New Zealand: Papamoa Hills - Lets HIKE!

My son Willy aka Williem and his partner Hoe (nana kick my ass blerk!) are leaving from Te Puke soon (Now, they're already gone, yes another late update). The few days before they leave, we planned an outing to Papamoa Hills, the hiking place which so near with us, yet we never been there.

Papamoa Hills is so near with where we're staying right now, we always want to go hiking but always delay it to visit some place that farer, like Hamilton (And yea i regret to been there actually).

We make it this time before after this, we have no chance to go hiking together, Will and Hoe are continue their journey to the north, then go to south, this might be the last chance for goin out together.

Well, we be there by 2pm, don't think we're crazy that we hiked at the afternoon, i'm in NZ and the sun in afternoon is not hot at all, we were all cold and with jacket on actually.

In the jungle

Not scary but amaze

The path

Look out point

Great feel

My son and I :D

I never expected that Papamoa Hills is such a good place to go, i mean i have been hiked on so many mountain and hill, but Papamoa Hills is the best, good scenes and very comfortable walk way.

All you can see from the peak is sea, mountain and sky, but not city, not car, not factory, this is just amazing, like the sea and sky were together, the mountain never end. I just love this hill.

Thank Hoe for the photo!

Will, Jack, Tien and Sun

I love this, love the angle i found

You will never see how great of the view from the photo, but i do, i been there =)

Half way hike to the peak, Yee felt unwell and she decided to go down hill and wait for us, and Jack, Tien and Sun decided to take another walk way to go to peak, while Will, Hoe and I take another walkway.

So the photos below just the scene of my walkway but not the whole papamoa hills, in fact, there are few walkways to lead to the peak, you can spend up to half day in goin through all the walkway, the one i picked took me 2 hours to complete the hiking.

We saw the peak!

sky, and sky only

Mountain and mountain

the white dot is sheep!

Sun light

Step to let us get over

3 of us grabbing the sheep

Strong wind chill when we reached the peak, the wind so strong that can blow us my Xiao P cover and i nearly lost it!

I regret to bring only one thin jacket but not the wind proof jacket :(

Never get bored to seeing all these view

The PEAK!

the way down

see the 3 dots? They're Sun, Tien and Jack!

Dead body found on the peak

Favorite of the day! Xiao P captured this!

Will and Hoe, good bye my friend

Housemate and the blogger, only Yee wasn't here

Great walky walky with my housemates, well, ex-housemate for now. Really happy to meet you guys here, and thanks for everything and anything that you 2 have done for me, also the forgiveness for my siao-ness in the house. I miss you guys A LOT!

Take good care, and we shall meet again someday, in some place =)

p/s: Jodi called me today and i GOING BACK TO WORK TOMORROW! Thanks God! Hope everything goes smooth, as same to my beloved friends in NZ, or worldwide.

Tauranga, NZ

20100616, 1201pm

Rach in very cold mood!

New Zealand: Hamilton & Auckland - Garden with no flower

To prove i'm fine, even thought i'm jobless, i try to keep my blog update.

Alright, Hamilton and Auckland trip.

8 people, 2 cars, Malaysian, Taiwanese and China, headed to the town of garden.

Troy once told me that Hamilton available with cheap horse riding, like 2 hours $30, i really wanna do that but unfortunately not all the travel mates want to do that, yet Hamilton itself is a dumb city in winter, i mean yea they've biggest garden in NZ but its winter now, i don't think the garden would be attractive and worth for us to travel all the way from Taurange, which took us like 2 hours driving distance.

However, with limited choice of place to visit, we choose Hamilton still, this is because Jack wanna go to Auckland to get something from his old place, while Hamilton is nearby with Auckland, yet, not everyone wanna go to Auckland and lastly, 2 cars go to Hamilton together, all 8 people stay a night in Hamilton and the next day, Jack, Tien and I went to Auckland, which the rest of the 5 girls go to south with passing by Cambridge and couples of small towns, and go back to Tauranga.

Well i'm not really want to go Auckland, all i want is to drive Jack's car, man he brought a Honda mini sport car here, which i think its really cool and i haven't been driving a sport car yet. For share the cost of petrol, Jack invited me to go up to Auckland together, and I CAN DRIVE HIS CAR!

So i said yes, and ever since that, i sick of driving sport car, i had got enough for total 8 hours driving trip, its not fun at all even thought i was driving a damn fine car.

Anyway, travel and have fun with a bruncha of friends is nice no matter where you were goin, so even i know the garden is not available with her famous roses, we still pay a visit to Hamilton Gardens, the NZ biggest garden.

Halmiton Garden

The river side

The lake side, during evening

Travel mates

This is 1000000% real!

Simply beautiful

The far scene

Random tree

Make me think of England

The stone bridge

Love this

Award of Hamiton Garden

Suppose to be rose, but not in winter

The only rose

The flower wall

This too

Big leave

Sun set soon

a tree, not peacock

No more flower

Another kind of feeling

Although have not much roses, but the scene of the lake and environment was just simple nice and peaceful. We got countless of photos there and enjoyed our evening very much there.

The scene there make me wanna make some poem and of course, not in English but my mother tongue, well will not sharing here and i feel disgust when i read it over right now XD.

Well nothing special of the garden, we look weird because tourist will not usually come to the garden this time, but hell who care, we're having fun just by taking photos!

The Blogger

Sun and Mei Yee JUMP!

Without Jack

Without the Blogger

We got ourselves a very comfortable motel for the night stay. Again, if you're in NZ and backpacking like me, remember get all the info from i-site of the particular place you go, including accommodation.

And if you are traveling with a gang of friends, go to get an apartment, like what we did, of course for saving money i lied that we have 4 people and need an apartment for a night stay, but actually, we have 8 and ready to sneak the other 4 into the apartment.

I-Site found me an apartment with 2 rooms, 5 beds, living room and kitchen with ensuit with only $160, which mean only $20 per person and this is definitely cheaper than all the backpacker in town.

Plus we can cook our dinner there, this is much worth and comfortable.

The motel we stayed in Hamilton

Ulster Lodge Motel is the motel that i-site recommend and book for us, very clean and comfortable motel, available with rooms and apartment, we have the biggest unit i guess, and the facilities of the apartment just nice, with free wireless internet!

This is very very important for backpackers that travel with more friends, never think that NZ's backpacker hostel or B&B available with free internet, every MB you want to use you gonna spend money, and this is not cheap at all. Because NZ government isn't develop the communication technology urgently, they prefer to attract tourist by their natural resource.

So after a tide night sleep, the next day we separate with Sun and the rest of the girls, and go up to Auckland with Jack and Tien.

It took 2 hours + to drive to Auckland from Hamilton, first go met Jack's friend from BeiJing, China, then went to his old place to collect his stuff and lastly, Jack brought us to a shop that sold very nice SiChuan food.

The first time i had SiChuan food, and had it in NZ, this is weird but the taste is seriously great! I never had such spicy food in NZ! Oh i should said, i never eat something that can make me sweat like hell in NZ until i taste this SiChuan food!

Driving a sport car is COOOOOOL

Sky Tower, there i come to Auckland again

This is the one in Dominion Rd of Auckland

Number and Address

Small shop, but full of people

Sour and spicy noodle.

Dan Dan Mian

Potatoes and Pork

I love this one the most! Spicy Pig Lung! Seriously nice!!!

Jack was surprise that i managed to finish the bowl of noodle, not because of big portion but the spicy of the noodle. Damn i miss the spicy Dan Dan Mian right now!

But Tien couldn't take the food, was too hot and spicy for her, and she had gastric after the lunch. Poor thing.

The Blogger fall in love with Jack's big camera! *Chak*

After the happy trip, now update a little but my current.

Repacking season started a week ago, 8 tables around 48 people are start working, and all of them from night shift, and all of them picked by the supervisor from night shift, Gay.

Even the one who is doing labeling was picked to repack the kiwi fruit, but no any one of the people from day shift was picked. Including the whole repacking team during packing season.

The other day i met Audrey and Ian in the Trevelyan, my face tell the disappointed after Jodi told us we weren't picked to enter in the first batch, Audrey was my superior during packing and she just cant help, i guess she feels awkward too, once she told me that she did mention bout my name to Gay that she hoped i could enter to repacking time.

For not making Audrey feel bad, i told her that i might just go look for other job, and please her don't keep this in her mind. Although i do really though i will go for repacking for sure before that.

Well, thing happened, and i cant help, what i can do is hope for the second batch list, and i was in the list.

Rite i gonna ciao, Jack is leaving from Te Puke, and Tien might follow him tomorrow, will cook him Malaysia curry chicken for farewell him / them.

More and more people is leaving, and this make me upset for waiting a hope that might is fake.

But people, i'm fine, like this usual Rachel, i'm fine all the time =)

Tauranga, NZ

20100613, 0503pm

Rach is forgetting how to cook curry chicken mood.