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Everyday can be a learning lesson; if you choose to look at life from one point of view.
Sometimes the lesson is more significant than others;
Other day you'd be wondering if what you are doing is right.
And there lies the importance of daily self-reflection.

To be honest I haven't done that for quite some time.

Today a case made me pause and think,
"Why?" "Have we done enough?" "Did we miss anything?" "Have we done justice?"
Learning lesson for us in this field however,
may be a despair for someone else,
or elation or frustration or resignation...

Lustrous New Zealand, North Island - Part 4

Auckland City

You can always google up on what are the tourist attractions in Auckland, but we mainly concentrate on walking up Mount Eden, shopping (for souvenirs) on Queen St (Lush is situated here by the way), went up the Sky Tower and just spend the day walking around the city.
( http://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/auckland-attractions/ )

If you still have fund, you can also choose the Skywalk or Skyjump at the Sky Tower! (http://skywalk.co.nz/) Unfortunately, we sort of ran out of fund by this time and opted out of the jump. Entrance for Sky Tower itself is NZD 28.

Skytower. If you can see the fine lines of cable, that's where the skyjump takes place!

Exquisite New Zealand - Part 3

First of all, wishing you all Eid Mubarak! "Taqabbal Allahu minna wa minkum" May Allah accept (the good deeds) from me and you.

(con't)
We reached Wellington at night; already called Capital View Motel Inn (NZD 145/night) that we were being slightly late- they open until 9 p.m. and if we reached after 9, they’d left the key for us. Had Maggie for dinner and slept the night off.

Wellington

Our hotel was just walking distance from Cuba Street, where the Bucket Fountain is located at. Still early in the morning hence many shops weren’t opened yet, we made our way down to Wellington waterfront and the Queens Wharf, ending up at the Cable Car station.

The plan was to take the Cable Car up the hill through the colourfully led tunnels and walk down the downhill path of the Botanic Garden back to the city. ( http://www.wellingtoncablecar.co.nz/English/What-To-Do.html#AttractionsMap )

But then it started to rain, light drizzle initially and then heavy rain as we were walking back to the city. 'GoogleMapped' a place to eat and we ended up having kebab at Abrakebabra, before heading back to our hotel to dry up. It was raining the rest of the day so we ended up sleeping. If the weather was sunny, we would have walk around and went for museum visits.

"We are going to do a lot of walking today! Rawr!"

Magnificent New Zealand - Part 2

(Warning! This post is LONG. And full of pictures. Don't say I don't warn you okay?)

Rotorua

From Matamata, we then headed to Rotorua, which took us another hour. We stayed for 2 nights in Rotorua at Greenview Hotel (formerly Rotorua Motor Lodge), near the Te Puia where the Pohutu Geyser is located at. It’s around NZD 100 per night. And since the place is near the geyser, there's quite a strong smell of sulphur around, if you don’t mind it.

Back from buying food~

The salted caramel Tim Tam was sooooooooo good!

Dinner at Ali Baba

The initial plan was to explore Rotorua the next day but we decided to go for Bungy / Skydive in Taupo (an hour away from Rotorua) instead... I’m not sure if that’s a miscalculation from our side or not because we ended up only able to do Bungy only- due to the weather (it was raining and the wind was strong) we can’t proceed with the skydiving on the same day.

So in the interest of time, we only managed to visit the The Puia after we came back from Bungy jumping and visited the Museum the next morning before departed for Taupo and then Wellington.

In Te Puia, you will have the chance to experience the Maori culture and visit the Pohutu Geyser on the guided tour. They have different packages, you can check it out here: tepuia.com Our ticket cost about NZD 64

   

Alluring New Zealand, North Island - Part 1

It's been a while since I last visited here it seems... Lots of things happened, been up and down in my real life, changed this blog's layout for easier navigating and I've decided to post regarding our trip to North Island, New Zealand first - simply because it's still fresh in my mind and I'd like to upload the pictures here - before the short Singapore and Penang trip last year. And maybe if I have some time I'll post about Egypt trip as well

This post is more for my documentation and future references, not for those planning on budget trip in NZ. This post will be divided into 3-4 entries for the next few weeks, as to not to clog everything into one post. And I'll be posting not according to dates like I did for Japan, but rather on places we visited. Enjoy!

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New Zealand was a rerouted holiday for the 3 of us, under certain circumstances. Yup, this time around it was only the 3 of us apparently. I decided on the destination but really the mastermind behind the journey was Zeti. We took off on May 15^th, the night flight (celebrated Mom’s birthday in the morning) and surprise surprise! We met an ex-college mate who was also taking the same flight with us! We flew with Air Asia, which had a 75-min transit in Gold Coast; bought in-flight meal and baggage so our total ticket price per person was roughly RM 2100. 

The flight from KL to Gold Coast Australia took about 8 hours and another 3 hours from Gold Coast to Auckland. Time-wise Gold Coast is 2 hours ahead of KL and Auckland is 4 hours ahead of KL.