Taupo Trip

more photos of my students

Taupo Trip

Waikato River
Wairakei Terraces





Recently (ok it was the beginning of August) my school organised a weekend trip away for our students and I was asked to promote it. Eventually we had about 27 people going in total and everyone had an awesome time. I've posted some photos on Facebook and here are some more. We stayed at Taupo, which is in the centre of the North Island on the Central Volcanic Plateau. It's a geothermal area similar to Rotorua but without the sulphur smell and it has a bigger lake and it's closer to the mountains so we could go skiing.

Highlights of the trip were:
A fearsome Maori welcome and cultural performance,
Bungy jumping over the Waikato River (I will never do this again, but you should try it!)
Natural hot pools
Sightseeing at Huka Falls and Wairakei Terraces
Great food catered by the staff at Wairakei Terraces.

Unfortunately the skiing wasn't great as the weather turned bad while we were up the mountain.

I kept my promise, and here are some photos. However, as you can see, I need a new camera.

My new flat












Grafton Bridge












St Paul's Church (I go here)

A few things to add

I'm typing this from the living room of my new flat. It's an old house in Grafton, in Central Auckland that I'm sharing with 5 other friendly people. My bedroom is tiny but the rent is reasonably cheap for Auckland. It's so narrow that i can touch the opposite walls at the same time. I don't know how long I can last in this space. The rest of the house is great though and I spend most of my time in the kitchen or living room.
In an effort to get fit and because parking is too expensive I bought a bike and now cycle to work. It takes me about 10 minutes to get to work (I basically just roll down the hill) and maybe about 20 minutes to get home.

It's great teaching adults. My students are so polite. They actually thank me at the end of each lessons. One even said "enjoy your meal" to me. One of my co-workers is from London so I'm always learning Cockney rhyming slang from him. Like "use your loaf" (loaf of bread= head) and "have a radox" which means have a laugh. Do you get the connection?

Sorry I've got no photos to put up. Tomorrow I'm going to make an effort to take my camera everywhere I go and take at least 10 photos so that I might have something to show you.

Are you on Facebook?

I haven't been writing my blog as frequently as I was. One reason for this is that I haven't had any big news recently except to say that my job is going well and I still haven't found a flat. I've never had such a difficult time trying to find a flat. In the past I've been really blessed to be placed in really good flats (see previous posts) without having to go through this process of searching and waiting. So far I've found 3 flats or apartments that I really liked and each time I was rejected! The people living there chose other people to move in.
In the meantime I'm enjoying living at home with my parents where I get all my meals provided and my laundry washed for me.

The other reason I haven't been writing in this blog is that I've become addicted to facebook. I finally decided to join a week ago after about 5 people had invited me and it is really cool. Already I have 50 friends (and growing), 15 wall posts and 111 friends' photo albums to look through. It's been a great way to catch up with people I know. So if you haven't joined yet, you really should.

Fios

I haven't posted anything for a while but I've been busy. I am now working, so I don't have lots of spare time anymore. However, I will continue this blog even though not many people seem to be checking it regularly.
Shout outs to Beth, Paula and Jason from Taiwan for leaving comments! Yeah
Here's a picture of the building in which my school is located (on the 2nd floor). Fios stands for Federal Institute of Studies. It's a small language school with about 40 to 50 full-time students and 6 teachers. I've counted about 9 other people who work there doing marketing and admin-related jobs. We teach general English in the morning and different options in the afternoon. I'm teaching a writing class. Everyone seems really nice and friendly at the school so I'm happy to be there. At the moment it takes me almost an hour by train to get to work so I'm looking to move into a flat closer to the city.

Did you live on Ching Nian 1st road?

For another 3 years I lived here on Ching Nian 1st Rd and they were great years too. I lived at number 1-13 on the 5th floor, upstairs from the Mos Burger. 7-11 was right across the road. I had some great flatmates and some great neighbours.Lots of great friends came round to visit too. So, if you lived on Ching-Nian 1st Rd or have some connection with it, leave a comment!

Did you live at 73 London Street too?

For 3 years 73 London St was my flat in Dunedin and I have fond memories of that place. It was also the place where we had our homegroup meetings. Every Friday night 40 or 50 people would cram into the living room for worship and then we would break up into smaller groups for bible study in different rooms of the house. After that it would be time for supper and everyone would always hang around talking until after midnight.
If you lived at London St or you went to the homegroup there and you're reading this, leave a comment and say where you are now.

Dunedin

My time in Dunedin was mostly spent catching up with old friends as well as applying for jobs at Language schools. However, since all they could offer me was relieving work, I'm not preparing to move back down there. I think that I'll probably just stay in Auckland.
Dunedin is still the same city it was when I went to university there but the people are different. It made me sad to think that so many friends I'd met here have moved away but that is inevitable I guess. Those still living in Dunedin have mostly all got married and/or had kids since I was last here. Sorry I didn't take many photos of Dunedin.


Tunnel Beach











Lance, Liz and Bethany (who is 1 year old and shares the same birthday as me: April 10th). I know you guys are squinting in the light from the sun here, but I really like this picture. If it had been a clear day you could see Dunedin City in the background.

Mt Aspiring National Park

In Dunedin I met up with my old friend Yukio Flinte and we took off for 3 days of tramping. We weren't really sure where we would go but ended up in the Mount Aspiring National Park near Wanaka. On the first night we stayed at Mount Aspiring Hut then on the second day we climbed up to French Ridge. It was a very steep climb. We went from 400m to around 1400m in about 4 hours. The first 2 hours were relatively flat just going along the Matukituki river and the next 2 hours were straight up. I was completely exhausted when we arrived at French Ridge Hut but after a lunch stop, I soon found the energy to keep climbing to get closer to the glacier. I reached the snow line but could only look at the Glacier as it was too far to reach. Here's a picture of it.






Then we headed back to the hut. On the last day we walked out, taking a side-trip to the Rob Roy glacier on the way. There we met a kea. Kea are alpine parrots native to New Zealand. They're like the monkeys of Monkey Mountain in Taiwan in that they like to steal food. Some poor tourists had their lunch stolen.














The long-drop at French Ridge Hut















Can you spot the two trout in the river?













Lake Wanaka

Wellington

Here's a photo of Wellington City for those who wanted to know what it looked like and one of Oriental Parade.








One good thing about having friends spread all over the place is that you have free accommodation and food wherever you go! So thanks to good friends Mabel and Graham in Wellington, my uncle in Christchurch and Lance and Liz in Dunedin my expenses were kept to a bare minimum. Thanks guys and hope I can return the favour soon. Here's a photo of Mabel and Graham at their flat in Wellington and one of them working on the BBQ at Kirsty's house.







While in Wellington I also caught up with Kirsty (back from London on holiday), Debbie (who spent one year in Taiwan), my brother, and other friends from Dunedin (Rachel Kan, Melissa and Mark, Craig and Angeline and Phirun).

Two very different New Zealands

I've just returned to Auckland after 2 weeks travelling around the country. I went to Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wanaka and also did some tramping in the Mount Aspiring National Park. It was a great time and I got to catch up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time. I've got lots of photos to post but first I'd just like to state my amazement about the difference in climate between the two main islands of my county. On Friday for example:

11:30am driving to Christchurch airport with heater going full blast.
1:30pm driving home from Auckland airport. It's so hot in the car we turn on the air conditioning.

For the last few days the temperature in Auckland has been a full 10 degrees hotter than Dunedin. So although there're lots of things I don't like about Auckland, I'd have to say that it has an ideal climate. Especially after living in unbearably hot Taiwan.

There are also differences in plant life between the 2 islands. Here is one photo taken near Auckland in the North Island and one photo taken in Otago in the South Island. Can you guess which is which?

Rotorua

My family and I went to Rotorua at Easter. Rotorua is a small city in a geothermal area of New Zealand. My sister and her family moved there about a year ago so we got to vist them and I saw my very first nephew for the first time. His name's Zak and he was born in November last year. While in Rotorua we checked out some of the geothermal attractions. Lots of boiling mud, steaming vents and geysers. Some people call Rotorua "Rotten Rua" because of the smell of sulphur in the air. We visited a Maori village where they use the natural thermal springs for cooking food, and bathing. We also got to see a Maori cultural performance and I was picked from the audience to join in with the haka. It wasn't so embarrassing as they picked about 10 people to join in.







This was all very fun but I still needed some action and adventure to complete the trip. So I tried zorbing. A zorb (see pic) is a large thick balloon inside a larger balloon. The "zorbonaut" is thrown into the zorb along with a bucketfull of water and then rolled down a hill. They emerge at the bottom soaking wet. It was a great experience, kind of like being on a hydroslide. If you want to know more go to www.zorb.com

Zorb










Pukeko

30 Top places to visit in New Zealand

This list is taken from a survey in which people voted on the top 101 must-do attractions around New Zealand. Of the top 30 I've only been to 9. How about you?


1. Mitre Peak and Milford Sound (pictured)
2. Doubtful Sound
3. Bay of Islands
4. Fiordland National Park
5. Abel Tasman National Park
6. Aoraki Mt Cook
7. Coastal Kaikoura
8. Hanmer Springs
9. Camping (anywhere!)
10. Tutukaka/The Poor Knights
11. Marlborough Sounds
12. Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers
13. Mt Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe
14. Wairomo Caves
15. Travelling the Southern Scenic Route
16. Otago Rail Experience
17. White Island (marine volcano)
18. Stewart Island
19. Arthurs Pass National Park
20. Tongariro Crossing
21. The Blue Pools of Haast Pass
22. South Westland
23. Waipoua Forest
24. Mt Taranaki
25. Lake Tekapo Observatory and Church of the Good Shephard
26. Ulva Island (Stewart Is. bird colony)
27. Otago Peninsula
28. Canterbury Plains
29. Punakaiki (Pancake Rocks)
30. Cape Reinga (pictured)

I've just come back from a weekend in Rotorua which comes in at number 47 on the list. I'll put up some photos from that trip in my next post.

I miss my students!

And I don't have enough photos of them