NEW ZEALAND! :D
Saturday, January 10, 2009, 10:45 AM
HELLO WORLD! I'm back from new zeeeeeeeee! oh no I have overdued books and I haven't even read a single one of them D:
I watched lots of movies this time. like movie marathon. from sing to christchurch, I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Ghost Town (now this one was quite funny haha)! from christchurch back to sing, I watched City of Ember, Cellular (omg super nice. chris evans is ahhhh :D), 保持通话 "Connected" (hong kong remake of the Cellular movie. I still prefer the Hollywood one though), Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (really nice movie about friendship and love) and an episode of Project Runway lol!
-does word count- omg almost 5,500 words 0.0 this is beyond crazy. I haven't written something this long in eons!
hahaha anyways, the trip was awesome, I had so much fun. and the first half of the trip was sooo cold. it felt like winter in san francisco-.- seriously, there wasn't a HINT of summer anywhere. cloudy, windy, chilly. and when we asked the locals, they said that this is one of their warmest "summers" 0.0 oh wow. hahaha even LA's winter is warmer than christchurch's winter! I mean, I had to wear a huge windbreaker and layers and layers of clothes underneath that.. anyways, mount cook was alright, cause we did quite a lot of walking and it was rather sunny. queenstown was a litttleee chilly, but still alright, and dunedin's the warmest and nicest! because we were moving south.
anyways, here's my super duper long post! and I don't expect you to read through eeeverything below, because it's more for my personal reference, but just bear with me as I ramble on about the trip! haha. oh oh and like I said I've got 3GB plus of pictures, so obviously I won't be uploading them all. I'll just upload a few and 敷衍了事 since I'm such a lazy bum! :D so I'll post this first and I'll add in someeee pictures later. so you can choose to come back later when this post is more complete (with super overdue tag replies as well) !
soooooooo.
1 Jan 2009 (day 1 - christchurch)
ooooh wellsers, the first day of new year wasn't lucky at all! haha out of the 19735498743857 car rental companies in the airport, only 1 wasn't fully booked. so we had a really "fun" time running around all over the airport and we were stuck there for 4 hours. and most of the car rental companies that were outside the airport didn't let you drive all the way to dunedin from christchurch. but that wasn't the worst part. in the end we realized that it was all a big communication mistake - because we didn't know how to pronounce "dunedin" (we just pronounced it as dunedin, dune as in "sandunes" and din as in.. din.), so when we said it to one of the workers, they "corrected" us and we started pronouncing it was "duradin". and I thought that was weird because I don't see any "r"s in the word "dunedin", so I just assumed that it was some strange new zee way of pronouncing the word. in the end, it turned out that the workers thought we meant the place "Geraldine", and that place is really just a simple and short stretch of road, so obviously there won't be any auto rental branches there. it's a long story. in other words, we wasted the entire 4 hours in the airport for nothing :) dunedin is actually pronounced as "dah-nee-din", emphasis on the "nee" -.- okay it's rather hard to explain here so I shan't bore you anymore. moving on to more interesting things!
next! we went to the beaaach :D it's called New Brighton Beach. well, the sun was shining, the breeze was nice and the weather was awesome! we walked along the beach, soaked our feet in the seawater, wrote on the sand with twigs and watched people fish. oh and we saw this guy trying to surf with a huge piece of styrofoam. it kind of failed, but it was still amusing to watch! haha. and guess what, people were filming some Bollywood movie there-.- (I shall try to find out the title of the movie) LOL so we stuck around for awhile but left shortly after because they took too long to get the show on the road.
then we went to the cathedral square for 15 minutes and went for dinner at a chinese restaurant. seriously the sun ONLY STARTS TO SET at 9:30pm, it almost felt funny going for dinner at 8 when the sun was still so bright and high up in the sky ._.
2 Jan 2009 (day 2 - christchurch)
went for the christchurch cathedral tour at 11am in the morning! and oh gosh the cathedral was really spectacular. I love the stained glass windows :D:D and we climbed 134 steps to the top of the tower to get a good view of the cathedral square! the square was literally filled with people and performances okay. there were girls tapdancing, little 9 year old boys playing and singing along to the guitar (and man they were awesome, I've a video of that!), this guy doing a one man show, and someone playing a violin (but no one was watching, sadly).
LUNCH!
took a tram to the canterbury museum after having lunch at a cafe near the art gallery. we spent quite a long time at the museum because the stuff on display were rather interesting.. they had freak santas at random parts of the museum on display because of christmas-.- so it was kind of weird when you walk down a long display wall of statues of ancient barbarians (the maori people) and penguins and suddenly you see this tiny santa toy at the corner beaming at you. hahaha I guess it was rather amusing-.-
aaaaafter that we took a walk around the botanic gardens and trust me, it was a lot nicer than the one in good old singapore! there were really amazing trees/flowers - really huge ones so we could like walk in and climb around the thick, exposed roots and branches. so fun so fun :D and someone put a sad teddy bear on one of the trunks :(
anyways, we went on the christchurch gondola after that. weeell it was pretty windy and the hill we were taking the gondola up to was rather barren and bare, so we just saw yellow yellow everywhere. not much vegetation, really, so it was kind of boring. and the wind was like shaking the cable cars back and forth. it was a little scary. and there was nothing much up there.. we went on this "time tunnel ride", which was supposed to be about its heritage and etc. well I got excited at the word "ride", cos I thought of the Mummy Ride at universal studios immediately. and yea I got sort of disappointed when I realized that it was just a slow and lame ride through this dark room with lots of screens playing videos of.. like some narration thing about new zealand-.- hahaha well it WAS a ride, but it was a painstakingly slow one. I can walk faster than the thing! and seriously I have no idea why we even needed a seat belt. like anyone would actually fly out of that tortoise ride-.- but of course, the view from the top was quiteee magnificent. gray clouds again, but generally it was rather nice. we could see the lakes and lyttelton (sp?) harbour from up there :D
we headed back to the cathedral at around 4:30pm hoping to catch the choirboys singing, and then the person told us that they're on holiday until february! ahhhh it would've been so cool to hear them sing. I mean of course they wouldn't be as good as Libera.. maybe they would be, but eh it would still have been super amazing to hear people singing in the cathedral. ahhhhh! so we spent the time sitting around the square and guess what, we saw the bollywood people AGAIN! this time they got some new zealand girls to dance with the lead actress. indian music. yummy. everyone was watching hahaha, and when my dad asked one of the producers, they said that they will be going to queenstown next 0.0 and that is one of the places that we will be going to after mount cook. oh geez I think we're really fated hahaha-.- but I doubt we'll see them again because we may be arriving on different days.
went for dinner at a chinese restaurant again, then got back to the hotel and zzz-ed.
3 Jan 2009 (day 3 - christchurch)
today was a gloomy and depressing day :( well it was summer, but it didn't feel like summer at all! at first we wanted to go on this Alpine Jets thing, but then the river flooded so they called and told us that we didn't have to go down there anymore. soo, we made other plans and decided to go on a marine cruise, ride horses, and watch performances by the maori people (dad's idea. he was rather intrigued by the maori people aka barbarians who roamed the land of newzee generationssss ago.)
the cruise was.. fine, it was really windy and nice but I got rather giddy because my parents made me stay indoors. yea I can get a little seasick at times :/ ohoh and we saw DOLPHINS! the mother dolphin and the baby dolphine :D the tour guide told us that that was the rarest species of dolphins in new zealand. they're all endangered and only 7000 plus are remaining. awww they were so cute but it was really really really cold. I got a short video of them! so I guess that's good enough.. anyways, it started raining quite heavily halfway through the cruise, but I survived the 2 hours in the end. I couldn't wait to get out of that thing-.-
then we drove to the horseriding place! it was like those nice and peaceful countrysides, just that the sky was all cloudy and grayish. it would've been super super super beautiful if the skies were blue! ahhh. anyways, by then, dark ominous clouds (cough*P6compo*cough) were already covering the skies of the entire city and there were distant rolls of thunder too, so we decided to give the horseriding activity a pass. getting electrocuted by the lightning in the countryside while riding on a stinky horse? not pretty. so we decided to drive further down to just.. look at the horses and animals and maybe take some pictures from the car. haha we saw cows! cows and chickens and horses and more cows and chickens and horses. I saw some amazing white horses :) and the cows were really adorable haha. by then it was already drizzling slightly.. but well, that isn't the highlight of the whole "educational trip" though! guess what we saw a few seconds later - HAILSTONES. omg I was elated!!! :D it was my dad who realized it first, and I took a video of the hailstones. I mean it was the first time I've actually experienced a hailstorm (which lasted for only about.. 5 - 8 minutes)! so that's definitely a lot more meaningful than riding horses, cos I can still ride horses in Queenstown anyways!
back in the hotel, we washed up to prepare for the activity at night - immersing ourselves in the maori culture. haha and guess what, the Bollywood people had their pictures taken and published on the newspaper! anyways, so we headed off to the maori place, and we had a short tour of the "village". not the real one, of course. but they made it look a lot like the real one! and the maori descendents dressed up as.. you know, maori people. like cavemen. barbarians. ahaha and they were like dancing around with spears and screaming and chanting in the mountains.. pretty cool actually! hahaha and they leapt out of nowhere and scared the daylights out of everyone.
next we went into this tent place to watch the dances and performances. it was all amazing until the guide told us not to worry if some of us were called up onto the stage. and theeeen I had a really bad feeling. but I ignored it, and turned out my feeling was right :) I was doing a good job hiding from the performers (like behind a wooden pillar or something) until one of the guys invited the lady in her forties next to me up on stage, who turned to me and asked with a faked and stiff smile, "would you like to go up instead?" and I was thinking hell no, ma'am, hell no. I would most definitely NOT like to go up instead, so just get the heck up and don't get me into trouble! but of course I didn't say that. I asked my mom if she would like to go, kind of like passing down the question, just that I was already positive about what her answer would be. and then she asked my dad, who, as always, was very very enthusiastic about such things and would be the most delighted to be called upon. but it didn't work out because only females were allowed to go up. and so, after going that one big round, we were back to square one!-.- well, square two, actually, because square one was the lady in her forties. and square two was me-.- and so I went up. reluctantly. unwillingly. but I still went up, because everyone was watching and I didn't wanna spoil everyone's mood. so, being the noble joy I am, I just followed the dancers blindly on the stage. it wasn't a challenging "dance".. just flinging some.. red and white thing around around along with the music. but it felt really awkward and I think I'd rather have died right on the spot. hmmmm.
anyways, it was dinner after that, and we saw reaaally beautiful deers outside! snapped lots and lots of pictures and went back to dinner feeling accomplished. they were sooo close I could literally touch them.. but I didn't dare to-.- after dinner was a kiwi tour, and by kiwi I don't mean the hairy-skin-greenish/yellowish-fleshed-fruit-kiwi, but the long-beaked-cute-bird-from-new-zealand-with-tiny-wings-kiwi. go google it! google's your best friend :D
theeeen went back to the hotel, packed, and turned in early to prepare for the long drive tomorrow. zzzz.
4 Jan 2009 (day 4 - mount cook)
early in the morning, we had a 5-hours plus drive from Christchurch to Mt Cook Village. the weather was good and the sky was rather blue! the first half of the drive was.. okay-ish. the mountains were all boring looking, but the second half, on the other hand, was AMAZING! you start seeing the snowcapped mountains - really tall and high ones, and the sky starts to turn bluer and bluer and you start to feel really good :D mount cook was spectacular! there were TONS of snow on the mountains okay, I was oohing and ahhing all the way and taking pictures like mad. (by the way, I've already fot 2GB plus of pictures transferred to my laptop. I think I can set up a deviantart account now with all those-.-)
so yup the journey took 5 hours plus and we reached mount cook village just in time for a Glaciers Explorer tour at 3:30pm and it was the beeeeeeest haha I loved it! :D seriously it was awesome. we went up really close to all the glaciers, touched them, passed around large transparent and clear crystals and learned all about how they were formed and what characteristics they have. oh, we saw the Tasman Glacier, which is the largest glacier in new zealand. it was amazing. we witnessed two minor breakoffs that afternoon too, so I guess we were lucky! the breakoffs caused large splashes on the Tasman Lake hahaha and everyone was like turning to look. our guide was really funny too, so it made our entire journey enjoyable. ahhhh :) so we spent almost 2 hours on the lake and then we trekked a little back to the bus which sent us back to the hotel for our buffet dinner. dad didn't want to miss the sunset because we would get to take a picture of the mount cook snowcaps with bright orange tints. we've seen that on a mountain once, but that was when we went to this mount whats-its-name in switzerland. buuuuuut, we didn't see it in the end :( we missed it because we were watching the shows in the planetarium at Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre right next to our hotel.
after dinner, we toured around the museum for a bit, and at around 10:30pm, dad and I went for the Stargazing activity! (you can imagine the look on my face. if you know me well enough you'd know that I'm a huge fan of astronomy. I'm a little obsessed, actually..) mom didn't want to go because she was tired :( and OMG IT WAS SO NICE, I could see A LOT of stars okay, like literally MILLIONS! I could even see.. "clouds" (not real as in "sky clouds") in space, which were actually distant galaxies with my naked eye. omg so cool, and we took turns looking into the telescope too :D we saw the moon's craters, the orion's belt (which can be seen from my bedroom window as well back in singapore :D) and a lot of other amazing stars and celestial bodies. they were really clear because the weather was great and mount cook village has one of the darkest skies in the whole of new zealand. yaaaay I was so elated hahahaha :D
5 Jan 2009 (day 5 - mount cook, queenstown)
we spent our last morning at mount cook village on the mount cook ski plane which landed on the Tasman glacier! it was all white and snowy and I liked it a lot. hahaha the ski plane was damn cool, after it landed it kind of skidded on the snow before it came to a complete stop. and everything was so quiet and peaceful on the snow! the pilot shut off the engines so it was complete tranquility. we were far far far away from.. other things and disturbances and ahhh twas amazing :)
anyways, after the ski plane thingy, we checked out of the hotel and went for a short trek hoping to reach Hooker Valley (hmm) to take a few good pictures. we stopped halfway there, though.. cos it was taking too much time! 2 hours in total. so we decided to stop because we needed to get to Queenstown on time. SO! we hopped onto the car and drove to Queenstown. stopped at Twizel for lunch and continued the journey. we reached at around 5 pm plus? and had nothing much to do because I didn't plan a lot of activities for the first day in Queenstown since we'd be all tired after a whole day of traveling. but after reaching Queenstown we took a quick shower which really boosted our energies. and so I scanned the Queenstown tourist guidebooks again and found more things to do. there was this puzzle world that's full of illusion rooms and fun stuff, so we decided to pay that place a visit. it was already 6, and we didn't know that it was in Wanaka, another town quite a distance from Queenstown at first. in the end, we decided not to go there because the sky was already getting a little darker and we figured that the journey was going to take slightly more than an hour. so we decided on something mild with lesser excitement! we went for a quick dinner and strolled by Lake Wakatipu (we can see it from our hotel room balcony :D). took amazing pictures of the sunset and watched street performances! and then we went back and had a good night's sleep, because we'll be going on a hot air balloon flight the next morning at 8.
ZZZ!
6 Jan 2009 (day 6 - queenstown)
sooo, we kind of booked a hot air balloon flight for this morning, but they cancelled it in the end because "it was too windy". ah well, guess I'll never get to go on a hot air balloon on this trip! we already missed the one in christchurch. that one was too fully booked.. ah well, so we decided to head up to skyline gondola in the morning, which is just up a hill that's visible from our hotel room balcony. well, I thought this one was a lot better than the one in christchurch! it was a lot more stable. it didn't wobble that much so we could actually enjoy the beautiful scenery.
the skyline complex was huuuge, and we went on the luge after getting on the chairlift! it was so funnnnnnn, we bought the ticket for 3 luge rides. it's 800 metres of pure freedom! it's like, you sit on this.. tiny thing, and you slide down this track with turns and bends and tunnels. I'll see if I can find a picture of it! I'm pretty sure I've got one. or two. or three. hahaha yea it was so fun, they have like a scenic track and an advanced track. I went on the scenic one at first, then for the last two chances I went on advanced tracks. the latter had more slopes and fun stuff! haha and guess what, I was racing my dad on my last try and I didn't manage to turn fast enough around a bend so I went right up into the bushes and the thing flipped a little-.- haha thank goodness I landed on the soft grass patches. or I'd have gotten concussion. but it was fun yes :D my dad still let me win in the end ahahaha but yes I know I'm a failure! I'm okay if I go slower. it was only because I was chasing after my dad! I simply couldn't stand watching him gloat in delight if he crossed the finish line first. nehhhhh!
oh and the chairlift was really fun as well. hahaha, these two really cute japanese kids waved at me so I waved back. they had rosy cheeks! one of them had glasses. chubby and cute. yay :D
after that, we booked this horseriding expedition thing at 1:30pm! so we grabbed a quick lunch - we had instant noodles back in the hotel - and off we went. the stable place was rather far away, we drove for 40 minutes. I was sooo excited, my first riding experience! my first REAL riding experience. I remember the horses in sentosa or something, the people had to hold the horses and lead them around this stupid round track. now thaaat was no fun at all!
SO, it was for real this time! we were all on our own. we rode on our horses and followed the leader and went on a 2 hr expedition. it was a looooong way, and it was really enjoyable! the horse I got is named Dawn, she's about 7 years old, and she's sort of light brownish. really adorable! I was really nervous at first when Dawn just started moving, but after awhile I got used to it and mastered the basic skills of horseriding! like.. how you steer the horse left and right, how to make it stop, how to get it to start a small trot, etc. it was so easy in the end, and I was enjoying the entire journey. reaaally nice scenery! we went across plains and up on mountains, across rivers and steep slopes. hahaha it was really, really, REALLY amazing. it was all so easy and comfortable. I talked to Dawn the whole way and patted it whenever I thought she was doing a good job :D I was right behind the leader, so it was really easy for me to follow up. haha, my mom's horse pooped and sneezed and farted a lot. sounds like an old grandmother horse! my horse kept wanting to chew on the leader's horse's butt.. HMMM. anyways, we went all over the place and there were light rains throughout the journey. then we met the cows! haha they were just like.. staring at us and looking stoned. brown cows with white spots, the typical cows you'd expect to see in new zealand. there were LOTS of them! I've seen hundreds of cows and horses and sheeps and goats already. they all look the same. HAHA but it was really cool! I love it when Dawn goes fast. you get to feel the strong wind :D hahaha oh man I think I'll miss Dawn a lot. she's the first horse I've ever ridden on on my own. I feel like riding agaaaaaain ahhhh I shall ride again next year or something. no, I shall ride EVERY YEAR! next time. seriously, it was brilliant! well, my butt and back and arms and everything kind of ached after the ride, but it was expected and worth it. yesyes indeed :D
after the horseriding expedition thing, we went to the puzzle world place. like finally! cos it was closer to the horseriding place. yup, it was really.. well, puzzling. haha. lots of eccentric stuff! illusion rooms etc etc. aiya, it's hard to describe here. you guys should go there some day. really cool! there's this great maze thing that involves two levels. we were supposed to find the yellow, red, blue and green towers. we only found the blue and green ones in the end, then we left through one of the "emergency exits" (for people who didn't have the time and patience to finish the whole maze) and drove back to Queenstown. it was almost an hour's drive again, but we had to make it back on time because we were going to have dinner with one of dad's japanese friends Kayoko. we've met her twice already, once in Japan and once in Singapore, when I was very very very very little. she moved to new zealand 3 years ago, and we were quite surprised to see that she was already married aaaaand pregnant with a baby boy called Kyle! :) awwww. yup, we ate at a chinese restaurant again, and now we're back in the hotel eating fruits. well, I shall update again tomorrow after I arrive at Dunedin!
7 Jan 2009 (day 7 - queenstown, dunedin)
we had breakfast early today. and guess WHO we saw at the Queenstown hotel. seriously, guess who-.- well, if you're thinking indians, then you're probably right. YES, BOLLYWOOD! AGAIN! they were staying at our hotel! I was like.. jawdropped. we see them EVERYWHERE I tell you-.- hahaha but soon all of them got on a coach and went off to their filming location.
anyways we dropped by the lake before we began our journey to Dunedin, and uh, we saw them again. yea you probably saw this one coming hahaha. and they were doing this 5-seconds scene over and over and over and over again. weird. but I took a little video of it! okay enough of the indians.
the drive to Dunedin was more relaxed, because we stopped at different places for short breaks. so in the end we took like 6 hours plus to reach Dunedin instead of 3 hours, which was how long we were actually supposed to take. anyways, we saw people bungy jumping! omg so cool! haha there were lots of people watching and cheering. I took videos of the actual jumps :D and my dad was all "I'd go if you let me!" but of course, mom and I were like NO WAY. haha, but it sure did look fun. and thrilling. I think it's one of the few things you must definitely do before you die. I shall try next time when I'm feeling.. more prepared. and I'd like to try paragliding too! but not skydiving though, too scary D:
anyways, we saw more horses, sheeps, and cows along the way. but this time, there were deers too! loooots of them. so nice :) but of course, they weren't used to getting their pictures taken by tourists so when we got nearer to the fence they kind of sprinted away to the far end. awww man, but the furry sheeps were really cute. they look nice to hug and cuddle :D
soooo, we reached Dunedin! well, it turned out to be a pretty boring city. and to think that it's actually the second largest city in south island.. (christchurch is the largest!) yea, it's quite boring so far. after arriving at Dunedin it was already 6 plus, so we decided to go for a little walk by the harbour and then makan. but the so-called "harbour" was more like a port. you know, with lots of factories and there was literally NO ONE at the harbour except for us. and we thought it'd be nice for pictures. it was like.. a DEAD place with no life at all! seriously there wasn't a single living person walking on those streets. it's like humans became extinct. okay nevermind. haha but yea so we drove on and found a supermarket and THANK GOODNESS, we were so relieved to see healthy living people shopping in there. bought lots of cadbury chocolates :D
went for dinner and zzzzz-ed.
8 Jan 2009 (day 8 - dunedin)
woke up at around 8:30 am today to go for a yellow-eyed penguin tour at some penguin reserve. the tour was at 10:45, and the drive took about 40 minutes. we only managed to see 4 penguins-.- and out of which, 2 were sick and they were in the "hospital", shedding feathers. I think it's got something to do with parasites. according to our tourguides. aww man they looked so sick :( poor things! but it was still okayish, I mean penguins are cute. and out of the 4 pengs (haha ah bengs.) we saw, only one was actually a yellow-eyed penguin. the other healthy one was named Bob. and Bob was brown and fat and really cute :D and other than penguins, we saw fur seals! three or four of them, and one sealion. the fur seals were super adorable, one of them was like lying in the sand and holding its flipper up to lose heat faster. you know, through evaporation. and it looked reaaally cute hahaha. adorable fur seals YAY :D:D
after the penguins, we drove back the same route to Larnach Castle, the one and only castle in new zealand. it was so pretty :) the garden is HUGE okay! and the view from the tower was amazing. the person who built it in the.. early 18th century I think was William Larnach, and he shot himself in his study. so it made the history of the castle much more scandalous and tragic :( he built the castle for his first wife, Eliza, whose sister married him after she died. and my dad thought it was because William Larnach felt guilty about it, so he built a castle for his first wife. haha and he built a ballroom in 1887 as a gift for his daughter's 21st birthday! and the entire house took 200 workers to build over a span of 3 years. I think it's 3. can't be bothered to check the brochure again! yup. so anyways, I looked at their family tree, and I saw someone born in 1992. my age! haha. wonder where that person is. why don't they claim the house back D: but yes the castle was really beautiful. not really big as compared to castles in England, but it was good enough. it's now privately owned by the Barker's family, who bought the castle over in 1967, and at that time it was in a really bad state with leaking roofs, and they went through a lot of trouble buying and borrowing back the original furniture from all over the world.
aaaafter the castle visit, we went to the world's steepest street! it's called Baldwin street, and it's seriously steep. we drove up anyways :D it was rather easy. eeeeveryone was looking as we drove up hahaha but it's seriously hard if you're intending to walk. I was panting already and I didn't even cover 5 metres. it's seriously steep! but there wasn't anything else to see there. we didn't even bother going into the souvenier shop D:
next we had instant noodles for lunch, and then we went to the octagon, which is the city centre of Dunedin to look around and maybe buy a few things before heading for dinner. it was rather fruitless, because all the shops were closed by 5:30pm, and there were hardly anyone walking along the streets! it was soooo boring. rah, Dunedin's the most boring city in new zee, I promise!
and then, we went to zzzz and that marked the end of my trip :D
9 Jan 2009 (day 9 - dunedin, singapore)
BACK TO SINGALAND!
and I'm still pencilcase-less. the old slightly silverish/grayish one I got from taipei last year is currently worn out beyond recognition. sigh, I think I'll have to carry a plastic bag to school-.- I need a pencilcase that's long enough for my ruler and wide enough to fit my calculator. any suggestionsssss, anyone? I've looked almost EVERYWHERE AHHHHHH
and omg. my practical exam results are ready for collection. please just let me pass D: please? D:
I watched lots of movies this time. like movie marathon. from sing to christchurch, I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Ghost Town (now this one was quite funny haha)! from christchurch back to sing, I watched City of Ember, Cellular (omg super nice. chris evans is ahhhh :D), 保持通话 "Connected" (hong kong remake of the Cellular movie. I still prefer the Hollywood one though), Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (really nice movie about friendship and love) and an episode of Project Runway lol!
-does word count- omg almost 5,500 words 0.0 this is beyond crazy. I haven't written something this long in eons!
hahaha anyways, the trip was awesome, I had so much fun. and the first half of the trip was sooo cold. it felt like winter in san francisco-.- seriously, there wasn't a HINT of summer anywhere. cloudy, windy, chilly. and when we asked the locals, they said that this is one of their warmest "summers" 0.0 oh wow. hahaha even LA's winter is warmer than christchurch's winter! I mean, I had to wear a huge windbreaker and layers and layers of clothes underneath that.. anyways, mount cook was alright, cause we did quite a lot of walking and it was rather sunny. queenstown was a litttleee chilly, but still alright, and dunedin's the warmest and nicest! because we were moving south.
anyways, here's my super duper long post! and I don't expect you to read through eeeverything below, because it's more for my personal reference, but just bear with me as I ramble on about the trip! haha. oh oh and like I said I've got 3GB plus of pictures, so obviously I won't be uploading them all. I'll just upload a few and 敷衍了事 since I'm such a lazy bum! :D so I'll post this first and I'll add in someeee pictures later. so you can choose to come back later when this post is more complete (with super overdue tag replies as well) !
soooooooo.
1 Jan 2009 (day 1 - christchurch)
ooooh wellsers, the first day of new year wasn't lucky at all! haha out of the 19735498743857 car rental companies in the airport, only 1 wasn't fully booked. so we had a really "fun" time running around all over the airport and we were stuck there for 4 hours. and most of the car rental companies that were outside the airport didn't let you drive all the way to dunedin from christchurch. but that wasn't the worst part. in the end we realized that it was all a big communication mistake - because we didn't know how to pronounce "dunedin" (we just pronounced it as dunedin, dune as in "sandunes" and din as in.. din.), so when we said it to one of the workers, they "corrected" us and we started pronouncing it was "duradin". and I thought that was weird because I don't see any "r"s in the word "dunedin", so I just assumed that it was some strange new zee way of pronouncing the word. in the end, it turned out that the workers thought we meant the place "Geraldine", and that place is really just a simple and short stretch of road, so obviously there won't be any auto rental branches there. it's a long story. in other words, we wasted the entire 4 hours in the airport for nothing :) dunedin is actually pronounced as "dah-nee-din", emphasis on the "nee" -.- okay it's rather hard to explain here so I shan't bore you anymore. moving on to more interesting things!
next! we went to the beaaach :D it's called New Brighton Beach. well, the sun was shining, the breeze was nice and the weather was awesome! we walked along the beach, soaked our feet in the seawater, wrote on the sand with twigs and watched people fish. oh and we saw this guy trying to surf with a huge piece of styrofoam. it kind of failed, but it was still amusing to watch! haha. and guess what, people were filming some Bollywood movie there-.- (I shall try to find out the title of the movie) LOL so we stuck around for awhile but left shortly after because they took too long to get the show on the road.
then we went to the cathedral square for 15 minutes and went for dinner at a chinese restaurant. seriously the sun ONLY STARTS TO SET at 9:30pm, it almost felt funny going for dinner at 8 when the sun was still so bright and high up in the sky ._.
2 Jan 2009 (day 2 - christchurch)
went for the christchurch cathedral tour at 11am in the morning! and oh gosh the cathedral was really spectacular. I love the stained glass windows :D:D and we climbed 134 steps to the top of the tower to get a good view of the cathedral square! the square was literally filled with people and performances okay. there were girls tapdancing, little 9 year old boys playing and singing along to the guitar (and man they were awesome, I've a video of that!), this guy doing a one man show, and someone playing a violin (but no one was watching, sadly).
LUNCH!
took a tram to the canterbury museum after having lunch at a cafe near the art gallery. we spent quite a long time at the museum because the stuff on display were rather interesting.. they had freak santas at random parts of the museum on display because of christmas-.- so it was kind of weird when you walk down a long display wall of statues of ancient barbarians (the maori people) and penguins and suddenly you see this tiny santa toy at the corner beaming at you. hahaha I guess it was rather amusing-.-
aaaaafter that we took a walk around the botanic gardens and trust me, it was a lot nicer than the one in good old singapore! there were really amazing trees/flowers - really huge ones so we could like walk in and climb around the thick, exposed roots and branches. so fun so fun :D and someone put a sad teddy bear on one of the trunks :(
anyways, we went on the christchurch gondola after that. weeell it was pretty windy and the hill we were taking the gondola up to was rather barren and bare, so we just saw yellow yellow everywhere. not much vegetation, really, so it was kind of boring. and the wind was like shaking the cable cars back and forth. it was a little scary. and there was nothing much up there.. we went on this "time tunnel ride", which was supposed to be about its heritage and etc. well I got excited at the word "ride", cos I thought of the Mummy Ride at universal studios immediately. and yea I got sort of disappointed when I realized that it was just a slow and lame ride through this dark room with lots of screens playing videos of.. like some narration thing about new zealand-.- hahaha well it WAS a ride, but it was a painstakingly slow one. I can walk faster than the thing! and seriously I have no idea why we even needed a seat belt. like anyone would actually fly out of that tortoise ride-.- but of course, the view from the top was quiteee magnificent. gray clouds again, but generally it was rather nice. we could see the lakes and lyttelton (sp?) harbour from up there :D
we headed back to the cathedral at around 4:30pm hoping to catch the choirboys singing, and then the person told us that they're on holiday until february! ahhhh it would've been so cool to hear them sing. I mean of course they wouldn't be as good as Libera.. maybe they would be, but eh it would still have been super amazing to hear people singing in the cathedral. ahhhhh! so we spent the time sitting around the square and guess what, we saw the bollywood people AGAIN! this time they got some new zealand girls to dance with the lead actress. indian music. yummy. everyone was watching hahaha, and when my dad asked one of the producers, they said that they will be going to queenstown next 0.0 and that is one of the places that we will be going to after mount cook. oh geez I think we're really fated hahaha-.- but I doubt we'll see them again because we may be arriving on different days.
went for dinner at a chinese restaurant again, then got back to the hotel and zzz-ed.
3 Jan 2009 (day 3 - christchurch)
today was a gloomy and depressing day :( well it was summer, but it didn't feel like summer at all! at first we wanted to go on this Alpine Jets thing, but then the river flooded so they called and told us that we didn't have to go down there anymore. soo, we made other plans and decided to go on a marine cruise, ride horses, and watch performances by the maori people (dad's idea. he was rather intrigued by the maori people aka barbarians who roamed the land of newzee generationssss ago.)
the cruise was.. fine, it was really windy and nice but I got rather giddy because my parents made me stay indoors. yea I can get a little seasick at times :/ ohoh and we saw DOLPHINS! the mother dolphin and the baby dolphine :D the tour guide told us that that was the rarest species of dolphins in new zealand. they're all endangered and only 7000 plus are remaining. awww they were so cute but it was really really really cold. I got a short video of them! so I guess that's good enough.. anyways, it started raining quite heavily halfway through the cruise, but I survived the 2 hours in the end. I couldn't wait to get out of that thing-.-
then we drove to the horseriding place! it was like those nice and peaceful countrysides, just that the sky was all cloudy and grayish. it would've been super super super beautiful if the skies were blue! ahhh. anyways, by then, dark ominous clouds (cough*P6compo*cough) were already covering the skies of the entire city and there were distant rolls of thunder too, so we decided to give the horseriding activity a pass. getting electrocuted by the lightning in the countryside while riding on a stinky horse? not pretty. so we decided to drive further down to just.. look at the horses and animals and maybe take some pictures from the car. haha we saw cows! cows and chickens and horses and more cows and chickens and horses. I saw some amazing white horses :) and the cows were really adorable haha. by then it was already drizzling slightly.. but well, that isn't the highlight of the whole "educational trip" though! guess what we saw a few seconds later - HAILSTONES. omg I was elated!!! :D it was my dad who realized it first, and I took a video of the hailstones. I mean it was the first time I've actually experienced a hailstorm (which lasted for only about.. 5 - 8 minutes)! so that's definitely a lot more meaningful than riding horses, cos I can still ride horses in Queenstown anyways!
back in the hotel, we washed up to prepare for the activity at night - immersing ourselves in the maori culture. haha and guess what, the Bollywood people had their pictures taken and published on the newspaper! anyways, so we headed off to the maori place, and we had a short tour of the "village". not the real one, of course. but they made it look a lot like the real one! and the maori descendents dressed up as.. you know, maori people. like cavemen. barbarians. ahaha and they were like dancing around with spears and screaming and chanting in the mountains.. pretty cool actually! hahaha and they leapt out of nowhere and scared the daylights out of everyone.
next we went into this tent place to watch the dances and performances. it was all amazing until the guide told us not to worry if some of us were called up onto the stage. and theeeen I had a really bad feeling. but I ignored it, and turned out my feeling was right :) I was doing a good job hiding from the performers (like behind a wooden pillar or something) until one of the guys invited the lady in her forties next to me up on stage, who turned to me and asked with a faked and stiff smile, "would you like to go up instead?" and I was thinking hell no, ma'am, hell no. I would most definitely NOT like to go up instead, so just get the heck up and don't get me into trouble! but of course I didn't say that. I asked my mom if she would like to go, kind of like passing down the question, just that I was already positive about what her answer would be. and then she asked my dad, who, as always, was very very enthusiastic about such things and would be the most delighted to be called upon. but it didn't work out because only females were allowed to go up. and so, after going that one big round, we were back to square one!-.- well, square two, actually, because square one was the lady in her forties. and square two was me-.- and so I went up. reluctantly. unwillingly. but I still went up, because everyone was watching and I didn't wanna spoil everyone's mood. so, being the noble joy I am, I just followed the dancers blindly on the stage. it wasn't a challenging "dance".. just flinging some.. red and white thing around around along with the music. but it felt really awkward and I think I'd rather have died right on the spot. hmmmm.
anyways, it was dinner after that, and we saw reaaally beautiful deers outside! snapped lots and lots of pictures and went back to dinner feeling accomplished. they were sooo close I could literally touch them.. but I didn't dare to-.- after dinner was a kiwi tour, and by kiwi I don't mean the hairy-skin-greenish/yellowish-fleshed-fruit-kiwi, but the long-beaked-cute-bird-from-new-zealand-with-tiny-wings-kiwi. go google it! google's your best friend :D
theeeen went back to the hotel, packed, and turned in early to prepare for the long drive tomorrow. zzzz.
4 Jan 2009 (day 4 - mount cook)
early in the morning, we had a 5-hours plus drive from Christchurch to Mt Cook Village. the weather was good and the sky was rather blue! the first half of the drive was.. okay-ish. the mountains were all boring looking, but the second half, on the other hand, was AMAZING! you start seeing the snowcapped mountains - really tall and high ones, and the sky starts to turn bluer and bluer and you start to feel really good :D mount cook was spectacular! there were TONS of snow on the mountains okay, I was oohing and ahhing all the way and taking pictures like mad. (by the way, I've already fot 2GB plus of pictures transferred to my laptop. I think I can set up a deviantart account now with all those-.-)
so yup the journey took 5 hours plus and we reached mount cook village just in time for a Glaciers Explorer tour at 3:30pm and it was the beeeeeeest haha I loved it! :D seriously it was awesome. we went up really close to all the glaciers, touched them, passed around large transparent and clear crystals and learned all about how they were formed and what characteristics they have. oh, we saw the Tasman Glacier, which is the largest glacier in new zealand. it was amazing. we witnessed two minor breakoffs that afternoon too, so I guess we were lucky! the breakoffs caused large splashes on the Tasman Lake hahaha and everyone was like turning to look. our guide was really funny too, so it made our entire journey enjoyable. ahhhh :) so we spent almost 2 hours on the lake and then we trekked a little back to the bus which sent us back to the hotel for our buffet dinner. dad didn't want to miss the sunset because we would get to take a picture of the mount cook snowcaps with bright orange tints. we've seen that on a mountain once, but that was when we went to this mount whats-its-name in switzerland. buuuuuut, we didn't see it in the end :( we missed it because we were watching the shows in the planetarium at Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre right next to our hotel.
after dinner, we toured around the museum for a bit, and at around 10:30pm, dad and I went for the Stargazing activity! (you can imagine the look on my face. if you know me well enough you'd know that I'm a huge fan of astronomy. I'm a little obsessed, actually..) mom didn't want to go because she was tired :( and OMG IT WAS SO NICE, I could see A LOT of stars okay, like literally MILLIONS! I could even see.. "clouds" (not real as in "sky clouds") in space, which were actually distant galaxies with my naked eye. omg so cool, and we took turns looking into the telescope too :D we saw the moon's craters, the orion's belt (which can be seen from my bedroom window as well back in singapore :D) and a lot of other amazing stars and celestial bodies. they were really clear because the weather was great and mount cook village has one of the darkest skies in the whole of new zealand. yaaaay I was so elated hahahaha :D
5 Jan 2009 (day 5 - mount cook, queenstown)
we spent our last morning at mount cook village on the mount cook ski plane which landed on the Tasman glacier! it was all white and snowy and I liked it a lot. hahaha the ski plane was damn cool, after it landed it kind of skidded on the snow before it came to a complete stop. and everything was so quiet and peaceful on the snow! the pilot shut off the engines so it was complete tranquility. we were far far far away from.. other things and disturbances and ahhh twas amazing :)
anyways, after the ski plane thingy, we checked out of the hotel and went for a short trek hoping to reach Hooker Valley (hmm) to take a few good pictures. we stopped halfway there, though.. cos it was taking too much time! 2 hours in total. so we decided to stop because we needed to get to Queenstown on time. SO! we hopped onto the car and drove to Queenstown. stopped at Twizel for lunch and continued the journey. we reached at around 5 pm plus? and had nothing much to do because I didn't plan a lot of activities for the first day in Queenstown since we'd be all tired after a whole day of traveling. but after reaching Queenstown we took a quick shower which really boosted our energies. and so I scanned the Queenstown tourist guidebooks again and found more things to do. there was this puzzle world that's full of illusion rooms and fun stuff, so we decided to pay that place a visit. it was already 6, and we didn't know that it was in Wanaka, another town quite a distance from Queenstown at first. in the end, we decided not to go there because the sky was already getting a little darker and we figured that the journey was going to take slightly more than an hour. so we decided on something mild with lesser excitement! we went for a quick dinner and strolled by Lake Wakatipu (we can see it from our hotel room balcony :D). took amazing pictures of the sunset and watched street performances! and then we went back and had a good night's sleep, because we'll be going on a hot air balloon flight the next morning at 8.
ZZZ!
6 Jan 2009 (day 6 - queenstown)
sooo, we kind of booked a hot air balloon flight for this morning, but they cancelled it in the end because "it was too windy". ah well, guess I'll never get to go on a hot air balloon on this trip! we already missed the one in christchurch. that one was too fully booked.. ah well, so we decided to head up to skyline gondola in the morning, which is just up a hill that's visible from our hotel room balcony. well, I thought this one was a lot better than the one in christchurch! it was a lot more stable. it didn't wobble that much so we could actually enjoy the beautiful scenery.
the skyline complex was huuuge, and we went on the luge after getting on the chairlift! it was so funnnnnnn, we bought the ticket for 3 luge rides. it's 800 metres of pure freedom! it's like, you sit on this.. tiny thing, and you slide down this track with turns and bends and tunnels. I'll see if I can find a picture of it! I'm pretty sure I've got one. or two. or three. hahaha yea it was so fun, they have like a scenic track and an advanced track. I went on the scenic one at first, then for the last two chances I went on advanced tracks. the latter had more slopes and fun stuff! haha and guess what, I was racing my dad on my last try and I didn't manage to turn fast enough around a bend so I went right up into the bushes and the thing flipped a little-.- haha thank goodness I landed on the soft grass patches. or I'd have gotten concussion. but it was fun yes :D my dad still let me win in the end ahahaha but yes I know I'm a failure! I'm okay if I go slower. it was only because I was chasing after my dad! I simply couldn't stand watching him gloat in delight if he crossed the finish line first. nehhhhh!
oh and the chairlift was really fun as well. hahaha, these two really cute japanese kids waved at me so I waved back. they had rosy cheeks! one of them had glasses. chubby and cute. yay :D
after that, we booked this horseriding expedition thing at 1:30pm! so we grabbed a quick lunch - we had instant noodles back in the hotel - and off we went. the stable place was rather far away, we drove for 40 minutes. I was sooo excited, my first riding experience! my first REAL riding experience. I remember the horses in sentosa or something, the people had to hold the horses and lead them around this stupid round track. now thaaat was no fun at all!
SO, it was for real this time! we were all on our own. we rode on our horses and followed the leader and went on a 2 hr expedition. it was a looooong way, and it was really enjoyable! the horse I got is named Dawn, she's about 7 years old, and she's sort of light brownish. really adorable! I was really nervous at first when Dawn just started moving, but after awhile I got used to it and mastered the basic skills of horseriding! like.. how you steer the horse left and right, how to make it stop, how to get it to start a small trot, etc. it was so easy in the end, and I was enjoying the entire journey. reaaally nice scenery! we went across plains and up on mountains, across rivers and steep slopes. hahaha it was really, really, REALLY amazing. it was all so easy and comfortable. I talked to Dawn the whole way and patted it whenever I thought she was doing a good job :D I was right behind the leader, so it was really easy for me to follow up. haha, my mom's horse pooped and sneezed and farted a lot. sounds like an old grandmother horse! my horse kept wanting to chew on the leader's horse's butt.. HMMM. anyways, we went all over the place and there were light rains throughout the journey. then we met the cows! haha they were just like.. staring at us and looking stoned. brown cows with white spots, the typical cows you'd expect to see in new zealand. there were LOTS of them! I've seen hundreds of cows and horses and sheeps and goats already. they all look the same. HAHA but it was really cool! I love it when Dawn goes fast. you get to feel the strong wind :D hahaha oh man I think I'll miss Dawn a lot. she's the first horse I've ever ridden on on my own. I feel like riding agaaaaaain ahhhh I shall ride again next year or something. no, I shall ride EVERY YEAR! next time. seriously, it was brilliant! well, my butt and back and arms and everything kind of ached after the ride, but it was expected and worth it. yesyes indeed :D
after the horseriding expedition thing, we went to the puzzle world place. like finally! cos it was closer to the horseriding place. yup, it was really.. well, puzzling. haha. lots of eccentric stuff! illusion rooms etc etc. aiya, it's hard to describe here. you guys should go there some day. really cool! there's this great maze thing that involves two levels. we were supposed to find the yellow, red, blue and green towers. we only found the blue and green ones in the end, then we left through one of the "emergency exits" (for people who didn't have the time and patience to finish the whole maze) and drove back to Queenstown. it was almost an hour's drive again, but we had to make it back on time because we were going to have dinner with one of dad's japanese friends Kayoko. we've met her twice already, once in Japan and once in Singapore, when I was very very very very little. she moved to new zealand 3 years ago, and we were quite surprised to see that she was already married aaaaand pregnant with a baby boy called Kyle! :) awwww. yup, we ate at a chinese restaurant again, and now we're back in the hotel eating fruits. well, I shall update again tomorrow after I arrive at Dunedin!
7 Jan 2009 (day 7 - queenstown, dunedin)
we had breakfast early today. and guess WHO we saw at the Queenstown hotel. seriously, guess who-.- well, if you're thinking indians, then you're probably right. YES, BOLLYWOOD! AGAIN! they were staying at our hotel! I was like.. jawdropped. we see them EVERYWHERE I tell you-.- hahaha but soon all of them got on a coach and went off to their filming location.
anyways we dropped by the lake before we began our journey to Dunedin, and uh, we saw them again. yea you probably saw this one coming hahaha. and they were doing this 5-seconds scene over and over and over and over again. weird. but I took a little video of it! okay enough of the indians.
the drive to Dunedin was more relaxed, because we stopped at different places for short breaks. so in the end we took like 6 hours plus to reach Dunedin instead of 3 hours, which was how long we were actually supposed to take. anyways, we saw people bungy jumping! omg so cool! haha there were lots of people watching and cheering. I took videos of the actual jumps :D and my dad was all "I'd go if you let me!" but of course, mom and I were like NO WAY. haha, but it sure did look fun. and thrilling. I think it's one of the few things you must definitely do before you die. I shall try next time when I'm feeling.. more prepared. and I'd like to try paragliding too! but not skydiving though, too scary D:
anyways, we saw more horses, sheeps, and cows along the way. but this time, there were deers too! loooots of them. so nice :) but of course, they weren't used to getting their pictures taken by tourists so when we got nearer to the fence they kind of sprinted away to the far end. awww man, but the furry sheeps were really cute. they look nice to hug and cuddle :D
soooo, we reached Dunedin! well, it turned out to be a pretty boring city. and to think that it's actually the second largest city in south island.. (christchurch is the largest!) yea, it's quite boring so far. after arriving at Dunedin it was already 6 plus, so we decided to go for a little walk by the harbour and then makan. but the so-called "harbour" was more like a port. you know, with lots of factories and there was literally NO ONE at the harbour except for us. and we thought it'd be nice for pictures. it was like.. a DEAD place with no life at all! seriously there wasn't a single living person walking on those streets. it's like humans became extinct. okay nevermind. haha but yea so we drove on and found a supermarket and THANK GOODNESS, we were so relieved to see healthy living people shopping in there. bought lots of cadbury chocolates :D
went for dinner and zzzzz-ed.
8 Jan 2009 (day 8 - dunedin)
woke up at around 8:30 am today to go for a yellow-eyed penguin tour at some penguin reserve. the tour was at 10:45, and the drive took about 40 minutes. we only managed to see 4 penguins-.- and out of which, 2 were sick and they were in the "hospital", shedding feathers. I think it's got something to do with parasites. according to our tourguides. aww man they looked so sick :( poor things! but it was still okayish, I mean penguins are cute. and out of the 4 pengs (haha ah bengs.) we saw, only one was actually a yellow-eyed penguin. the other healthy one was named Bob. and Bob was brown and fat and really cute :D and other than penguins, we saw fur seals! three or four of them, and one sealion. the fur seals were super adorable, one of them was like lying in the sand and holding its flipper up to lose heat faster. you know, through evaporation. and it looked reaaally cute hahaha. adorable fur seals YAY :D:D
after the penguins, we drove back the same route to Larnach Castle, the one and only castle in new zealand. it was so pretty :) the garden is HUGE okay! and the view from the tower was amazing. the person who built it in the.. early 18th century I think was William Larnach, and he shot himself in his study. so it made the history of the castle much more scandalous and tragic :( he built the castle for his first wife, Eliza, whose sister married him after she died. and my dad thought it was because William Larnach felt guilty about it, so he built a castle for his first wife. haha and he built a ballroom in 1887 as a gift for his daughter's 21st birthday! and the entire house took 200 workers to build over a span of 3 years. I think it's 3. can't be bothered to check the brochure again! yup. so anyways, I looked at their family tree, and I saw someone born in 1992. my age! haha. wonder where that person is. why don't they claim the house back D: but yes the castle was really beautiful. not really big as compared to castles in England, but it was good enough. it's now privately owned by the Barker's family, who bought the castle over in 1967, and at that time it was in a really bad state with leaking roofs, and they went through a lot of trouble buying and borrowing back the original furniture from all over the world.
aaaafter the castle visit, we went to the world's steepest street! it's called Baldwin street, and it's seriously steep. we drove up anyways :D it was rather easy. eeeeveryone was looking as we drove up hahaha but it's seriously hard if you're intending to walk. I was panting already and I didn't even cover 5 metres. it's seriously steep! but there wasn't anything else to see there. we didn't even bother going into the souvenier shop D:
next we had instant noodles for lunch, and then we went to the octagon, which is the city centre of Dunedin to look around and maybe buy a few things before heading for dinner. it was rather fruitless, because all the shops were closed by 5:30pm, and there were hardly anyone walking along the streets! it was soooo boring. rah, Dunedin's the most boring city in new zee, I promise!
and then, we went to zzzz and that marked the end of my trip :D
9 Jan 2009 (day 9 - dunedin, singapore)
BACK TO SINGALAND!
and I'm still pencilcase-less. the old slightly silverish/grayish one I got from taipei last year is currently worn out beyond recognition. sigh, I think I'll have to carry a plastic bag to school-.- I need a pencilcase that's long enough for my ruler and wide enough to fit my calculator. any suggestionsssss, anyone? I've looked almost EVERYWHERE AHHHHHH
and omg. my practical exam results are ready for collection. please just let me pass D: please? D:
Labels: new zee
Joy ♥