Backtrack ( Auckland, Day 6)

Day6, picked my mum and 2 sis at Auckland airport in the morn. Brought them to the top of Mount Eden, same as me on day 1. Funny to see them react to the cold air. Now pro liao. Can walk around with only my Le Coq jacket.

Their arrival brought some freshness to the group. Also, caus my grandad getting old, bit senile, sometimes just keep on muttering and complaining about the place, can get a big Fan... now at least my mum will talk to him, and more eyes to watch out for him.

Went to the Ministry of Transports Museum (MOTAT). It showcased mostly historical vehicles etc etc. like old fire-engines, police cars trains. etc. More interesting was MOTAT 2, which was in an airline hangar. MOTAT 2 was more on aviation history which appealed more to me. The coolest was the Huge Lancaster Bomber from WWII which filled a third of the hangar. The whole place was crammed full of old planes and memorabilia from NZ Airlines and WWII vetrans.

In the evening went back to Botany town, the shopping area. Bought a shirt n a polo tee. Wanted to buy more, but spent bout 100+ le. The mens clothes in this area particularly cool.

Besides clothes, nothing much to shop for except some souvenirs. Was in one souvenir shop went read a bookmark with the name "Audrey" meaning noble avenger. haha. suits her personality very well.

Set off for the south tml. Cool. Wonder if got internet on the way. For now though. See ya.

Zzzzzz (Day 5, Auckland)

Look at its ass carefully

Previa

Had a bit more time to sleep this morn while my dad n grandad went to collect a new rental car for the arrival of my mum n sis tomorrow... It's a 2005 Toyota Previa. Much cuter than the first rental car right? I used to walk past the old car, cause its so plain, i totally forget that i'm supposed to take it.

Drove to Murawari beach today, on the west coast. It's a long drive there, but we passed by fields of sheep and cows along the way. At one particular field, we stopped to get a closer look and some pictures of the cows. Cows lying and standing around, mouths chomping around like chewing chewing gum..... Suddenly something exploded from the asses of two of the cows.... a steady thick green liquid... a passing gust gave us a closer sniff of the aroma...... omg.... i quickly discarded the egg McMuffin in my hand....

The beach which overlooked the Tasman sea, was very windy and by extension, very cold. From there you can see the cliffs which form the western edge of NZ. A very raw place. It's time like this that makes admire the strength and resilence of Hair Wax.

On some of the adjacent cliffs are colonies of seagulls. As i was reading a sign telling me how the birds migrated, a shower of white rain splattered onto my jacket. Bird poo. Think it was the bird's first time being scolded inHokkien. KNN. It seemed to understand as it screamed back at me "aaawwww! awww!".



After lunch, we went over to a small town called........ i forgot. Anyway, it was a place with more ex. houses and had a pretty good shopping area. Better than anything in town in fact. Shopping areas in these small towns involve a single storey shopping complex with a large carpark in front. If you've been to Australia you'll know what i mean.

Inside one of the stores, the store keeper spoke to me, ask me how's ur day etc etc... I told her i'm from S'pore. Then she said like "your English is pretty good'. haha. how do you reply that. "I told her i speak English all the time". she said " Still your english is pretty good."

maybe she dun understand what i mean by ALLL THE TIME. maybe she think i juz learn in school or wat. Mr Brown show had one podcast called "Native English speaker", where they went to UK to look for foreign English speaker.

They interviewed one S'porean who was there, and when asked whether he spoke english, he replied. "I COME OUT OF MY MOTHER C** B** ALSO CRY ENGLISH ONE". wonder what she'll say to that. ^_^

Blackout (Day 4, Auckland)

view from apartment window

Porsche's are very common in Auckland.. Cool right?

The Art Gallery...(No photos allowed! sir)

View from Devenport

Street of devenport

Pretty port?

Sorta City Hall interchange... called Britomark

City Skyline

Told ya graffiti's bad... wonder how they did those on the top right? they're pretty high.

Ya see that? tt's heeren! nah... but look so few ppl

snap! post card perfect!

It's about 6 in the evening now, and i'm sitting in total darkness. The reason? The landlords say they havent recieved the rent, while dad payed the rent a week ago. Apparently someone screwed up at the bank, and the payment never made it through. Thats NZ banking for you. Think it's safer to keep your money at home than in a NZ bank.

My grandad says there was once he was living in Australia, the bank told him he had $20000 balance in the bank 3 days later, they sent a letter saying they had made a mistake and sent an apology.Lol. Never thought banks can make this kinda mistake.

This morning took a bus ferry to nearby island of Devon Port. There are two hills there with a great view of Auckland area. There used to be big guns overlooking the sea. Sorta like Fort Siloso in Sentosa. Juz without the swimmers and swimsuits... it'd be suicide to swim in this weather...

Had lunch at a Chinese restraunt. Singapore noodles. The weird thing is, i never ate any noodles like this in S'pore before. wonder if it's the same thing when we eat Korean or Japanese food in S'pore. Speaking of Koreans, there r chao ji super super super a lot of koreans and koreans stalls here. But none of the CB's u see on tv though... tt's sad...

seen the uniforms here too... also CMI... skirts are weirdly long due to the winter weather, the guys wear short, thats right SHORTS!!! with high socks...... wad a waste... all those visitng Japanese students...

Back on the mainland we took a bus and explored the area we covered by car a few days back. Ok la, NZ's not that bad... but seriously the shopping here CMI... If u wanna go shopping, KL, HK, Seoul or Tokyo better...... mostly local brands here, very limited high end ones...

In the evening, went over to Civic centre, sorta the Cathay Cineleisure Orchard. Inside pretty cool, same kinda neon lights etc... spotted an arcade and went to try my hands on English version of Initial D. I've never seen such a clean steering wheel in Spore la. All been used until broken. Anyway, but the time i beat the com, got a small crowd gathered behind me. But had to go liao movie starts.

Watched Miami Vice, the one featuring Colin Farrel as an undercover cop and Gong Li as a crime boss. Based on a tv series in the 70's of the same name. Pretty cool move. Havent watched this type in movies for a while le. Lots of shower seens. Be warned.

oo wait... power's back... guess what BBC's showing... Singapore! food looks yummy...

Well think i saw most of Auckland liao... it's a pretty big place, but not very exciting or competitive...

Lost in Translation (Departure+Day1, Singapore- Auckland)

Ignore my face... it's windy n freaking cold ya noe..

Sky Tower

Streets of Auckland

Over New Zealand

I'm sitting in my dad's apartment now in Auckland NZ, it's 11pm, which means bout 7pm in Spore. Right then, to how we get here.

Checked in with my Grandad at 5 at Changi Airport T2, took off at 6 for a one hour flight to KL. The plan was to transfer to a NZ airlines flight from KL direct to Australia. Unfortunately, one hour later, we were told by the pilot that as the haze of KL was too thick, we had to divert to JB airport.

song bo, on my first flight by myself summore... we hung around JB airport for half an hour before reboarding the plane. By then there had been some showers n the haze had cleared enough somewhat for the plane to land. Still, it was thick enough that i could actually see a wall of dust infront of the plane, illuminated by the plane's floodlights.

By the time we arrived at KLIA, it was too late, a Malaysian airline rep. told us we had missed the flight and that we had to be transferred to a flight to Sydney, before proceeding on another flight to Auckland. Barely had time to take in the sights of KLIA, all i can say is that its quite new, but very empty. it looks something like Spore expo, so not very pretty. But their skytrain is cool, passing by next to planes on the way to the underground tunnel.


For the Sydney flight, we took a Boeing 747 which was great after the crammed jet we took to KL. The onboard entertainment system was simply fantastic. I brought along an Mp3 n a laptop, but after seeing the entertainment system, didn't want to play them anymore. It had everything from movies and music, tv, radio, flight information and even a travel guide and info on any city u wanted to find and maps of the city even.

Didn't sleep much that flight, as i watched Austin Powers 3, which was pretty disappointing, and a soppy korean movie, bout an ugly guy who hides from his chio blind gf after she regains her sight.

Arriving at Sydney airport, had to search for a transfer desk and tell them bout our flight transfer and all that and arrange our next flight. Sydney airport though famous, is pretty crappy compared to Changi, not much shopping, n security's real strict too.

On the final Air NZ flight to Auckland, slept most of the way, didn't realise that we landed till i felt the bump of the airplane landing. By then it was 2 o clock local time, which makes it 16 hours flight time. Enough to travel to london. Haha.

After waiting for like 15mins at the baggage carousel, realised my bag wasn't coming out, so had to report it to the baggage lost n found.They said they would call when they found my bag. The experience of airport duty really helped me a lot, caus otherwise i'd be pretty freaked out.

Met my dad just outside the arrival doors, and just as i stepped outside the airport doors, was greeted by a blast of super cold air outside. Just a taste of things to come.

First place my dad brought me was the top a 600 year old volcano which had a great view of Auckland. The winds were plus it having just rained left me shivering real bad. No suprise since the temp was close to 10 deg plus.

Auckland, and in fact the whole New Zealand is built around old volcanoes around the place. The earliest people to reach were polynesians then the europeans around the 1800's+. It's bout the size of Japan but the populations only like 4 million!!! Aucklands the largest city with 1/3 the total pooulation and already i find it v. quiet on the streets. wonder what the farming south isle will be like?

After taking a short tour around town and dinner in a Chinese area, ( Auckland is full of mainland chinese, Koreans and Japanese, like 1/3 of the people here) it was bout 8 plus. Even though it was raining and freezing outside, we went back to my dads apartment.

K my dads apt is not wat u'd call big. it's essentially a one room apt in the middle of the heart of the city. it is well furnished and clean though. it's bout the size of half a classroom with a small but v clean wash room, a sofa, small kitchen, Pretty big tv, and small bedroom at the back with a balcony. All Ikea kinda furniture so pretty cool. except my dad's pretty messy.

we decided to take a walk around the sorta Orchard Road area, close to where my dad lived.

Looks really cool at night, with the neonlights reflecting off the wet road. but not much shopping to speak off. no malls, not many high rise buildings, only a handful, shopping limited to local clothing, vcd shops, lots of car sales, car parts... tt's pretty much it. Only seen 1 Adidas word in the WHOLE CITY, which is quite zzzzz...... no banks, no watches, no electronics, no handphones, that kinda shows NZ as pretty back dated in terms of technology...

overall my first impressions of Auckland is like a slightly backward, less pretty, colder, quieter version of Australia. hope it will get improve as we move toward the countryside. The people like dun come out much, don't see many schools, though many foreign students, basically nothing much to do. People here like drink at bars, do graffiti and pretty slack.

see if can post some pics. the internet here real slow. and keeps on disconnecting too. missing out on soccer news as NZ only play rugby caus of their famous "All Blacks".

Touch Down

before u touch anything, touch down refers to my exams, so u can take your hands off now...

right then, EXAMS ARE OVER!!! OVER!!!

sorry bout that... i only get to celebrate the end of an exam once every 6 months... allow me to indulge a little...

the exams were on the whole pretty good considering that it was all last minute study... especially maths. it was today's paper, and only had 22hours to study, which is like only mayb 4-5 hours to flip the book for the first time and read the words. ever.

spent most of the weeks leading up to the exams mugging with jas n wq in tampines library... noticed that the people who go lib to study is almost the same lot... know them so well by now, i would say hi, if not for the "silence in the library" sign hanging overhead...


happily, think can get A anyway, tt's all thanks to A-maths in sec school, and the higher maths i'm taking.... hahaha... ask dennis if u wanna compare JC n poly engg maths...

the mood was right for a grand celebration, and so we went to Pardiz centre at Dhoby Gauht for my first taste of DotA action in probably a month!

My redebut was a success, even though i was lacking match-fitness (almost forgot lots of dota terms), still managed to have several kills without dying too much... and so were the 2nd and the 3rd games... shiok... spent 8 bucks in 5 hours, but worth it.......

after that went to suntec to get some scarfs n gloves for the trip to New Zealand tml... oh i did mention right? i'll b there from 25 aug to 8th sep... visiting my dad over there...

tell ya wat, if i get internet access, i'll try to post some pics. right.

NOEL, Welcome to the hell.

Got a msg from audrey last night asking me "where did you find your jobs last year one?".

that night i had a nightmare, a real heart stopper... it was about a company i worked in early last year...

1 year ago...

januaray plus...

i hadn't been working since the call centre job with ql n cyy in dec, my dad was v. unhappy with me staying at home, and asked me to get a job. desperate for any job, i heard tt one of my old classmates jeanie had found a job at this chinese new yr hamper wrapping company called NOEL.

decided to check it out with john. should have sensed something was wrong the moment i stepped in. it was a warehouse in eunos. if you've been in a warehouse before you'll know what i mean. the dusty smell. dusty feel. bare concrete. industrial fans.

the work condition was unbelievable. terrible. 12 hours a day climbing up and down carrying stuff around, hounded by a bitch supervisor the size of a hippo. she looked like one of my distant aunties. i havent spoken to that aunty since.

the boss, a cheeko pek balding old man, who bitches at the supervisor who bitches at us. sweating all the time, internal politics like you wouldn't believe........... talk also kenna scold. sit down for 2 sec also kenna scold. drink water too much, well i no need say right...
feeling is like one of the worsts camps u ever went, but 3 times worse. internal politics so rife, you thought you were in in a Taiwanese parliment.

didn't really like my colleagues, but we were very united in hate of the bosses. planned a mass resignation.

ppl joining and leaving every other day. one of my colleagues left a couple of days after i did. guess how. he got so pissed with the boss, he slammed his hand on the table and shouted back at the boss. then he left. cool.

tt's y the motto for new ppl joining the company was Noel, welcome to the hell. chinese new year has never been the same.

feel like running home every lunch break. dun giv pay also nvm. tt's how terrible. after changed to ql F & N job, still pretty tough, but compared to NOEL? heaven. sweet.

last night dreamt that somehow i was forced to work with NOEL again, bcaus it was doing smth for aeroplanes so had to intern for them. did i say dream? i meant nightmare. Noel a real nightmare job. no pun intended.

Happy National Day

lecturers are more or less over, classes are over, time to prove if you've got wat it takes to be the ultimate mugger!!!

nearly completed my report on the SQ006 crash. doing the presentations n powerpoints in poly over the past 1.5 years has taught me a lot compared to what i learnt in sec school. research has to be done thoroughly and the presentation has to be super professional. we even have to dress formally for our presentation, and that means black pants, long sleeved shirt and tie.

for our reports, we have to have proper heading, sub heading, sub sub- heading and so on... even the pictures and pages must be properly labelled and spaced. doing the conclusion, makes me realise what all that training in for humanities exam were for... to give you the skills to write proper reports it seems.

you can't cheat either by cutting n pasting... the school has a hudrend thousand dollar program to check the percentage of copying from your frends or the net.

no going back to hai sing this year for national day celebrations. due to timing n all that.

there's always next year. Happy Nat Day

Mug

been going to the library recently over the last week or so to study... haven't progressed too much... but met quite a few ppl who i haven't seen in a long time...

studying time is a lonely time... feels like 'every man for himself' kind of time... everything just revolves around cramming as much info from your books into your head. v sian. but tt's life i guess.

sometimes, feel it's quite pointless, like ur not studying to know more things and understand, but for the sake of exam only, and tt's wat i hate.

once read a newspaper article that single sex school's students are able to concentrate n study better... i guess tt's quite true to a certain extent, i mean not spending unnecessary brain power worrying bout other stuff. but the downside is, ur class talks bout games all day, and are so ji siao, the teacher can't teach anything.....