I finally touched down in Europe for the first time ever in my life at 9.15am on the 28th August 2009. It was a long journey from KL to here, passing through Abu Dhabi which in total, took Sze and I 18 hours to get here.

As we were descending, the pilot made an announcement and informed us that it was 10 degrees Celsius in Dublin. I gave Sze a look. It was supposed to be 'summer'. When I was in Auckland last year, it was 10 and winter. Nyeh.

But anyway, the last 2 days have been pretty much all relaxed and no rushing. Since we're leaving for Amsterdam on 1st Sept, we decided to take things easy and then only start sightseeing after we get back. Plenty of time, I reckon.

Tomorrow... Guiness Storehouse. Time for that pint of Irish's pride and joy. :P Later!


P/S: I'll start uploading photos soon when I'm done using the weather as an excuse to laze around and do nothing. So much for reading before heading over to Leiden.

Bonjour!

The monkey shall now attempt to speak French, Dutch and many more languages. That's right, people. The monkey will be travelling around Europe for a month!

I can't wait to see what it's like over that side. I've heard rumours about one country's women that don't shave and many more. I shall attempt to investigate if all these allegations are true!

Anyway, stay tuned to this blog and I'll regularly update about my travels in Europe. Until then, au revoir!

Today, I vow that I never want to be the biggest disappointment ever to my family. I love you.

Your result for The LONG Scientific Personality Test ...

ESFJ-The Provider

You scored 73% I to E, 68% N to S, 19% F to T, and 21% J to P!

Providers, a subgroup of the Guardians, take it upon themselves to arrange for the health and welfare of those in their care, as well as being quite sociable. Wherever they go, Providers take up the role of social contributor, happily giving their time and energy to make sure that the needs of others are met, that traditions are supported and developed, and that social functions are a success. Providers are extremely sensitive to the feelings of others, which makes them perhaps the most sympathetic of all the types, but which also leaves them rather self-conscious, that is, highly sensitive to what others think of them. Because of this Providers can be crushed by personal criticism, and will work most effectively when given ample appreciation both for themselves personally and for the service they give to others. This is not to say that Providers are afraid to express their own emotional reactions. They are quick to like and dislike—and don’t mind saying so—tending to put on a pedestal whatever or whoever they admire, and to come down hard on those people and issues they don’t care for. You share your type with 10% of the population.
As a romantic partner, you work hard to nuture and protect your relationships. You go to great lengths to maintain harmony and are motivated to resolve conflicts. You have a very clear idea of what is important to you and do best when your partner shares those same values. You want your partner to be loving, commited, and willing to support your frequently overwelming feelings and reactions. You feel most appreciated when your partner is kind, considerate, and helpful, and compliments you often on your hard work in their behalf.
Your group summary: Guardians (SJ)
Your Type Summary: ESFJ


Pretty accurate I must say...

      I'm feeling very happy right now. :) After 2 crappy weeks, I think my luck has taken a turn for the better. What am I talking about? I got into GE's Graduate Leadership Program! Yay! This means I get to intern with them for 2 months and hopefully, work for them. If not, it's still a good experience to be able to intern with them. I am really excited about this opportunity given to me. *big big smile*

      I couldn't have done it without the help of these people: Beverly Chong, her two uni friends, Sze-Ryn and her friend. Thank you, everyone! I shall treat all of you to a meal. Also, thank you, darling apple! :) I love you very very much!

      On 13th October 2008, between 1 to 3pm, my beloved Nissan Sunny (CU 7233) got stolen while I was busy stuffing my face in Pizza Hut. Urgh. I hate the idiots who stole my car. Seriously, curse you people. If we ever meet in hell, STAY AWAY!

      I am still in complete disbelief that my car was stolen right under my nose. What the hell?! I parked my car at a PUBLIC parking lot in broad DAYLIGHT. I mean, seriously, I know my car is old and it's probably valuable as scrap metal but really, I needed it for just ONE MORE YEAR before I graduate next year. I would have gladly parked the car somewhere WITH THE KEYS LEFT IN THE IGNITION and walked away after graduating, hoping that it will serve the next owner as well as it did for me. But now, the fate of Sunny.... probably stripped off everything, with its metal body in a scrap metal junkyard and all the other parts as spare parts. I'm sorry, Sunny. (Ironically, my mp3 player is playing Timbaland ft. One Republic - Apologise. Ouch!)

The incident:

      I was supposed to meet up with some juniors and coursemates to celebrate Kok Wei's birthday at Pizza Hut, Metropoint Kajang. I parked my car at a parking lot just outside Pizza Hut and waited for people to show up. According to Kok Wei, when they arrived, he spotted my car at its spot. That was about 12.45pm. We had tonnes of fun, eating and talking (Ordered 2 set meals for 4. Meaning.. food for 8 people with just 7 of us) The merrymaking lasted till about 3pm. I told Poi Chyi she could hop on to my car cause I was planning to head back to uni to do some work at the lab. So we got out of the restaurant and started walking in the direction towards my car.. EXCEPT THAT THE CAR WAS NO LONGER THERE!! Poi Chyi was still walking, obviously clueless, while I was glued to the spot. "My car's.. not there. Gone. Stolen." No one responded.... "I'm not kidding" and then it hit everyone that I was for real. My first instinct "CALL DAD" which I did and he told me to go to the police station immediately. I started making a lot of phone calls and my junior, Christine, was really kind, offering to drive me around. The 4 of us bundled into a car (Ming Zhe, Christine, PC and I) and sped off the a nearby police station. I spent nearly 3 hours at the station (police report and meeting the investigator) while answering and making phone calls non-stop. Once everything was settled, I had to go buy new locks for the house cause I left my house keys in the car. Stupidest thing to do really.

     Anyway. Sigh. Sunny was the most reliable car. Eventhough it was 23 years old, it never once died on me and never gave me much problems. Heck, it protected Bev and I from a major car accident in 2007. If it wasn't for its strong body, I'm sure Bev and I would have been harmed in that accident. Especially Bev seeing that it happened on her side. And all those times when it brought me to places like Midvalley, Bangsar, 1u and The Curve for me to reconnect with civilisation ( meaning retail or food therapy ) and meet up with friends etc. In fact, I think a lot of my friends are going to miss my car seeing that good ol' Sunny was their mean of transportation too. :P

    I'm just really upset that I lost the car when the next 2 weeks are going to the busiest ever. Urgh. I'll cope. I always do anyway. But the main reason for this blog is to thank everyone who went through the entire ordeal with me. So yeah. THANK YOU!!







   
Blogger's note: I know I might be making a big deal over this but this car was seriously the main reason I had good fun in university.

      It would seem as if one night of seafood galore at Klang would have been sufficient to mark my 22nd birthday but not to my unimates aka. housemates and PC. Lol. They're such sweethearts. I didn't even realise that they actually bought me a birthday cake! I was under the assumption that my birthday candle this year was the very 'cool' wax-tipped toothpick.

    The funny thing was I wasn't even supposed to find out about the cake till we got back home. I'm not sure but I think someone mentioned the cake in front of me and I was like "Cake? There's a cake for me? Where?!" I don't know how my housemates did it but apparently, they managed to smuggle a cake into the house, right in front of me. Ouch. I'm hurt. I always prided on the fact that I'm attentive but this is just ridiculous. Lol. Upon finding out that I had a cake and real candles, I was grinning wide. We were supposed to have the cake after dinner back home but finding our way in Klang took a lot longer than expected and we were too stuffed anyway to enjoy the cake. So we decided to eat it the next day instead.

    The next day...


    Evening came and Mr. Ball made an appearance. He brought with him, a packet of lekor. Yay! (Note: If you ever piss me off, just buy me lekor. All will be forgiven. Heh) But of course he bought it cause he felt bad that he didn't get me a birthday present. Lol. Cheapest birthday gift ever but that's alright. As long as it's a sincere gift. :)

    They took out the cake and started arranging candles on it. I counted and I only had 9 candles on it. *blink housemates can't count blink* And.. these candles looked suspicious to me. They didn't look like the normal burn-away-in-2-minutes candle that you normally get from the bakery. Hmm..  When they lighted up the candles, it gave me the impression that they were lighting up fireworks. "What strange candles," I thought to myself. Oh well. I'm not complaning. This over toothpicks anytime. Lol.


        In Mango Tree's house tradition, when you're down with blowing out the candles, you must bite one buried candle out of the cake. So, Mr Ball pushed one of the candle into the cake and I had the honour of biting it out. Great. I knew Mee Fong was going to have her revenge on me. Lol. This is what happens when you're usually the one who's up to no good in the house. Everyone wants to exact revenge upon you. :P I was very wary of them standing around me and I decided to be really quick. *snorts* YEAH RIGHT! The minute my face was 1cm away from the cake, Mee Fong pushed my head down from behind and yeah, the rest is history...


  So... Did we eat the cake afterwards including the part with my chin imprint (along with whatever dirt and oil on my face)? OF COURSE WE DID! :D

     I swear I am not watching anymore badminton competition that involves our Malaysian players. Everytime I watch hoping for a good match, I usually end up getting disappointed. The latest game to break my heart is the Olympics 2008 badminton men's singles final involving Lee Chong Wei (MAS) and Lin Dan (CHN).

     Ever since Lee Chong Wei booked his place in the finals for men's singles on Friday evening, everyone has been talking about whether he can create history by becoming the first Malaysian to win an Olympic gold medal. I wasn't rooting for that. I know that Lin Dan is a very good player and although Lee Chong Wei is good too, he's a notorious slow player and counts on trailing point after point to motivate himself to play harder and better. For the whole match, I was rooting on him to play his best. At least if he lost, he went down with a good fight.

     That was not the case, unfortunately. From the beginning right up to the end of the match, you could see from Chong Wei's facial expression that he was nervous. Not only was he nervous, he didn't have much fighting spirit inside him. This, coming from a man who promised Malaysians that he will fight with his life, was not a good omen. Although he did make several brilliant plays, it was from his many mistakes (nerves, maybe?) that Lin Dan gained point after point. By the time Chong Wei got 'fired up' to start fighting back, Lin Dan was already so far ahead. This obviously became a mental advantage for Lin Dan. I don't think I have ever seen Lin Dan this confident on court before. First set went to Lin Dan's way 21 - 12.

     Second set began and this time, Chong Wei played even worse than the 1st set. Error after error caused him to trail behind Lin Dan 7-0. Lin Dan made an error and gave Chong Wei his first point of the set. I thought to myself "Maybe this is when Chong Wei will gather whatever strength he has left in him and fight back. It can happen. He did the exact same thing once in Kuching when Malaysia Open 2006." Sigh. Didn't happen. I couldn't bring myself to watch the match any longer and so I switched to another channel. When I came back to RTM1 after 8 minutes, Chong Wei was trailing 17-8. Goodbye, gold medal. Hellooo silver (and RM300K).

     So yes, after that devastating match, I'm going to swear off watching any live telecasts involving our Malaysian badminton players. Still, I applaud Chong Wei for being the first Malaysian to get into the men's singles final. I saw so much Malaysia Boleh spirit in him when he played again Lee Hyun Il (KOR) in the semis. If only he could keep that fire within burning against Lin Dan. *shrugs* Still, as Beverly puts it, a silver is better than nothing. MALAYSIA BOLEH!

On a Saturday evening, when I was absolutely bored with nothing better to do (I am supposed to be researching for my thesis), I logged on to NST online. This headline caught my attention:

Litterbugs beware, Adam's here.

Curious as to who Adam was, I clicked on the link and started reading the news. So it's about this 7 year-old boy who saw someone throw a bag of rubbish out of the winder, jotted down the car's registration number and time of incident, went over to Kota Kinabalu City Hall and pinned his note on the board. Very commendable. I like this kid. But what caught my attention was this line in the article...

".......posted his hardly legible note to KKCH with his name and mobile telephone number on it."

He's SEVEN and he has a mobile phone? What does he do with it? Call his other 7 year-old friends (with mobile phones as well) and chat about computer games, internet and business (by that, I mean Primary 1 schoolwork)? Look, I know in this modern world today, a mobile phone has become a necessity in life. But giving a 7 year-old a mobile phone? If you gave me a mobile phone at the age of 7, I would have used it to either a) play games on it or b) use it to crack the hard shell of a crab (considering the size of phones those days).

Seriously.. I hope his dad got him a cheap phone (like the RM150 mobile phone I'm using) or insured his state-of-the-art mobile. Either way, I hope Adam's as responsible with his mobile as he is with his litterbug patrol.


To read the full article on Adam,
 
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Saturday/National/2323013/Article/index_html

     Today's my last day in New Zealand. Doesn't feel right if I didn't blog about the closing of this chapter of my life. It's been a very fun and fulfilling trip for me. New Zealand has housed me through my highest and lowest moments in life (not to mention my 3-hour detention at the immigration centre) I've lost a friendship here but I have gained so many more friends in return. If it wasn't for New Zealand, I wouldn't have been exposed to even more realities in life and that life is indeed beautiful. Before I end this blog, I'd like to acknowledge everyone who has been great to me on this trip.

First and foremost, thanks to Mum & Dad for letting me go on this trip and sponsoring it. I know I am the biggest spender in the family but I promise that I will work hard and be 'hau soon' to you later in life.

A big THANK YOU to Jessica Lim for being a brilliant sister and hostess to me. You're the best!!

To all of Jessica's housemates, thanks for accepting my presence and hopefully, I didn't make too big a mess in your apartment.

To my workmates, all of you rock!! Thank you for being so patient with this inexperienced student and your work and passion have ignited a fire in me to work hard and strive for my goals. Sam Boston, I so know you're going to be a brilliant Ms. Howick. I'll be rooting for you from back home!! Also, thanks to Paul for putting up with my stupid questions. In my eyes, all of you deserve the Zooper Heroes Award!


To Sifu Mark and Alli, thank you for being my kaki lepak and taking me around clubbing in Auckland. I know I am not the greatest club buddy but thanks for putting up with me anyway. When you guys are in KL, I'll return the favour. Just ring me up anytime!

To Sam & Vincent, thanks for being my travelmates in the south island. I will never forget you guys for making the trip even more memorable.

And to everyone else whom I have forgotten to mention here, thank you for everything. I will remember all of you and hopefully, one day, I will repay the kindness that you have shown me here in New Zealand.

    Once upon a time, two 22 and one 21 year-old girls needed a break from Auckland and studies. What did they do? Drive out of Auckland at 6am on Saturday, headed towards Taupo which was about 4 hours away, spent an hour eating lunch by Lake Taupo, drove to Rotorua, spent the night  at a backpackers and left at 7am the following morning. Many called them crazy but they prefer the term adventurous.

    It was the best road trip ever! I can't believe we managed to pull off a road trip under 24 hours. The adventure started on Friday night for Jess and I. We took a train from Britomart station and headed over to Manurewa (I hope I got this place correct) where Claudia was waiting for us. The train ride was really slow. How slow, you ask? For all those who have sat on a KTM train before, well, it was slower than that. To me at least.

    But we did get there eventually with Jess dozing off in the train several times and Claudia greeted us with a big welcoming/excited smile. Claudia's dad, Ricardo was in the car too. He drove us to Foodtown to get our food supplies for our road trip. Jess made a comment that it's "nice to visit a Foodtown branch that I've never worked in". Lol. I told you Foodtown's our haunt here. :P Anyway, we ended up getting a loaf of bread, ham, 2 cans of Pringles (Jess' addiction), a box of breakfast bars for our sugar rush and a big bottle of apple juice. With that, we were ready for our trip. Once that was all done, we went back to Claudia's house where we bunked in for the night. Claudia's house is really nice and her family is lovely. Even her dogs were welcoming! Heh. I loved how they had their own bed in the garage that they tucked themselves into. So cute.

    Someone requested for more paragraphs so I guess I have to make an extra effort now to press the Tab button. :P I'm lazy. Anyway, I am still alive and kicking but barely. Two strikes in the health department. I felt feverish yesterday and my colleagues asked me to go home. I knew that eventually, I'd have to go anyway cause I am in primates section and 97% of the animals share the same genetic code as humans do. If I sniffle, the orangs might start sniffling as well in a few days' time. To avoid that, most of my colleagues stay in when they're sick.

    I got home around 11am, after shopping for ingredients. I cooked kueh teow soup! I have been craving for it for days and yesterday, I decided that I would rather cook than spend NZ$9 for a bowl. It turned out okay but it pales in comparison to the ones I had in Taiping. Yummy. Have to make my mum take to Taiping again for the kueh teow soup. But I won't bug her right now. She's in Bali with my dad. Heh. *wink wink*

    So what have I done the last 1 week? Nothing much really. Just work, work and work. It's sad really, when you come to a place for internship, you have to work 5 days a week and then on the weekends, when you're finally free, all you want to do is stay in and sleep. It doesn't help that winter has just kicked in and that cold air just makes me feel lazy and sleepy ALL the time. But, I didn't waste Friday night though. Heh heh. I went clubbing with Mark, Allison and Neil at Waterfront near Vieduct. It was good fun. Supposedly to celebrate Ali's birthday but she's been having her own fun for 8 days straight. Lol. That woman. People celebrate their birthday for one day and she celebrates hers for a whole week. It's good for her though cause she has been feeling rather stressed out about her studies and life. We went out clubbing and didn't come back till 5am. As usual, after clubbing, we went to a kebab place to have fried chicken and chips. I must say that this shop has the best fried chicken that anyone can ask for. It tastes even better than KFC!

    Friday was a good day, in general. Aside from clubbing at night, the primates team decided to start work at 7am and end at 3.30pm cause there was a talk that we were supposed to attend. It was conducted by a primate keeper at Perth Zoo and it wasn't only later that I was told this keeper, Leif Cocks is actually the head of The Australian Orangutan Project. AOP is an Australian NGO that raises funds for their projects, mainly in Sumatra and Kalimantan to protect the orangs. If you wanna know more, just log on to www.orangutan.org.au or google it.

    It was an eye-opening talk for me. 5 minutes into the talk, the first thought that occured to me was "How is it possible that these Australians and Kiwis care more about these creatures from Indonesia and Malaysia more than we do?" I decided to stay behind after the talk to have a chat with Leif and being introduced by colleagues as Clarice from Malaysia, we got into a discussion about how the conservation programmes are getting nowhere because the people there don't care much for the environment. Right now, palm oil plantation is the number 1 threat to our ecosystem. Government's telling us that we need the palm oil to better our country but what they failed to mention is that after 20 years, the palm trees can no longer produce palm fruits and then what? They abandon these plantations and clear more forests to plant more palm trees? What will happen to the biodiversity in our country? If we don't do something now, we're going to lose our jungle to palm oil. Take a look at Sepang right now. All we see is acres and acres of palm oil plantation.

     All I'm asking is that the next time you purchase processed food items, please look at the nutrition information table. If the label reads "Vegetable Oil", take a look at the total and saturated fat. If the saturated fat is half of the total fat, it means that the "Vegetable Oil" used is palm oil. I'm not saying that you have to stop buying these items but please, buy less of them or switch to another item that uses corn oil etc. We're not just saving the animals that are indegenous to our country but saving ourselves. How many times have we complained about the rise of pollution level in Malaysia? We keep blaming on Indonesia but we're not innocent ourselves. Look at the amount of forests we have cleared just for development's sake. We can do something about it and that is to start caring for the biodiversity we have back home. Saving the trees means saving ourselves.

    I'm stopping here. Going out in a bit to watch Sex and The City. Take care all of you! :) And THINK TWICE BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING WITH PALM OIL IN IT. IT STARTS WITH AWARENESS!

 

Since the last one week have been depressing, I haven't had the mood to blog about anything besides me feeling down. But today, I'm in such a good mood, I'm going to blog about my Waiheke trip. A friend and I went over on Monday morning and met at 7.30am before heading over to the ferry building to catch out 8.15am ferry. I reckon we were the crazy 20 who woke up that early on a public holiday (Queen's Birthday, a big deal here) to go touring on an island. Didn't help the fact that I went clubbing with Mark the night before until 1am. I probably had like what, 5 hours of sleep. Note to self: 2 clubbing nights in a row is bad for health. Anyway, it's a 45 minutes ferry ride to the island and once again, the view was gorgeous! This is what I saw upon arrival.

 


We got to the island and we weren't sure whether we wanted to hire a motorcycle, a car or take the bus. Since we both didn't have a motorcycle license and car was pricey, we opted for bus and bought a one day bus pass. We missed the bus (as usual) so the man told us we had to walk 20 minutes to the nearest town which was Oneroa. Not that I minded. It was such a beautiful walk anyway. Once again, camwhoring the whole way, trying to capture the gorgeous views. New Zealand's just too beautiful for words.

20 minutes my foot. We walked for 45 minutes! Most probably cause we kept stopping to take pictures but still, saying it's ONLY 20 minutes away makes me feel like a slowpoke. I'm working as a zookeeper. I should be walking at least 5km/hour speed (that's the minimum pace my colleagues walk at, I kid you not). Oh well, at least we did reach Oneroa. First sight that greeted us:



I am completely in love with Waiheke by now. We didn't know where to go or what to do so we opened the brochure and saw Palm Beach. Great. "Let's go there," I said. We waited for the darn bus for another 45 minutes and I nearly fell asleep when suddenly, I saw the bus from afar and jumped up in excitement. I shoved V and said "It's here. Get up. Let's go. Heey.. Wait a minute. Why isn't it stopping? No no. Come back!!" The bus drove right past us. =_='' Only later did we find out that the bus doesn't stop at our stop. Right... We knew that. Of course we did. 5 minutes later, a bus finally stops right in front of us. We hopped in and we were on our way to Palm Beach. 25 minutes later, we got off the bus and walked towards Palm Beach. As we walked along the beach, we realised why it was called Palm Beach. There were 6 palm trees at the end of the beach. They look like they were planted there. Poor thing. But the beach was pretty. A lot of residents bringing their dogs to run around the beach. Such adorable looking dogs. By the time I took these pictures, however, they've all left. Sad.

   


An hour later, we got bored of Palm Beach so we decided to head back to Oneroa for lunch. Fish & Chips are famous in Waiheke so we decided to try that out. We walked to the infamous Fish & Chips shop only to realise that it's closed on Monday. Yeesssh.... Adamant on having the Fish & Chips experience, we decided to head to a cafe called Schooner Cafe for lunch. We ordered fish and chips (of course) and it was nyum. But a resident told me later on that the first shop serves even nyummy fish and chips. Hmm.. I vow to return and try it!


Customers' dogs taking an afternoon nap at the cafe

With a full stomach, we could think better so we decided to head over to Onetangi. We heard the beach was gorgeous there and if we're lucky, we might even spot whales or dolphins swimming nearby the beach. We wanted to stop by a vineyard along the way but it was closed. We were lucky actually, that someone in the bus told us it was closed. Apparently, they wanted to head over to the same vineyard earlier this morning and after they got off the bus (and the bus had already left), they were told that it was closed. Poor people. They had to wait for another hour before another bus came by to pick them up. Buses are hourly in Waiheke. Whatever time you get off the bus, just be there in an hour's time later and the bus will be there. Cool eh? Punctual. Something rare in Malaysia. So, with vineyard plans cancelled, we went straight to Onetangi beach. I do not know how to describe the beach so I'll let pictures do the talking. We decided to walk right to the end of the beach to see what's on the other side and we couldn't have been sorrier for that decision. Guess where we ended up at? Nudie's Bay!! These people are mental! Although sunny, it's windy and possible temperature's 14 degrees Celsius and they want to be naked? Gaah! It was kinda funny how we found the bay. We walked right up to the end and we saw this man 'stretching' and before we could even blink, all his clothes came off and he laid down on his mat and sunbathed. We both laughed out loud and turned to walk the other way. We were very tempted to run but there were a lot of rocks so we couldn't. We also saw a lot of people in their 50s and 60s heading towards the Nudie's Bay. *see no evil.. hear no evil... speak no evil.. THINK NO EVIL!*

We spotted a nice sheltered place about 3 minutes away from THE bay so we decided to camp there for the whole afternoon. I'm surprised no one took that spot for themselves cause it's brilliant for an afternoon of lazing. I fell asleep there. Sigh. What a dream come true. Taking a nap by a gorgeous beach and falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves. At this point, I can't ask for anything more.  V woke me up around 3pm and told me we had to go cause the tide was rising. I was so reluctant but I got up anyway. I'd rather come back another day than die here. I mean, I love Waiheke but not enough to drown in the sea. We gathered our things and left the place. I nearly got ran over by a horse on my walk back to the bus stop. It was my fault really cause I was busy gathering sea shells but the lady rider (what do you call someone who rides a horse?) apologised cause she didn't see me. Good thing I saw a nice sea shell on the right and moved towards it. Otherwise, I would have been roadkill to a horse.  I took more pictures and we boarded the bus back to Oneroa.


First breathtaking sight of Onetangi Beach.


It looked like it was going to pour at Onetangi Beach.


Luckily, it didn't.


Upward view taken from my Onetangi Beach sanctuary.

At Oneroa, we both felt like having coffee but most of the shops were closed by 4pm. We went into a shop and the shoplady told us that a place called Vino Vino might be open. True enough, it was still opened so we went in to have our coffee. We felt like having dinner too cause this place came with high recommendations for a good meal but when we looked at the menu, we realised that it was a little pricey so we settled for coffee. After having our caffeine fix, we went to a mart nearby and bought Kettle chips for dinner. Heh. I'm being influenced by Kiwis cause they love their chips here. We walked to Oneroa Beach armed with our chips and drinks and sat till sunset. Mum, Dad, if you have the chance, retire in Waiheke. :P


Sunset at Oneroa Beach.

We packed up our stuff at 6pm and waited for the bus to bring us to the ferry terminal. We wanted to catch the 6.45pm ferry cause I had to work tomorrow and I didn't want to sleep late. We really didn't have to worry about being late cause the public transportation system in Waiheke is quite efficient. They time each bus in such a way that the bus will head towards the terminal about 15 minutes before the ferry arrives. Brilliant. We arrived at Auckland Central around 7.30pm and went to have dinner at The Occidental. I had more mussels, of course, and V had seafood chowder. By then, we had already burned a hole in our pocket so what did we toast with? A good ol' glass of iced tap water. *smiles* Cheers!

For the first time in a week, I am feeling..good. :) The last one week has been turbulent. First, the homeless issue. Secondly, I've had fever for the last 4 days. Gah. I don't know how many Panadols I have downed. Lucky me for bringing tonnes of medicines here. I'm surprised immigration didn't stop me for drug dealing or sth. Anyway, fever finally broke yesterday and I'm really happy cause I have been trying all sorts of ways to break the fever. Jess' housemate finally gave me a brilliant idea on breaking the fever. How? I went into Jess' room, turned on the heater to the max, buried myself under the duvet and went to sleep. At 9pm. As if that wasn't enough, Jess made me put on her bathrobe, get under her cotton blanket, duvet over me with maximum heat. 15 minutes later, Jess came in to check on me and I was perspiring. She took the duvet off me and sat in front of the laptop doing her work. 30-45 minutes later (Jess is not sure bout time), she checked on me again and this time, I was drenched in my own sweat. Jess panicked and thought she made things worse so she quickly removed the bathrobe. Apparently, at this point, I was making some yelping noises and Jess was completely panicking. Lol. It's kinda funny how she had to go through panicking sessions when I was just asleep the whole time, dreaming of strange people with strange habits. But because of the sweating, my fever is gone! Yay! Rounds of champagne for everyone. :)

I couldn't remember the whole incident. We both woke up at 9am this morning and I asked her if I did sweat. And she told me the whole story. It's so weird that I don't remember a single detail. Oh well. What's important is that I'm feeling all happy and healthy again. Hip hip hurray! We're going out for lunch after this to celebrate.

Fever... heel!

Today was a bad day. Sigh. I became a homeless person for 12 hours before I managed to find another place to stay. Here's how the whole story went:

I went to work as usual and found out that I was going to be in elephants and carnivores section. I was really happy cause it meant that I finally had the chance to work with the carnivores in the zoo. But around 10am, I realised I had a text from Jess. I opened the text and read:

"Ah Ping darling. Later when you get back, try not to hang out downstairs for the meantime ya. Unless it's out of the building compound. Cause campus security found out that I have a guest. Heh"

My heart dropped the minute I read that. I knew I was homeless. Apparently, the whole incident occured when I was peacefully asleep last night. Campus security came into the apartment and asked the flatmates if there were any guests staying. They lied the first time and said no but in the end, to avoid further trouble, they said yes and that the guest was only staying for a night. The resident assistant took down Jess' name and left the apartment. Jess told me all that via texting and I felt bad that it happened to her. Jess has a big heart and I know that she was worried about where I'd stay and all. I called up mum immediately and told her the whole situation. I was ready to burst into tears cause I didn't really know what to do. It's one thing to be homeless and know your town well but I didn't know anyone else aside from the people I met here and I felt really lost. I was also worried about the financial situation cause I didn't want to have to burden my parents even more. Mum was assuring and told me to not worry about anything else except finding another place to stay in. I could hear Dad's voice in the background telling Mum to be on standby just in case I needed money. I told them I'll be fine and hung up. Couldn't concentrate on my work after that so I told my colleague the situation and she was really nice to me. She told me that she'll help me log on to the zoo's internet so I could find a backpacker's place to stay in. I apologised cause I felt really bad. It's really irresponsible to just walk out on work when you know that there's a lot of work to be done. She told me to not worry about it and instead, take the afternoon off to focus on finding a place to stay.

We went to the lunchroom and I googled for places around Auckland Central, in search for accomodation. I found a few places but the prices were steep and I had to live in dorms. I wasn't going to complain though cause it's better to have a place to stay than lurking around. Jess texted me again and I told her that I'll go back immediately to talk about the situation. I left work around 12.30pm and reached Auckland University at 1.30pm. I took a long walk back cause I wanted to clear my mind. Jill met up with me and explained that I could stay in her place till June 15th cause that's when her lease ends. She'll be going back to Singapore on that day for good. I am so happy to have met Jill here. She's definitely a friend for life. We discussed options and in the end, we decided that I should be registered as a guest and pay the NZ$20 a night fee just so that I have a place to stay. I really don't mind paying that amount if it means having somewhere to call home. Thinking that the whole situation has been resolved, we hung out at the campus grounds for a while. Right.... resolved..

Came back to the building and met Alison in the apartment. Jess and I decided that it's better if Alison was the one to register me as a guest since she didn't have her name taken down by the RA. She was on her way to hand in her assignment and said that she'll register me after she comes back. When she got back, she tried to register at the front desk. The lady was going to when she realised that this apartment has been blacklisted and can no longer register any guests. When asked why, the lady said that complains have been filed against us cause we have had too many unregistered guests. WTF?! Ali told Jess and Jess was really down. As for me, I was asleep cause I had a fever. Falling sick during winter is just bad cause the constant change of climate makes it harder to get well. I've been having cough, flu and fever the last couple of days. Bleah. ANYWAY, I woke up to a worried Jess and she told me the whole incident. I told her to ask her church friends if they had a spare room that I could rent and we got ready to meet up with Jill for dinner. Jill was treating us to dinner and she invited Nigel, Harold, Jess and I. We met up with the boys outside and walked to Whitcolls where Jill was waiting for us. We went to a nice Japanese fusion restaurant called Wagamama to eat. I didn't have much appetite to eat so I had apple + orange juice and ate the side dishes that Jill ordered for all of us. It was a decent meal. Halfway through dinner, Jess got a text from her church friend saying that I could stay with him. I was thanking my lucky stars that someone could house me while I'm here. My mood picked up but my appetite didn't. Bleah. It sucks to not have an appetite to eat when there's plenty of good food. We ate and sat for a good long time before someone got bitten by the karaoke bug. We didn't know any place that was opened (definitely not me since I haven't had much chance to explore Auckland Central) and we finally parked our bums at The Occidental. That's the place that I went once for mussels. Nyum. The boys had beer and Jill had wine. Jess and I chose to not drink and we just sat around, talking. We left the place and headed home. It's nice to have good compan when you've had a crappy day.

I called Mum up and told her that everything has been settled. By then, I couldn't stop the tears from flowing. It's nice to know that whatever happens, I always have my family to fall back on. We might have had our differences in the past but now, I see my family as the rock that stands solid regardless of what happens. Mum even asked if I wanted to go back home to Kuching and she'll arrange the flights if I wanted to. I wouldn't do that cause I know I need to solve my own problems and not just run away everytime something major happens. I know now that I am lucky arse cause everytime something major/bad happens to me, people are always there for me. So here's a big thank you to everyone who has stuck with me through thick and thin. Thank you for just being there.

Life fact of the day: When you walk in on someone crying, don't just close the door and pretend that nothing has happened. Instead, give them a hug. That one hug will seal that friendship forever.