New Zealand Trip (26 March - 3 Apr)

*Loooooooooooong overdued post*

1st Year Wedding Anniversary Celebration

New Zealand Trip (26 March - 3 April 2011)

It wasn't planned to be a wedding anniversary present but because the dates happened to coincide, it became a present! :)

Day 1 (26 March)

 

 
* GUILTY OF TRAVEL BLOOPER #1 - Forgot to bring NZD, left it on the small coffee table beside the sofa. We have no $$! OMG!! Had to change again at the airport at a poorer rate and be subjected to Mr Tan's black face throughout the entire flight to Christchurch...
* Plane was almost full but the row behind us was the lucky row! 1 guy had 3 seats all to himself
* Picked up car from Thrifty but was delayed as there was no expiry date on our driver's license. Apparently there is always an expiry date on every one's driver's license. This is indeed Uniquely Singapore. Finally, the lady at the counter decided to just make one up. Our car for the next 9 days = Hyundai i30
* Christchurch is hot! It was 27 degrees, so much for our thick clothing! The city centre is closed due to the earthquake and we had no food. Rebuilding is still ongoing. Finally went Mac for lunch and bought our toiletries before making our way to Lake Tekapo
* Peppers is beautiful and clean. Everything looked new and there was a nice bath tub! But none of us had a good night's sleep as the bed was too soft
* Had dinner at Thai Tekapo, very delicous and authentic Thai food! This has to be the best Thai food we ever had outside of Thailand. Really YUM!
* Ended the night with some Baileys and Scrabble

Day 2 (27 March)

* Had breakfast at Lake Tekapo
* Went to Church of Good Shepherd and around Lake Tekapo for some photos
* Made our way to Mount Cook and headed straight to the activities centre @ Hermitage Hotel. Wanted to book the Tasman Glacier Tour but it was raining and the nice lady at the counter, Taeko, suggested that tml might be a better day as the weather forecast was more promising
* Checked-in @ Backpacker Lodge, old and tired looking furniture in the twin/double room, rather disappointed as it was supposed to be a new accomodation at Mount Cook which only opened in Oct 2010! Suspect these furniture were used previously in other accommodations. Squeaky and noisy floor. Walls are thin and you can hear the door banging and people walking along the corridor. DAMN!!! Would not recommend staying here. Should have chosen a better accom, at least one with a hairdryer. I had to dry my hair using the hand-dryer in the toilet!!
* Food is expensive, there are only limited choices, Old Mountaineers Cafe, Hermitage Cafe, Hermitage Restaurant and Backapcker's Bar. Had lunch @ Old Mountaineers Cafe. Expensive but average food
* Rain sucks! There's nothing much to do at Mount Cook, except the Glacier tour. we drove around on gravel roads, really bumpy and narrow roads but thanks to the rain, we saw 2 beautiful rainbows! With nothing else to do, we went back to our rooms to nap
* Had dinner @ Backpackers' Lodge, prices were much cheaper than the rest of the restaurants and the portions are bigger. We ordered 3 mains to share among the 4 of us. Below average food but there really isn't much choices on Mount Cook

Day 3 (28 March)

 

 

 

 
* Weather was FANTASTIC today! Warm, sunny and really nice for our Tasman Glacier tour
* The tour was a little disappointing though, not many big icebergs. The water was icy cold and it was really cold whenever the guide started to speed across the lake. 
* The highlight was when we saw 2 movements on the lake! 1 of the iceberg flipped over and the other broke free from the glacier, what a sight!
* The scenery was beautiful, the photos just don't do it any justice
* Bye Mount Cook! Queenstown, here are come!
* Blue Peak apartments is AWESOME! New and spacious!
* Had dinner at QT food court, cheap but not exactly nice food (trying to cut down cost)
* We are running out of $ though because we are going for more activities than we had originally planned....and of course, Mr Tan mentioned that he had another 2k that is sitting at 1901..all my fault!
******According to Allison, there was a 4.1 earthquake on Mount Cook that day!!! Probably that's why we saw the movements on the Tasman Lake!

Day 4 (29 March)

 

 

* Woke up late today, shiok! Wanted to go Gondola but woke up too late and only left the apt ard 12
* Had KFC for lunch in the apt and went Glenorchy for Quad Biking
* SUPER EVENTFUL DAY @ QUAD BIKING
- I fell off the bike! Luckily the bike didn't flip and land on me, I fell onto the grass and thankfully I wasn't hurt. I was going too fast and allowed the bike to control me, instead of me controlling the bike. I let go of the bike as I fell and after that, I was fearful to go too fast (p/s: pls don't tell my parents!)
- We went up the mountain and I sat with Jasmine with the instructor, Ross. Jasmine was having a hard time on her Quad Bike, she wasn't able to control it at all and kept getting stuck. Halfway through, the instructor got her to sit behind on his bike so that the rest of us can keep moving
- Ross gave us an option of going up the hill or going around the grassland. Of course all of us wanted to go up the hill! Up we go!
- When we reached the peak of the mountain, I realised that I lost my camera! It probably fell out of my pocket as we made our way up the mountain!! ARGH!! I'm so careless!!! Ross assured me that he will try his best to look for it and if he finds it, he will sent it over to me
- On our way down, Jasmine and I were looking so hard for it and I was about to give up hope when Ross spotted it! He jumped off his bike to pick it up immediately. He's THE man! I just can't thank him enough!!
- We paid $139 for an hour's ride but we rode for almost 2 hours! Ross was such a patient and nice instructor that we gave him an extra $50 at the end of the trip
* I would never forget today, the day I fell off a bike and was lucky to escape unhurt and I found my camera that I thought would be forever lost

Day 5 (30 March)

 

 

 

 
* Wanted to do water rafting but apparently they require all participants to be able to swim!!!! Not just water confident, but be able to swim..boohoohoo..as a result, Jasmine didn't do it too as she didn’t want to do it alone. I felt bad as she was so looking forward to water rafting. Thinking back, I realised that we should have looked for Family Adventures as Serene took her kids to water raft with that company. If the kids can raft, I'm sure I can do it too. SIGH~~~~~~
* We took the gondola up to the summit. The gondola is rather small and will probably be a squeeze for 4 people but they do not pack u into the gondola with strangers to fill it up, which I think is a really wonderful way to ensure that everyone has a good time in the gondola. Jasmine is really terrified of heights, she froze during the gondola ride up
* We bought tickets for 5 luge rides but didn't realise that we need to take the chairlift to get to the top for the luge ride and after 2 rides on the chairlift, Jasmine didn't want to take it anymore as it was a little shaky
* The luge was fun! We took 2 rides on the scenic route and I did the other 3 times on the advanced route. FUN! FUN! FUN! Of course, it was expensive, $48 for the gondola ride + 5 rides. If not for the luge, I wouldn't want to go up the summit at all. So to me, each luge ride cost $10! The advanced route is more fun as there are more slopes for u to ride down and more turns too. Definitely do the advanced route!
* Had Ferg Burger for lunch, the burger is really huge, Jasmine and I shared one and it was just nice for both of us. We had Sweet Julie while TCL had Little Lamby. It's almost $12 for each burger but it's indeed delicious! We also ordered fries and onion rings and the fries are crispy and chunky, YUM!
* Since we couldn't go rafting, we thought of doing jetboating. Went to the activities centre to ask and was recommended the Thunder Jet. It was such a disappoinment. I guess you pay for what you get. It's $95 for an hour of riding on the jetboat compared to the popular Shotover Jet that cost $119 for 25 mins of riding. Of course, they take you on different routes. The Thunder Jet basically takes you on the lake and do spins on it but the Shotover Jet will be on the Shotover river and it is highly raved by many. I totally regret our decision to take the Thunder Jet. Other than the spins, the whole ride was just like a jetboat ride, BORING. We even had a kid with us on board and that could probably tell you how "exciting" the ride was. Looking back, I would rather go for 25mins of action-packed riding than an hour of the boring ride
* Allison went for tandem skydiving and she said it was really really fun until the instructor started the 360degrees spin and she felt really sick after that. She stayed at home the whole day, I think it must have been quite a scary experience
* We bought dinner back today and ate in, I guess everyone is feeling pretty tired, except Mr Tan because he stayed at home the WHOLE DAY! According to him, he wants to save the $ for me to do more activities but I think he just wants to NUA
* The highlight of today: We saw a shooting star!!!! For the very first time in my life, I saw a shooting star in the sky! The sky at night is truly STUNNING. You can see the milky way so clearly, it's so so beautiful! It's a pity I can't take any photos of it and can only snap it into my memory. I made a wish and hope that it'll come true :)

Day 6 (31 March)

 

* Reached Mildford Sound around 2pm and was in time to join the 3pm cruise but it was raining and we weren't sure if it was a good idea to go ahead with it. Jasmine and TCL said that since we're already here, just do it instead of making another trip down the next day although I'm not sure if Allison had the same idea, she wasn't really excited about it. She got a little angry when she couldn't find her bag and camera which we left behind the seat
* Gobbled lunch but the service staff at the cafe sucks, they must be the worst service staff we had came across so far!
* Rushed to the port and boarded the cruise but it was still raining, sigh~~
* But the rain actually made the whole ride more exciting! It was quite a sight to see the water flowing down the mountains, they were flowing everywhere! The wind was so so strong that we saw "waterrise" instead of waterfall!!!! The wind was blowing the water upwards!! Really really strong wind and we had to brave the wind and rain to snap photos. Most of the time, we had to do horse stands to take pics so that we won't be blown away
* We finally reached the waterfall and we were totally drenched, hair was all messed up, couldn't even take pretty pretty photos but it was SO FUN! Never been so close to a waterfall and never had a "shower" in the waterfall! really fun!
* Next stop was the Glow worm caves at Te Anau, we managed to catch the last boat ride out at 815pm and it was so dark that we couldn't capture any pics but the cave was magical. I felt like I was in space, looking at the stars and galaxy. At times, it was so dark that I can't even see my hand in front of me, frightening but at the same time, so cool!! Not to mention, it was kinda romantic in the cave, looking up at the glow worms that looked like galaxy of stars

Day 7 (1 April)

 

 

* Had a good breakfast at Shakespeare House, huge servings!
* Took some photos at Lake Te Anau before packing Subway sandwiches for lunch. It's going to be a long drive to Dunedin
* Drove to Dunedin and headed straight to Otago Penisula. None of us wanted to go to the castle but still went there but I guess Allison was upset that none was us wanted to go in, black face
* Scenery was beautiful, we saw the ocean and lots of sheep!!
* Wanted to walk to the ocean front but the way down was too steep and we were walking on sand, in the end, we headed back up
* The wind was really chilly, very very cold and the roads around the penisula were so narrow and winding, I gave up after a while and TCL took over
* Dinner was at The Reef, angmoh food, TCL and Jasmine weren't too happy to have such food again and in the end, we bought KFC for supper
* Went to Baldwin St, world's steepest street. We climbed up the street and it was FREAKING TIRING! We drove the car up and then TCL got me to drive it down, haha, he said it was too scary, LOL
* 858 George St is not too bad, it is a little too far from the city centre but the rooms are big and clean, even had free wireless and Jasmine and TCL were so happy!

Day 8 (2 April)

 

 

* Stopped at Moreaki Boulder to take a look at the rocks and snapped a few photos, it's a good photo stop along the route to Christchurch
* Finally reached Christchurch at 3.20pm after driving for more than 5 hours
* Headed to Antarctic Centre, which is a TOTAL waste of $$$!!! $65 for a 4D show, a penguin feeding show, a ride and some gallery, so freaking expensive. Blame it on Jasmine's colleague who said it's fun
* Didn't want to have any more angmoh food so we settled for Indian food. Rest was fully booked so we ordered takeaway but had to wait 30 mins for it
* Travelled to airport to return the car and then used the airport phone to call the motel for pickup and then the most horrible thing happened!!!
* The idiotic lady on the other side of the phone insisted that we need to arrange for pickup and can't simply get them to pick us up, she told us to either take taxi or airport shuttle to the motel. WTF!????!!! I told her that I had written in the comments section to arrange for pick up and she simply brushed that away and said that I MUST call them to arrange for it, otherwise there is no confirmation. We wanted to cancel it but she said we would still be charged for the rooms. Then we got Allison to try to call and trick her in sending the shuttle but she saw through it and HANG UP on Allison!! DAMN! I was super pissed. We went to the taxi stand and there was no taxi in sight!! 
* I thought of Thrifty and called them again for help. Luckily they were so so kind to let us have the car for free till tomorrow 4am. We drove to the motel and I was all ready to confront that RUDE AND UNREASONABLE woman. I was super pissed. Hungry and tired and had to put up with this unreasonable, rude and idiotic woman. I was exploding. We didn't see the woman, instead it was another man who introduced himself as the manager. He said the woman has knocked off for the night and I told him that I want her name as I want to lodge a formal complaint against her to the NZ Tourism Board.  TCL showed him the email where the comment was clearly stated and the terms and conditions stated on the motel's website where there is free 24 hours airport shuttle. He was very apologetic and said that the woman was having a hard time due to the earthquake and has been in poor health and
she is under lots of stress. Allison told him that he is also under the same stress but he is still very nice to us. He then said they have been having problems with the booking system and they didnt capture the information that I had written in the comment box. He offered to give us a discount and drinks or wine to make it up for us. He didn't want to give us the woman's name though and we all suspect she is his wife. I was fucking pissed and I stepped out after a while to let TCL and Allison talk to him. Finally, we had a $45 discount, 4 cans of Coke and 2 cans of Sprite but I'm still damn pissed!
* What a way to end our NZ trip!