Alicia & Ashley

A photo of my cousin Ashley & I, from her wedding in February.

Photo by Jenna Young
http://www.jennayoung.co.nz/

So.

So. It has been almost a month since I last updated my little blog and I am feeling very ashamed about it.

And I don't even have anything to show you in return for your faithful reading! My camera cord has been lost misplaced and so I can't upload any photos for you all to see.

BUT. I have been busy. After getting back from Singapore in the middle of February, I was home for a total of seven days before I jetted off again.

This time to a much more freezing cold temperate climate than the steaming hot equatorial mass that the Singaporeans (and my dad) inhabit.

My cousin Ashley (we're 2 months and 1 day apart exactly) got married last weekend, and so Mum & I flew to Dunedin for her wedding. Dunedin, at the bottom of New Zealand's south island, is basically as close to Antarctica as you can get without travelling on one of those icebreaker ships.

Fittingly, as a welcome, the city decided it was be fun to start pouring rain right as we drove off from the airport. Thanks very much, New Zealand weather.

We spent our first afternoon acclimatising to the weather (me) and shopping like mad (Mum).
The next day we both headed out to do some shopping on the main street. After blazing through all the shops that the one shopping mall in town had, we met my Uncle Jeff at his work in the council chambers and had coffee and caught up on all the family news.

An hour later Mum & I were in a clothing store and stopped in our tracks to listen to the radio playing through the store's speakers. We knew there'd been an earthquake in NZ, but thought it was a relatively minor one, such as are common in the land of the long white cloud.

What stopped us right then and there, t-shirts in hand, was the words "there have been reports of deaths amongst the rubble".

Amidst the frivolousness of $20 t-shirts and $15 shorts, I felt a deep sense of "none of this stuff matters". Right there, in the shop, I felt silly for spending my entire day shopping for things that were really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Four hours drive away, in a city I had visited many times, people were dead, dying, seriously injured, scared and trapped.

Four hours away families were scared and fearful for their loved ones in Christchurch's CBD.

Four hours away mothers ran barefoot for half an hour to check on their children at school.

Four hours away people in an office building had to resort to sliding down the outside of a building on a rope weighted only by the mass of another man.

Four hours away strangers banded together to physically peel off the roof of a car, only to find the driver hadn't survived.


All of this we watched on the 24/7 streaming news coverage that night, news coverage that ended up running for three days straight. If you haven't already seen pictures, the city looks like a warzone. It literally looks like someone has dropped a bomb into the centre of the city.

In the following days, Christchurch became the dominant topic of conversation. In cafes, book stores, supermarkets and pharmacies, you could almost always hear someone talking to someone else about the earthquake. Being the next largest city, almost everyone in Dunedin knows someone who lives or has lived in Christchurch. And so many of those people have had their homes or workplaces wrecked by the force of the quake that was struck so suddenly.

What was amazing to see was how New Zealand responded. Almost immediately, medical personnel were dispatched to the city. Ordinary citizens loaded up their cars and drove to help out. As supermarkets posted signs declaring they were out of milk, or bread, or toilet paper, or flour because of the situation in Christchurch, students organised for Dunedinites to make hundreds of packaged lunches, and shipped them to help feed rescue workers.

Being in New Zealand at the time of the earthquake was a little scary and disarming. But it was also amazing and very humbling. I didn't feel the earthquake (although I felt one aftershock in the middle of the night a few days later), but what I felt most was the compassion and empathy people had for those affected in Christchurch.

The world could do to take a page or two out of New Zealand's book.

Rhonda & Gareth's Wedding

Myles & Rhonda arriving for the ceremony

Rhonda & Gareth make it official

Neil & his niece Rhonda

The groom, groomsmen & "best woman"



The bride & bridesmaids



Outside the church


The first dance

This Little Patch of Green

This is the house we are renting this week while we are in Dunedin. It's called Macrocarpa Cottage and I think it looks like it belongs on the ski fields in Aspen or Switzerland somewhere!

It is a two storey wooden cottage with a loft (the window at the top; that's where I sleep).

The cottage & the main house are both set on 5 acres of land. It's been raining a lot, so we haven't had much time to venture out and take a look around, but most of it looks like this:

Our own little piece of Middle Earth!

Still....

Still in New Zealand.

Still in Dunedin.

Still cold.

Still adjusting to the cold.

Still getting used to having so many layers on.

Still not liking the rain.

Still visiting family.

Still shopping.

Still blogging!

New Zealand - Day 1

Yep, you read right, I'm currently blogging from New Zealand!
We have rented this totally cute ski chalet-style house and the best part is, it has broadband internet! So my laptop and I are totally buddies right now.

Anyway, I woke up at 4.30am this morning to the sound of my alarm ringing for the second time. I hate early mornings, and I never get up after the first alarm, so I always set my alarm 2 minutes earlier than it needs to be. Well, that usually works, but this morning I realised that I totally slept through the 4.28am alarm. Not sure how that happened.

Oh yes I am. It's because I'm not a morning person.


Anyway, we left the house by 5.40am and I was amazed by the number of cars on the road at that time. Don't these people realise that the hours from 5.00-7.00am are for sleeping?!
We got to the airport earlier than we needed to, but that was okay because it meant we had time to have a second breakfast. Necessary, because if I'm eating breakfast at 4.30am, you better believe I'm gonna be hungry again by 7.00.

By this time, I had totally (what is with me and that word today?!) taken my Valium and was feeling quite calm about all things plane-wise.

That feeling lasted most of the flight.

Until we started our descent into Christchurch and I felt the familiar rocking and rolling that is otherwise known as turbulence.

Then I started to feel nauseous.


I know, I know. You can tell me a million times that it's just air, and we won't crash or fall out of the sky etc etc. But this turbulence was the fall-a-few-metres-from-the-sky-and-feel-that-stomach-drop- "whoa" -feeling kind. Seriously, people clapped when we landed.

Me? I didn't clap, but I did stay in my seat for longer than usual while I got myself together and told myself that I'd need to stand up and move eventually.


Once we got through customs and immigration and all that fun stuff (and seriously, the NZ airport people used to be nice and friendly and now they're just not) we picked up our rental car and started on our road trip.

It's pretty much a straight drive all the way to Dunedin, but the one thing I was struck by was the green. The grass is almost lime green in colour. I guess it's because of all the rain. Seriously, we walked outside in Christchurch and it started raining. Hasn't really stopped either, even here in Dunedin.

Tonight, we met up with Neil's family who are all staying here too (it's his niece's wedding, that's why we're here in the first place) and then we had dinner at this amazing restaurant that was decorated Marrakech style. Pretty cool for some Australians dining in New Zealand in a Morrocan style restaurant.

Tomorrow, if the weather turns out nice, we're planning to go explore the property that this house is on (it's on 5 acres) and then meet up with more family. With Neil's brother in-law (the bride's father), brother, sister and their families here, plus my Mum's brother, brother-in-law and their families and my grandma and uncle living here, we have a lot of people to see!

Leaving...

I'm going to New Zealand tomorrow for a family wedding.

We have to leave home at 7am to get the airport on time.

I'm not looking forward to the early morning start.

I'm not a morning person.

Never have been.

Ask my mother.

I still haven't packed.

Better get onto that.

See you in New Zealand.

New Zealand... Mt Cook in pictures

As soon as we landed in Christchurch, we were off on our drive to Mt Cook.

This is me at the Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo.



Yeah, it was cold.

When we got to Mt Cook, it was snowing!

We thought we'd go out to eat, but this is me right before I slipped and slid all over the icy ground.

We decided to stay in since walking the half mile to the nearest cafe was just not going to happen, we couldn't drive since we didn't have snow chains on our car, and the taxis had also stopped because of the snow. We were literally snowed in!

I had a dinner of a cup of noodles, a chocolate bar and toasted marshmallows.





This was the view from our hotel room the next day.

We had to shovel the snow off our car. Well, we didn't do it. The hotel guy did.

I had fun walking around in all the snow.


It was so pretty!

New Zealand

We arrived in New Zealand on Tuesday, after a very quick (2 ½ hours) flight to Christchurch. Mum & I, being the two that don’t particularly enjoy flying, were certainly grateful that it was a smooth flight with not much turbulence, as normally Christchurch is renowned for being a “bumpy” destination because it’s so windy when the plane goes to land. I wasn’t feeling well for much of the flight, and I was worried they would realize I was sick because they made an announcement about Swine Flu and the symptoms they mentioned matched some of mine! Nevertheless we got off the plane and after picking up our rental car, we were on our way to Mt Cook (after a stop at Couplands Bakery which was conveniently located five minutes away from the airport!)

Mt Cook was about four hours away, so we spent two hours driving in late daylight and two hours driving in the dark. Towards the end of the journey, it started to snow! (You might have seen me twitter about this) I’ve never really seen snow fall from the sky as much as it did while were nearing Mt Cook. I’ve only ever seen the occasional flutter of snow in places like Canberra and the Snowy Mountains back in Australia. But this was the cover-a-car, shins deep kind of snow! It was awesome. We made it to our hotel in Mt Cook (The Hermitage, which was very nice. It even had a heated bathroom floor in our room!) and then decided we wanted to go out for dinner, since the only options at the hotel were a bar and a ridiculously overpriced buffet restaurant.

Well, Mother Nature had other plans. We tried to walk to a café nearby but didn’t make it ten steps before I was slipping all over the place in my boots in the ice and snow. We retreated back to the hotel, only to find out this café was “half a mile” away. Now, I’m strictly a Metric girl, but even I could acknowledge that half a mile was way too far for me to make it, especially considering the boots with no grip/ icy roads situation that faced us. So, our next option was to try and drive there, but one look at the roads and we knew we’d never make it without snow chains on our tyres. And snow chains we did not have. On top of that, by this point we were pretty much snowed in. Cars were covered in snow, and the roads weren’t going to be ploughed until the next morning. Fun.

So what to do? Well, since it was such a fancy hotel, the room didn’t come with a kitchenette or even appliances such as a toaster, so our only option was to raid the shelf of grocery items that was in the small store near the lobby. Given our hotel room only had a jug and cutlery (no bowls or plates) I had to settle for a cup of noodles and a bar of chocolate for dinner! I went upstairs, boiled the jug, poured the water into the cup of noodles, took a spoon and went back downstairs to sit by the fireplace! How very classy.We spent the evening drinking by the fire and watching it snow. Later we discovered a cupboard full of board games that the hotel kept for guests, and we all played Yahtzee and toasted marshmallows in the fireplace.

The next morning we were up bright and early only to find it had snowed even more! (You might have seen the photo I posted on Twitter of what it looked like outside our hotel window) We were wondering if it would even be safe to drive, but the guy at reception shoveled the snow off our car and told us “you’ll be right!” Okay then.

Off we went on our journey to Queenstown. We stopped at some nice places, like Old Cromwell Town, where there were these beautiful antiques and knick-knacks stores in this village that had been replicated to look like an old historic town. I bought half a metre of this beautiful pink and white damask (that’s a pattern) fabric that I’m going to use as the background for a pinboard. I loved exploring all the little shops in the towns we’ve stopped at, even though Mum and Neil make fun of me for the way I pronounce the names of the towns. Seriously, you try pronouncing Twizel and Pukaki. (I said it like Twizzle and Poo-cark-ee.)
Another thing I love about New Zealand (apart from Maori pronounciation!) is the food, and the little towns we visited didn’t disappoint when it came to this. Apart from Couplands, we’ve enjoyed all kinds of savouries and biscuits and slices that are uniquely Kiwi. And they are so good.

We got to Queenstown about three hours later after leaving Mt Cook. And even though it looked like it would, it didn’t snow. But man, was it cold! I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said I was the coldest I’ve ever been the first night we were in Queenstown. As soon as we got to our room, I sat down in front of the (ridiculously small) heater and wrapped myself in a blanket. Later on, I had to buy myself one of those huge big puffer jackets to keep me warm. Even with scarves and jackets and beanies and boots on, the wind is icy and bitter and it cuts right through you as it seems to come fresh off the snowy mountains that loom above us. That night, we had fish and chips for dinner with some of Neil’s family at one of the restaurants in town. Even inside, I kept my puffer jacket on! It is just unbelievably cold here once the sun goes down (or even when it’s still up, really!) As soon as we got here, my allergies flared up and for the past few days I’ve been a snuffly, sneezing mess.

Nevertheless, we have done a bit of sightseeing, and enjoyed looking around all the shops in the main part of Queenstown. Yesterday we went up to Coronet Peak to go skiing, and the views up there were a sight to behold. We were literally skiing on top of the mountain! We started at about twelve-thirty, but by the afternoon it had gotten bitterly cold again so we only made it up and down the slopes a few times before packing it in at about three-thirty. Today, my legs are sore. I feel like I have used muscles I didn’t even know I had! Which should be interesting, really, because today is the day of Neil’s nephew’s wedding (the whole reason why we are here) and I have to stand all day in high heels. Not to mention that the afternoon ceremony is outdoors, and have I mentioned how cold it is? We didn’t come prepared for snow weather, so my outfit for the wedding consists of a sleeveless dress I bought in New York, a thin trench coat and a scarf. Maybe enough for Sydney winter, but definitely not for a New Zealand winter like this! I’ll let you know how it goes. Keep an eye on my Twitter for updates throughout the day, as it’s hard to find free wi-fi access to blog around here; they all want you to pay for it!