would say, it’s smelly. We both agree and move on…….