Birthday Celebrations

29 already, where did this year go? My first birthday away from family and friends was strange but John did well to keep me distracted.

I was cooked a lovely meal of steamed fish and bok choy with Szechun pepper.

Dessert was a coffee and walnut cake. Yummy.

A bottle of NZ sparkling wine finished off the evening nicely.

Moons, cakes and views

So when John does take pictures he take some good ones. Above is a mooncake which we managed to find in a local Malaysian food shop. The cake contains sweet lotus seed paste and a preserved egg. The egg is sort of an acquired taste. They are only available around the mooncake festival I think.


Below you can find 2 photos from our balcony, both taken around sunset. The lower one is actually the moon and not the sun. 

The moon is sort of upside down in NZ. Unfortunately you can't see it's strange upside down face in the photo. You'll have to take my word for it.

Leisure Island

Today we attempted to sample what the local mall had to offer. It had a range of shops comparable to a reasonably sized high street but only had one floor. I guess there's something to be said for not being overloaded with too much choice.

We spent the rest of the day around the beautiful Mount Manganui (10mins from where we live) and walked up to Leisure Island. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos. We left the proper camera in the car and my blackberry can only cope with the most basic of shots. John promises to start using his flash camera soon...

You walk onto the island from the beach

That's Mount Manganui viewed from the island

That's Rabbit Island, apparently seals visit there some evenings

For all the bird lovers amongst you, take a listen to the end of this mp3 I recorded while on the Island. It's the weirdest bird call I've heard (sounds like ding ding) and it's made by a Tui:

Rain rain go away.

Our introduction to Tauranga, apparently one of the driest places in NZ, was not good. Torrential rain rolled in and soaked the city for days. Despite all the local news headlines saying "Flash floods beware" we tried to walk into town. We got about 10mins down the road before we realised that our umbrellas had simply been directing all the rain to our feet and trousers and like a candle wick the rain had soaked it's way up to our waists. Not good.

On the plus side, there seems to be no shortage of great sushi here. The locals seem to love it and we saw young kids and OAPs happily chomping on it as we all watched the rain outside.

It was cheap as chips.

Please note the tower block in the background of the next photo as thats where we have ended up living. It's on the main highstreet in Tauranga and not far from work. Photos of the view from the balcony and walk in wardrobe will hopefully be up soon...

Living with fire

Auckland was not what were expecting. The city houses a large percentage of the population of New Zealand, but they are spread thinly across a large area. The city centre has all the shops you might want and the food was generally really tasty. We spent the majority of our day in the city museum. Left is a Maori wood carving. The ships were even more impressive. Of course we didn't take any photos of them. The most memorable thing was the volcano experience. Walking around the geological area you come to a small single story house with a ramp leading up to the front door. You go inside into the living room and there are expensive comfortable looking sofas were you can sit. On the wall is a flat screen tv and looking out of the large window is a view over Auckland bay. The TV flicks on and you hear the news presenter talking about how the area has been evacuated due to an increasing frequency of seismic activity. She spends about 5 minutes talking to a volcano expert who is telling her that no one would be able to outrun the explosion once it had started. Suddenly the TV cuts out and the house shudders. Looking out of the window you see the water start to steam and a cloud erupts out of the water and moves quickly towards you. As it hits the window the lights flicker on and off and the house shakes violently! All of a sudden it just stops. 

Then a man starts talking and tells you that you should be prepared in case a volcano does go off. He advises you to pick up a leaflet on the way out. Unfortunately there were no leaflets to be found. Bad times. I didn't really take in much of what we saw after that. 

The worst bit was once you leave the museum you walk straight into the view of Auckland bay that had been so accurately displayed in the window of the Volcano House! I still break out in a cold sweat thinking about it now. Not for the faint hearted.

First few days in Auckland - Pictures

This motel was pretty poor. They had amazing sandwiches though. Apparently they had a new chef.

The view from the harbour.

We had a nice seafood platter in the restaurant at the top of this building.

Setting sun.

The Journey - Part II

Having slept badly and with another long plane flight looming, this day had us waking up a little on the ratty side of normal. The day was saved by a cheap and delicious lunch of Hokkien chicken rice and by the latest Angelina Jolie flick "Salt". It's an old style espionage action/thriller with guns and bombs that "Knight and Day" could learn a lot from!

Before leaving for the airport we had an early dinner at one of the many mall food courts. Seriously, anyone who enjoys their food must make their way to this part of the world. Admittedly my noodles look a little greasy (left), but they tasted amazing and only cost a couple of quid.

The flight to Auckland was shaky due to turbulence over Indonesia and then later over Sydney. At least this time John didn't need to get out the vomit bag out. Whatever antihistamine the pharmacist at the airport gave him worked a treat and despite having eaten 3 meals within several hours of each other, we managed to eat the dinner and breakfast on the plane too! 

Singapore - The Lion City

Singapore is apparently the worlds 4^th leading financial centre and looking at all the tall shiny buildings that have been and are still being erected across the city it’s easy to believe it. I couldn’t work out whether the Marina Bay Sands Casino building was impressive or tacky, but as you can see above it definitely makes a statement about the wealth that flows through the streets. The 2^nd most expensive casino in the world and it has an outdoor swimming pool located on its roof! At the risk of arriving in NZ broke we stayed well clear and instead spent the day doing what we do best – eating!

Lunch was at an amazingly busy Chinese restaurant in China Town called Yam Cha. It was rammed and we had to queue in a tight unconditioned corridor for half an hour just to get in. It appeared to work like a dim sum market. You sat and waiters walked past shouting out what they had on their trays. Surprisingly the quality wasn’t that different from what you can get at a good Chinese restaurant in Soho.

Thian Hock Keng Temple

We spent the rest of the day lazily walking around the immediate district.  The Thian Hock Keng Temple and Tamil temple were equally impressive. Apparently the Tamil temple holds an annual firewalking ceremony. Imagine that in the heat! The Raffles Hotel was a bit disappointing, but I suspect some of that disappointment was that we couldn't afford the £300 per night to stay in one of their rooms!

Hindu Temple

As it was Singapore’s National Day, the city centre was busy and on the metro it felt like most of the population were making their way in as we were leaving. We had a quiet meal in the evening at the hotels Chinese restaurant. It’s amazing how sitting by a swimming pool can make the food taste so much better…

Arrival in Singapore

Not one of our photos, but you get the idea!

We arrived at Singapore at about 10am the day after we left London. With it's spacious, simple and classic design Changi Airport effortlessly puts Heathrow to shame. On leaving the airport we walked into the surprisingly pleasant humidity (imagine standing next to a gently steaming shower) and were taxied to the Goodwood Park Hotel.

   Built in 1900 the Goodwood Park Hotel has been a club for German expatriates, an entertainment venue, a hotel, a residence for Japanese soldiers during their occupation of Singapore and a British War Crimes Court. Of course all that we were interested in was the restaurant and the 2 swimming pools! After checking in, we scoffed down a buffet style breakfast, showered and napped for 2 hours. In retrospect this was probably a bad move with respect to jet-lag, but boy was the sleep good.
   On waking we walked down one of the main shopping high streets (Orchard Road), and eventually walked into a random Chinese restaurant cafe. The meal was a bit random but very tasty. The highlight was the bitter gourd shake. For the Punjabis among you that's a kerala milkshake. Was expecting it to be foul, but it was actually really tasty! Annoyingly John wasn't satisfied with his beer and drank most of the shake. He will deny this, but the evidence is clear for all to see: 

The Airbus - Beast of the Sky

Arrived at the airport in good time. As some may have predicted I managed to screw up a bit by having destroyed the credit card that I bought the ticket with. They would not issue the ticket until I found the first 4 digits of the credit card number. 20 stressful minutes later the bank agreed to release the details.
   D&P were impressively well organised and while we drank coffees in Costa they tied my rakhees - one of the many things that I'm going to miss out on this year. At least I'll get to see the pictures on FB.
   Take off was amazingly smooth. I had grand plans for the 13 hour flight to Singapore. My hand luggage was packed with art supplies, electronic gadgets, an MP3 player and books to read. Of course I didn't even open the bag and spent the whole flight using the amazing in flight entertainment. After a couple of great movies (Born to Suffer [Spanish], Kickass) , dinner and a brief nap, we finished the flight with a tetris battle. Of course I won.

The night before the flight - Goodbyes

This trip had been a long time in planning but nevertheless the last few weeks did seem to creep up on us. With multiple dentist appointments, last minute meetings with friends, and packing/cleaning the flat, the time evaporated rapidly. We were lucky to have 2 parties which were well attended by both friends and family. It's nice to know that you'll be missed and nice to be able to show people that they will be missed too. 
   After hours of partying, a surprisingly small amount of tears, an hour of I-don't-give-a-shit-anymore packing and about 3 hours of sleep on the hardwood floor, we were ready to be dropped off to Heathrow. Bleary eyed we drank our coffees and said our goodbyes as we were fast-tracked through security only to be delayed in the body scanner. This was the start of a mammoth journey which would have us arrive in Tauranga, NZ on the 12th of August.