have you ever walked on moving ice before? first activity for the day is to get our bags and attempt to get our free soup (which we did not have in the end). the night before we arrived late and was even given the wrong keys to someone's room on the first floor. that was a little story for embarrassment for the three of us. i pity the ones who were trying to sleep in the room and having to be awaken by us.

but anyway. strapped in thick leather hiking boots we had to make a really long long walk over rocks and boulders to the base of the glacier. it was only 12-2(approx.) degC on the ice. franz josef glacier is one of the three glaciers in the world where the glacier runs into a equatorial rain-forest. one of the other one is the neighbouring glacier. apparently new zealand have 3000 glaciers in total. who would have known that such a small country would have so many glaciers.

the three of us wanted to take our own sweet time to walk and photo whore along the way by attempting to old the last group at the back. but they chased us away to make us join the first two group. that automatically means that we will have less time and chance to whip out our cameras to take photos. so no we are stuck with people who walk and climb too fast for their own good and having to suffer away from our destined "granny group"

the first half of the climb was up steep "walls" and all we had was a rope to cling on to. i think you can see form the photo that it is really steep. and our guide had a nice red jacket, shorts, leg warmers and very cool photo moment worthy places to stand.

it was quite a bit of climb up in ice claps up the almost vertical section of the base of the glacier. the spikes are so sharp you can confirm kill a live possum in a single stamp. from the bottom there is almost no sign of ice for a good 200m because everything was covered in debris from the mountain cliffs. but as you get higher up you will begin to see special landforms that exists today and will not exist tomorrow. you will see ice so blue you are amazed by the color and the cavis that are so narrow that you have to walk in one line to get through.

isnt it a better time then to start photowhoring between the ice? pravin finally found out the powress of the girls in this tough industry. imagine how hard whoring is when for every moment you have to find a pose in no more than 2 seconds. whoring is an art i tell you. pravin just took out his camera and shouted "girls" (referring to me and shireen) and immediately the two of us found ourself a wall to pose against. synchronization. it is an artform that only few can do.

armed with a banana and the ice pick, you have the chance for a short break among the ice.

driving along the coast to punaikaiki and stopping along the way to take jumping shots against the sunset. this time around there were so many failed attempts that we simply got too tired using the self timer we just dint bother with it anymore.

reaching the beach hostel at punaikaiki where we had a tiny little beach shack where we just could open the windows to listen to the waves crashing against the beach. and when you look up, you can see a whole wide paranomic spectrum of starts. STARS and MORE STARS as far as the eye can see. if only i have taken some astrology classes in some point of my life then i would know how to tell more constellations other than orion and the big dipper.

i have been back for some time now (1week) and have many things to rush to finish. some of you people might have actually seen me running about here and there in hall. so pardon the lack of extra post exams trip info. give me some time to get my journal notes together. honestly, i have been pretty lazy.

and since now that i have started work you can expect less or no post. i finally got myself a part time job for the holidays thanks to jilly.

there is always more time to sit and relax by the lake even though you have already spent 6 hours of the day before doing just that. just that this time it was done in the company of shireen and pravin (shireen bro). shireen even brought out her little guitar from the back of the car and started playing tunes on it while looking at past the lake to the distance. just lying there for a good hour seeing random dogs running off from their owners and prancing all around you.

there was always some time to sit there and do abit of photo whoring. i think whoring runs in the mahtani family. pravin has his own share of whoring in his blood. apparently he learn much from this trip. the sun was up and there was plenty of time to roll up your shirt for a nice tanning session along the lake. you can even see family picnics and little kids playing with water. i think new zealand people have a good life, if you are rich you can afford a summer home in the mountains of wanaka and on the weekend there is always time for you to drive down to the lake for a little skinny dipping or swimming. it is just like what you watch on hollywood tv. imagine the chance for you to go out to the lake at night for a small skinny dipping session with your girlfriends.

there are so many things to see from wanaka to haast to franz josef. there are the countless number of waterfalls that you have already seen all over new zealand and since the landscape on the west coast is rustic and rugged, there are more natural natural things to see. there was plenty of beautiful things to see just in that little few hours drive west.

the thing i love about mountain passes is that at every turn around the bend, you can always find a moment to be wow-ed. the car turns and you are splashed with an imagine you cant seem to get out of your memory, even up to now. and along this drive there are so many places where you can just stop your car and take a breather and maybe attempt taking jump shots.

and for the record. i think we are very horrible jump shot takers. we had to attempt a few shots just to get a single decent shots. wait tilll you hear the story of us trying to use pravins phone's self timer to time jump shots. i think those moments were classic and i think the number of times i have spent jumping for self timer shots have made me lose 2 kg.

have you ever drank river water? well... i have drank river water so clean you can fill it in a bottle and see no sign of any particles in it. pravin have been wantin to walk across the river we passed and he kept saying in the car that he wanted to do it. so we did a random stop somewhere on the upper course of the river to do that only to find that the river was too deep and too fast for normal barefooted walking. but this gave us a small opportunity to take a sip of fresh river water. just hoping that no one or no animal have decided to pee in the river further up.

the water is sweet. as corny as it really sounds, it REALLY IS SWEET. it taste nothing like the bottles spring water or mineral water you get from the supermarket. and it really is SWEET. that is the only word to describe the water. the moment it touches your tongue it becomes SWEET.

we even filled it in our water bottle and we were so surprised to see that there is NO SIGN OF DIRT. just very clear clean water. new zealand is one of the few places in the world that it so pollution free that you can drink sweet clean water right straight from the river.

i cant remember what is the name of this falls. something creek or something. but who cares when you tried to reach to river bank by climbing over bushes and rock only to find out that the normal path actually reaches there. so much for leaving markers along the path for fear of getting lost and not knowing how to get back.

we tried to hop over rocks, keep our balances just to get a photo moment. i assure you that it was no easy task trying to get these photo taken coz both cameraman/women and subject have to spend some effort doing a balancing act.

sunset along the coast is a pretty picture. what is better than seeing the orange sky as a simple background of the sea and the coastal landforms? just a tiny little time of your life when you wished you could just park your car at the coast and enjoy it. too bad for us we had to make haste due to falling night (although sunset is at 9pm) but this gave us a moment to look at LIVE POSSUMS. you know why they get run over by cars all the time? because they just sit there, in the middle of the road, and await for the car to come running over them.

the morning passed like a quick blur. it almost felt like it never happened. it was all a big fat rush to wake up, bathe, have my last breakfast in unicol, pack the last bit of my room into my green backpack, buy sushi, buy a cafe latte and hop on the bus in all less than 2 hours.

it is only on the bus that it dawned on me that ill never see this place again. how many times i have seen the sheeps and cows row pass the vehicles and yet it is only now that i stop to think to myself how beautiful green grass look splatted with white or black spots.

funny how you will not appreciate something until you have so little time left with it. th green grass, the rolling hills and even the wild flowers. you never knew how many types of cows there can be in a single field. how the sun and clouds cast shadows on the open field. how my brain automatically apple landform to what i see. how long i have been here to see empty bare trees blooms flowers and then grow leaves. how some trees grow in one direction. the magnitude of the wind i will never feel in singapore even in a typhoon. the random lakes. the random dead possum. how it rain but it never pours.

rented a bike and made it almost half way around the lake. i have always wanted to see lake wanaka on two wheels. wheels take you where your feet cannot in a given time frame. further out from the track where we left off the last time, there is really more to see. another 30 mins ride and you get to a portion of the late where half your view are the snow capped mountain ranges. and the best thing of all are the rocks. random large boulders sitting on the edge of the lake screaming out to you to snap a picture of it. my soft spot.

i spent so much time just sitting there and just staring into the distance, hearing the waves splash along the beaches, seeing the ripples spread out with every rock you throw in. seeing the point where the lake reflected the landscape. there i was trying to balance my poor camera on some rock 10 meters away, hoping that it will not fall into the water with a small blow of the wind and then setting the timer on and running 10 meters back to where i was bare footed and trying to look like i never was in a rush to take the photos.

i did a ride around the suburbs of wanaka and i tell you these people really have the money to know how to live life. imagine a VERY large house with a your choice of a swimming pool or a tennis court facing the lake looking into the mountains and multiply this imagine by 1000. 1000 very pretty looking large houses all in a single area. and i assure you that the houses here are way bigger than the ones you get in 6th avenue or andrew road.

black snake moan

dont watch this even if you need to entertain yourself. shireen and pravin can tell you that. the only special thing about this movie was that we had a small screening in a little cinema that have have sofas instead of chairs and you can even watch your movie from a car. eat homemade ice cream and slouch all over the place with a big screen.

you could possibly see the whole milky way from wanaka on a cloudless night like tonight. wanaka never seemed more magical. i love wanaka. it is gorgeous in the day and absolutely fantastic in the night. sad tat it is one picture moment you will never be able to capture on camera. at least on my camera. some of the stars are so small that even if you cannot see the star you can see a faint aura of light around it.

finally. my classics paper is over and done with. i am a free woman!!!!! my duty to my exchange programme is serviced for at 5.30pm today with the handing in of my last exam paper. the last paper i had written so little for i dont care.

this is the end of my stay here in dunedin. im leaving for my little trip to the west coast tomorrow morning before flying back to singapore, where my first stop is going to be for food. nice beautiful singapore food. i cant believe that i have spent the last 4 months here. 4 whole long months of weather you will never get in singapore. i dont know how i am feeling now. will i miss this place? how come i dont feel anything. just a void. a nice big black void. mayb ill start to feel it later when i have more to think of.

i will start to miss my room where the sun never reaches. i will miss walking pass that little garden in hall where i sit sometimes when it is sunny and warm. then there is my little dungeon where i stayed in north lower ground. and my little dungeon toilet where you can always find a cubicle to shower in or take a dump. ill even miss the cold corridors

then there is the dinning room where the food is really not that great after all and where i spend hours talking to people and having our little food fights. then there is the main common room where i always go to buy my bag of chips from the night cafe and the vending machine. or my floor common room i spend watchin the family guy at 7pm every night.

i am not feeling the missing yet.

i really cant believe that ill be leaving this place so soon. as much as i feel like leaving this place behind like it was a distant part of my experiences and memory. i am really happy and very satisfied on my stay here. the time i have spent here is long enough for me to see the place and appreciate those people at home. and yet it is short enough to make me crave for more and to be back in singapore eating what singaporeans love the best.

there will still be no where like home. ok people. the next time i blog i will most likely back in singapore

time to start packing my room into a backpack. chao!

dunedin is a big city. apparently it is called a city although to me dunedin is like the smallest of the cities i have ever stepped my foot in. to me city = high rise. not a small "town" with one street as the equivalent of orchard road. what you get in george street you will already find the same number of stores in junction 8.

well i have lived in such a "city" for the past 4 months and today, i finally got to get my butt into a far away place which is a apart of dunedin. 10km from school there is a smaller suburbia township of a place called port charmers. it is dunedin's own version of pasar panjang. shireen was saying that the name charmers sounds very posh like as if linked to the word "charm". well... this place really is a pretty interesting place.

there are a few shops only the main street and most of them are actually old antique and arts shops and i have got to say that the very shops that we set foot into, it has very interesting bits of history i could use.

there are shops that sells even old cameras and 1940 badges and old weighing machines that have rusted till you could almost not be able to tell that it was a weighing machine. it is nice to walk into shops like these where you know the past never seems to run away from.

and it is so fun just to be able to get around to things you could never really find even in singapore antique stores. shireen and i were doing our own little gift shopping around port charmers after doing major damage to our pockets and bank account in george street earlier in the afternoon (all thanks to timsum and jayjays)

i love it how churches here all look so beautiful in their little gothic architectural designs. well. i guess that is when the weather permits you to make buildings out of limestone and rocks that will dissolve in acid rain.

even the school beautiful clocktower is made out of the very same rocks.

all thanks to the location of the country and the fact that there cant possibily be acid rain here as New Zealand is a carbon neutral country. they doing even burn fuel to generate electricity. all the energy you use to generate the lights or the tele is from either wind or water or geothermal. cool right?

we followed the road signs and ended up somewhere along aramoana where they had salt marshes (or as i call it -swamps) and there was a nice stretch of beach that reach passed the end where you can see taiaroa head of the peninsular tip. you could see the light house from there.

the pretty thing about this beach is that there are so many shells all over the beach you cant even open your eyes and avoid one. the entire stretch was shell fill with tiny little shells that looked so pretty. shireen started to pick up shells only to throw them 5 mins later because she dint know what to do with them.

and even i have to say myself that this photo is a really good photo of the shells with the beach in the background. i do make a good photographer without the fancy camera.

well. i have already found out the countless times i spent picking shells off the beaches in thailand and malaysia that there is nothing you can do with them unless you are finding powal shells or finding those shells you can eat the meat and sell the "cateye" you find at the end of it.

there is this store in the main street that sells really cool looking jewelry and the guy working there told us where cateyes (the shell not the meow meow) come from and even showed us what powa shells look like unpolished. you learn something new everyday.

me and shireen where trying to do typical photo shots that people always do when they are at the beach. first there was the writing on the beach shot where you either write your own name or draw a heart around yours and your significant other. it is funny how no one ever writes things like "world peace" or "i want to donate one million dollars to charity" in sand. usually people who write things in sand are sentimental or just a total self absorbed idiot. well... i am the latter.

then there is the "shadow of friends" shot where you align yourself and your camera to take your shadow. aimless piece of shit but it does make good fun.

then there is the jumping and trying to catch a photo of yourself in mid air thing which i think we have done too many time over our little north island trip every time we got to new plymouth black sand beach or the 90 mile shellfish fill beach. so today we tried a little different shot. a photo of me trying to cartwheel across the sand. too bad to say that the photo dint really turn out nice due to shireens photo abilities.

we found pile of mossy rocks sitting on the beach in a clump so why not make use of the beauty in the greeness to take a photo of myself? this photo look like open coffee shop. blame it on the girls school history and their ineffective teaching of how to keep our legs closed.

i have to say that today was a nice day for a good last few days in dunedin. it hasnt dawned on me that i am going to be leaving this city where i have lived and celebrated over the last 4 months in another 4 days. it feels nice to be knowing you are spending your last days here well and still exploring the place. there is so much to see in this city. i think what i have explored is only 10% of the entire city. there are the many suburbs that i have not stepped foot onto.

shireen was right. spending the last few days exploring the place is not the same as exploring it in your first few days. exploring a place when you just arrive is just finding amazement in a place you have never been to. but after living here for some time and you have that little time left, exploring new places just make you appreciate its beauty more.

i think i am just slightly further away from failing phil 223 (aka metaphysical questions). the exams wasnt that bad considering that i only studied like half of what i am supposed to. coz i just did not understand anything enough to have studied everything and anything else. philosophy is not easy, and studying if unicorns exist is even worse.

i spent 30 mins thinking of what to write for the next 30 mins. and i only written like 1.5 pages of words. i hope that was enough. i really wish i am not going to fail this shit.

please please remind me never to take philo ever again.