The Colours of Autumn

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz

THAT...is why this entry is full of mosaics!

1st mosaic - "Awesome 4some" goes to Kaikoura

Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't sound obscene at all as my friend had commented! The nickname was derived from one of NZ's most delicious ice-creams' cover which we used to buy and share not only among the 4 of us but almost the entire hostel too cus it's just too colourful and yummy and awesome and sweet as...*gasp* Anyway...we were there with extremely high hopes of being able to whale-watch as the weather was extremely awesome but nobody had been able to foresee the unpredictable storm the night before our sea adventure so all that was left for us to watch was this sign below.

It was my 2nd trip there, familiarity was all around doubtlessly but the experience was stunningly different and the amazing ever-changing sky colours is just so dazzling that it felt like I was looking through a giant kaleidoscope of heaven.

2nd mosaic - Sending the soul-Bean-mate off...

I wouldn't say that the farewell was a really sad day as it was full of "family" banter, fun, laughter, alcohol, BBQ and of course homemade cookies & Bavarian apple cakes! But it almost turned into tearful goodbyes when all the lovely friends (some of whom had tried to hold back tears but failed miserably as their lips were quivering so hard I could have laughed if i weren't grief-stricken myself) they formed a huge circle and hugged him as if they would never meet each other ever again. Oh well, maybe yes maybe no only time can tell.

3rd mosaic - Apple "Madhouse" oops Packhouse

I was in awe of myself for working with the apples from inception to the end of season. There was almost not a day I wasn't complaining that I was tired of looking at those red blobs for 8 hours (sometimes more) per day despite having had a very forgiving boss for not firing me for creating a few dramatic disputes due to various personal reasons *sly smile*. Well, the sense of accomplishment is just undescribable!

It was interesting to find out that the younger boss worked with Peter Jackson in building sets for LOTR for 5 years and his wife is a costume designer who had worked for The Last Samurai & Blood Diamond and also their cousin brother had built the sets for King Kong and will be starting to work on The Hobbit this coming September in Wellington for 4 years.

4th mosaic - Leaving Motueka

...but preserving all the magical happenings in the White Elephant like an elephant! Have u ever heard of the saying that goes "An elephant never forgets" :)

*As I walk through my favourite town, breathing in the fresh crisp air, savouring my last days in New Zealand, I start to have flash backs of all the great times I've had with the most wonderful company of friends I've made throughout my journey and millions of beautiful memories I've had with my best friend and soul mate.

Winter is trying to overtake autumn by coming earlier than usual, the weather is chilling to the bone but today, as if it knows i'm going out to take a walk, the warm sunshine heats up the town a little and also warms my lonely heart. After the awesome foursome split, life is never the same at the White Elephant. There are still really nice & caring friends around but the atmosphere is just totally different. I spend most of time reading by the fire or typing away on the old laptop in my cold but cosy room number 5 or yapping away on the phone for hours (which I never liked to do before) with family, friends and of course him.

As my days are numbered here, I begin to realise that the beautiful, wonderful dream that I've been having for almost 9 months is coming to a halt and it's time to hold my head up high and come face to face with the truth - and that is, i'm still lost... :p

Nonetheless I have experienced tremendous emotions of being in love with foods, of cherishing sincere and unpretentious friendships, of tasting joy when I'm with all the lovely people whom I treasure with every fibre of my being! I feel like this journey is not entirely coming to an end as there are so many beautiful things that are blossoming - There are many wonderful friends to keep in touch with, many awesome countries to visit and many more sweet memories to create!

Hardcore Tramping - Nelson Lakes

Let's go back in time to early April

~Autumn~

"The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter." Carol Bishop Hipps

A couple of good friends who've had various tramping experiences and also fundamental tramping gears (unlike myself) expressed their profound concern and almost talked me out of doing the 3-day backcountry tramping track which is extremely treacherous (with unexpected snow when we arrived!) and is fatiguing even for an experienced tramper, let alone myself!

Well despite having my excitement being thrown cold water upon, I understood completely how they must have felt but maybe no, I simply thought they were just being OVER PARANOID about it that's why I ended up singing & humming away, skipping & hopping along the way, taking time sitting by many beautiful waterfalls savouring every bite of Yan Mui's homemade chocolate biscuits without realising at all that the journey ahead wasn't only not coming an end for the day, in fact it was endless; we walked for 8 hours in the forest on uneven slippery grounds of grass, stones and mushy mushrooms until night fell and we then we broke into sprints as if a cheetah was running after us and then bolted through the darkness like lightnings (I swear I'd never run that much and that fast in my life before) till we saw very very dim lights - candlelights lit by other trampers in the 1st hut - The Sabine Hut.

After I could feel my limbs again and making sure that I had a heart beating in my chest, we munched on our homemade sandwiches ever so slowly, with my head on his shoulder and his arm on my shoulder; we sat on the boardwalk with a wide view of Lake Rotorua; scene like this never goes out of my mind and it was one of the best moment in my life. It was quiet, peaceful, serene and full of tranquility and I think that my heart was so calm it stopped for the breathtaking moment. All hardship of the day forgotten as we retired into the hut with all the other trampers and oh my god! I still couldn't believe that my dear friends tried to dissuade me from taking up this challenge to get this heavenly experience!

The 2nd day I woke up with a strong determination to go on (just cus there was no alternative escape route for me! there were but it would've cost me my fortune...) for the hardest track of all 3 but I refuse to go into detail in fear of boring you. To summarise it all, it was the steepest hill I'd ever climbed, I literally almost lost my breath and it took me 1.5 hours more than suggested time to reach the bush line (with him carrying my bagpack for me the last hour) where forest gives way to alpine plants and where stony, rugged snowy mountains surround the huge lakes. The change was abrupt but remarkable!

Top of Mount Cedric overlooking Lake Rotorua

The rest of the track was along the ridges on the top of moutains full of rocks and snow with only neon coloured solid flags to guide us; it was the most treacherous route as one wrong step could have sent us stumbling n rolling down the snowy hill like a humpty dumpty with no one around to rescue us. However, after 9 challenging hours with a few hours spent bruising ourselves jumping from rocks to rocks in the snow, we reached the most beautiful hut in New Zealand - The Angelus Hut.

Angelus Hut

3rd day - 1st part of the journey was completely insane. People were gatherd outside the hut to watch 2 amateur spidermen trying to defy gravity by rock-clinging on the mountain with melted snow. It was like ice-skating vertically with rocks as our skates can you imagine that? And on the other side of the mountain it was also very steep and slippery with rocks, grasses and clear streams; my energy was completely robbed after sliding allllll day on my fleshy butt.

I was so exhausted I was just walking with one aim in my mind - Potato Chips in the car @ the car park! My mind wasn't present anymore so...

fell into leg-sucking mud. Yuck!

ALL that experience with a cheap pair of travelling shoes like THIS one :D and people are dumbfounded that I'm still alive!

Ain't Losing to Epilepsy! Nah Uh!

After being away for almost 9 months from home, it's rather strange to come back to a place I call home in Kelantan where everything's the same, yet different; everything's different, yet still the same. It is ironic but true.

I arrived at the airport depleted...dissipated...barely able to smile after going through a journey longer that the Great Wall of China, but I instantly broke into a widening smile when I saw my papa's head bobbing amongst the crowd and my heart melted when I saw my mom from a distance looking as young as ever with a cute chubby sleeping baby in her arms; the same baby I left 9 months ago when she was only a month old.

I came home to many lovings arms, several excited phone calls, a cousin's wedding, an uncle's funeral and most certainly, a completely different environment in which I'm not the baby of the family anymore. It is quite a HUGE contrast to have traversed a beautiful paradise and to have lived a carefree life for 9 months then to come back to hushing a crying baby, changing diapers, feeding baby cereals, giving bubble bath and talking in baby language, the list is pretty much limitless. After going through the cacophonies for a couple of days I was actually a little less robust in dealing with all those as I had jet lag to recover from and my stomach also had been having internal combustions because of the spicy dirty hawker food. I was literally in a daze all day long the 1st week I was back.

This entry is solely dedicated to my niece Ern Qi who has been fighting against epilepsy since 3 days old. At such a tender age, she has been through more pain than I could ever imagine an infant could. She's currently going through a traditional acupuncture treatment which activates her brain cells and makes them work again. The progress, in any amount, enables us to at least rely on something as flimsy as hope but still better than having baseless optimism and blind faith.

One of my best mates he gave her the nickname Baby 007 before she was given a name and I think that's the best one she could ever have HANDS DOWN. She has been really strong, she will survive and I believe she will be able to crawl, walk, run and talk soon!

Whenever I have her close to me in my arms and chest,I can't stop thinking that she's the one I've been talking to and singing to when she was growing in her mother's womb for 9 whole months and it's amazing how overwhelmingly in love I'm with her.

It still remains a dream to hear the sound of her laughter for real and to make her smile & laugh effortlessly but this dream, like many others of mine will no doubt become a reality.

"Which of us can deny that at some level we are afflicted by a sense that our human lives are incomplete and that there lies, just beyond the reach of our perceptions, a paradise that once was ours?" - Sebastian F.

it's not THE END yet!

Despite the stress about the luggage weight & the fear of having to pay an awful sum of $$$ for overweight baggage, I LOVE airports!

It's a cold place where people with warm hearts gather to send or pick up their loved ones.

I love to see people running, grinning, laughing and skipping (hopefully not tripping over bags or trolleys like I did) towards their family, lovers huggin' & kissin' each other goodbyes, wives weeping quietly as they see their husbands fly off for business trips or kids watching anxiously @ the gate as the plane takes off, waving frantically hoping whoever they just sent off could see them from the air, kids think it's cool! Oh I just love all that emotional stuff happening @ airports.

Since my laptop decided to breathe its last breath on my last days in NZ, there's no photos for this entry but I still have got a couple more entries to share about the last days in NZ which was filled with overwhelming emotions, gratitude & appreciation of a great company of people.

It has been a magical dream-like journey all along and I'm actually not sad about waking up from this beautiful dream as everything has to come to an end so that I would have time for more awesome events that will unravel, untangle and present themselves along the journey of my life!

See you soon my beloved family, cousins & my naughty friends who are still reading this thing I'm writing :p

The last bit of Summer!

Ur probably sick of my Summer adventures by now but it's the final part so hang in there! I'm catching up! (it's almost Winter now though *blush*) I'll try to keep things short & sweet and also less long-winded (...is that even possible?!)

January 09
Cherry Grading @ Summerfruit
Unsurprisingly cherry grading was the most boring, unamusing & irksome work of all; I quit after a couple of weeks & changed to packing cherries instead but it was -1ºC in the cold store and 25ºC outside, the changes were so drastic they drove me insane; I quit after a week and resumed my holidays instead - it was a great decision but i didn't realize that the bank account was drying up faster than the speed of light!

Despite the irksome job, we were a bunch of funny people monkeying around with a few stern-looking but amusing supervisors who were capable of evoking deafening laughter from time to time.

Heather(far left) - she was a breast cancer survivor who inspires me (yes even now!) with her great spirit and positive philosophy. And on the right is Flo - the angry n strict lookin' lady who made everyone breath sighs of relief whenever she smiled.

January 09
Happy Birthday Yan!

That's the birthday girl right there among the roses from our friendly neighbour.


No man? Roses then!


Everyone scrambled & hid behind the counter to hide excess u know...fats?


What's Juan trying to do by the way?


Her gift from Juan n the Gang - name was "Potito" which means butt in spanish but I'm sure Yan has changed her baby's name by now?


Little Johannes has finally found someone his age!


Rapping Potito - Starring Francisco


Ah that's a pestiferous paparazzi!


The rosy Chillaysian couple of the year!

The bunch @ Yan's birthday!

Urgh I wouldn't wanna be THAT skinny, really.

Aww I miss Kasumi - she's full of spirit, sweet smiles and huge tight hugs that i love so much!

Megumi stealing the limelight again by giving birth in mid air this time!

Shot #1

Shot #2 go on see the 3rd one

Tada! The Kiss.

Night after the party
The girls went upstairs and had a party of their own, no booze left so they took me as a hostage and decided to give my tousled drunken look a makeover!

Megu <3>

Obviously not drunk enough!


Chikako sprinkled some powder, faked my eyelashes & did some magic while i was half asleep-half drunk although i looked like i was smiling, I was actually trying to sleep, seriously.

Megumi found me irresistably kissable cus she loves eating powder. Lotsa it!

Quite strangely, I rather like this hairstyle.

Wot r u starin' at?

My precious wild buncha girls who shared lovely memories.

February 09
Traveling along the East Coast - Dunedin

Savouring the cream, relishing the aromatic coffee in the steep town centre of Dunedin.


It's the steepest street in the world! What do u reckon?


Speight's Brewery Tour - It was all for the free beer!


9 glasses of different Speight's beers :D
The drunk "rubberball" almost rolled down & bounced among the steep hills of Dunedin.

February 09
Boulder Rocks, Oamaru
The place I missed the first time I went to Oamaru, I came back for it but the weather was greyish yet I was still full of excitement collecting unique sea shells for mom to make a bracelet out of them!

Mini shells cute enough for a bracelet!


It's NOT as easy as u think to stand on 2 round slippery rocks u know?


Yan is singing "I'm FREE! Free-Fallin'!"


Haha! Can u see that li'l head stickin' outta the rock?
She was embarassed after being caught in the act!


Oh I love this place! It's called The Clay Cliffs.
It just felt like a place where Gandalf would appear on his white horse or Frodo with his 2 funny friends.


Long hours of being in the car made me go a li'l cuckcoo with little potito.


Long hours of driving? I needed "potito" to hug & to keep me awake.


The Buscot Station Backpackers @ Oamarama.


Mount Cook & Lake Tekapo in one day. I was bursting with excitement I could barely drive!


On the way...


Stopped for an apple...


Almost there...


Mt. Cook - The highest mountain in NZ


On top of the world!


Hooker Valley Track


Bracing myself for an over-priced Glacier Tour!


The lake with floating glaciers.


I see an iceberg! Kill the engine!


One huge majestic iceberg covered in black dust!


Close up


Even closer


So close you can touch it!


And fish the smaller pieces from the water!


Then bite them!


And kiss them!


Mt Cook is absolutely among my favourite places in NZ!
We were lucky to be there under the huge blue beautiful sky and perfect weather.

Church of the Good Shepard @ Lake Tekapo - The church I've been wanting to visit!


Here I am! Woohoo!!!


The coolest n most amazing view a church could have. It's peaceful too!
Hey I stole this shot shhh cus everyone else does too despite the huge NO CAMERAS sign.

February 09
Christchurch

Meeting Jae for the last time b4 he flew back to Korea :(

February 09
Hanmer Springs

It was absolutely hilarous quad-cycling in that huge yellow attention-grabber junk especially when we couldn't paddle hard enough to go up a very steep hill and started rolling down the hill hopelessly; the whole town watched with amusement and laughed hysterically at how ridiculous we all looked. Oh well...what a memorable experience we had!

February 09
Back in Motueka again! Yippie!
It's the place I've stayed for 6 months; i call it my NZ hometown.

Japanese invasion@Kaiteriteri beach :D

February 09
Golden Bay - Wharariki Beach for the 2nd time
My favourite beach !

Loooooong stretch of patterned sand


Great spot for Yoga Katrin!


Modelling shot?


Thai dance shot?


Monkey shot?


Noticed a few colourful lumps of fat seals lying on the beach?


The Old Man Hill. Spot: Old Man Face

Well this old man marks the end of my summer holidays in NZ!

Aotearoa New Zealand - Summer 08/09 (Part 3)

January 09
Escape to Wanaka
Yolande - my mate from University (currently traveling across Europe) has fallen deeply in love with New Zealand after coming here for a 3-week holiday back in January and has applied for a visa to come here in September after her UK working holiday ends. Oh i just love her optimism so much and she's always full of spirit when it comes to obtaining the things she really wants. You inspire me Yolande!

Well let's just see who does what better in posing, smiling, acting and of course jumping in the air!

January 09 Partiessss & Escape to Queenstown
Oh this german dude just knows how to partaaaaaaay all day & all night long. He's always with that goofy look, goofy smile and with that goofy headband; all the gooooofiness always cracks me up all the time whenever I see him and of course u can never miss that T-shirt of his - "Think outside of the box!"

Escaped to Queenstown for a yummy authentic sushi meal & a 3-hour short track up the hill full of huge, orangy, mario-like mushrooms to an amazing amazing awesome view.

Photographer: Megumi!

Amazing view with amazing friends, it just couldn't have been better :D

Aotearoa New Zealand - Summer 08/09 (Part 2)

Reflecting back at all the adventures & great times I've had in the past months, I realized that I have slacked for too long! So here they are all at one shot, in parts...

December 08

Christmas

Christmas did not come early. It just came half a year too late :D

It was a pre-Christmas / farewell party as I was leaving ON Christmas day to travel for 2 days (7 hours drive per day) all the way down to Alexandra for the cherries job.

Colorful table with Christmas paper towels, wine glasses, european - asian dishes =P~

Janna the Fairy, Yanmui the Muffin, George the Elephant

Karin & the Wine


Christmas cookies from Czech couple :D

Oh we had reindeers too!

December 08

Alexandra - Clock on the Hill town

We called this town The Desert of NZ cus it was so boring and I spent a month there. It was NOT the best days of my life i can tell you but the escapes on weekends to Queenstown n Wanaka from there was pretty awesome!

On the way to the clock on the hill.


Jonny & the Clock

"Harold & Kumar" NZ version

It was pretty windy up on the hill and see next for what happens after this...


Hehehehehe...

January 09
Camilo de "Potito" Birthday

Birthday boy welcomes his japanese guests

Salsa performance with Shizuka

"Lin! Don't break my 4 year-old's bike!" - Greg

"Sorry, I just broke ur 2 year-old's tricycle" - Johannes

He hasn't received a gift so cool in years probably?

THAT says it all.

Let's have some Venezuelan Rum - Pampero


The Chilean troupe

A li'l bit of pampero...makes you wanna dance


And dance...

Too much pampero makes u go loco loco!

Over drink pampero makes u "SOTALLY TOBER!"

A li'l bit of beer is OK.

Aotearoa New Zealand - Summer 08/09 (Part 1)

December 08

Abel Tasman National Park - 1st Camping Trip in NZ

Blame it all on the weather. It was supposed to be fine, warm & sunny 2 days 1 night and with everything booked in advance we left for Abel Tasman with bursting excitement! The morning we went to wait for the pick-up it started raining like hell. I still remember the friendly and chirpy bus driver wearing her funny colourful Christmas hat (it was just a few days away!) with a bell on top which made really cute cling-clang sound when she walked up & down the bus.

The sea was very rough; I could see the muscular captain trying very hard to act cool and calm but failed miserably so we ended up hitting the boat on the sides n also bottom. The wobbly bits of my body started aching after some time especially the ones on the bottom that look like bowling balls? They are softer but not smoother. >.<>

Started our 5-hour tramping till we reached the camp site to spend the night.

See what spent the night with us...hint: it messed up my rubbish bag n tried on my sandals :(

It is the New Zealand's road pizza - POSSUM!

Day 2 - Kayak Day!

Camwhoring before the kayak team arrived :D

The kayak team!

I was complaining to our guide about sore arms alot so he decided to take out a huge piece of "cloth" and we did Kayak-Sailing! it was faaaaakin' awesome!

Despite the crappy weather on the 1st day, the 2nd day was hot & sunny and I had an faaaaaaaakin' AWESOME time!

Once in a while...

Amidst all the helter-skelter - extension of visa, future plans, financial crisis, emotional turmoil - with never a pause, came a certain kind of freshness and surprise that changed the customary way of my life. I suppose.

Everything starts to fall into place as i brush off all the paranoia i was building within.
Everything becomes magical when i could just let go.
Everything sounds like music when i shut down my worries & just listen.
Everything turns into miracle when i just believe.

The bittersweet journey that I've been through over the months has helped me grow a lot in ways that I could never have imagined. Isn't it great to have a gratitude list for all the wonderful happenings? Here goes things that i'm totally in love with right now:

1. This puppy from my t-shirt my sister(i miss her!) got for me ages ago. It finally came off the shirt - no more hanging & swinging in front of my (ahem!) chest, bringing unwanted attention.

2. A great comrade who incessantly inspires me with (stylish & unique<- edited later) out-of-tune but mind-blowing songs & also ceaselessly enlivens me with great philosophical tales & silly talks. (i miss that!)

3. The sunflower on the front porch of the White Elephant.

4. This corner of the house in the White Elephant outside my dorm room. That's where I use the mirror (well, most of the time :p)

5. My awesomely hilarious Japanese, German & Swiss roommates. Pictured above is my Swiss uncle Stefan (he's younger than me) and oh I luuuuuuuuurve his baggy (pajamas) pants so much I make him dance in it almost every night.

6. The beautiful white pigeons outside the back porch *points at the dangling shoes*

Life is indeed beautiful.

But once in a while the odd thing happens,
Once in a while the dream comes true
And the whole pattern of life is altered,
Once in a while the moon turns blue.
- The Operas of Benjamin Britten

Gone Fishin'

My 1st kiwi fishing experience @ the Mot River. The tide was coming in as we were wading through muddy pools of brown coffee coloured water led by Mark & his puppy Jake to look for JB (both my kiwi job supervisors) who invited us for this "expedition"; he was there much earlier to find a good spot for fishing at the mouth of the river and he already had a huge Kawai fish in his ice box when we arrived. That was a good start!

Coffee anyone?

That's JB when we spotted him. In his cute water proof jumpsuit.

The fishing buddies/supervisors Mark & JB.

Jake - thinking if he could get any fish with his bare paws.

Oh what could possibly be more boring than fishing? Seriously i mean look at that!

It was so boring ppl started taking random pics of my wet butt.

Another one. Side view. I mean the wet butt.

After 10 mins, they started pointing at my rod n telling me i got something. I was like HUH?

I didn't believe them, I thought I must have caught an old boot with treasure or something :D

Urgh, it was really a huge Kawai fish :(

Ouch!

Look at that poor fella!

No i wasn't as happy as that girl in the picture.

George tried his luck too n aww look at what he got!

His lovely little fish.

He's just jealous i got bigger fish than he did :p

JB got his 2nd Kawai


Fish market?

Mark cleaned the "insides" of those poor fellas.

It was nonetheless a great exciting day for all of us but that would probably be the 1st & the last fish I caught this lifetime.