Normality

Do i look wiser?? ^_^

The older we get, the fitter we get ^_^ (ivy's new wheels on ta left)

Meadowlife is back to normality ^_^ Ivy did a simple celebration for my bday..yippee. And i received well wishes from many of my close friends and family. Although we get bday greetings year in and year out, it gets extremely special when ta same bunch of people remembers your bday every year... i guess tat's wen you know who are keepers ^_^ Ivy and me were feeling tired and lethargic most of the week.. the price of our "adventures". But it's gud to be back together ^_^

A little taste of heaven

Day 1: Christchurch
Christchurch reminds me of Melbourne. The tram tracks, the old buildings and most of all the cold windy weather. What surprised me was the lack of humans and traffic. I suppose that is a good thing, but coming from Msia/Spore, it felt kinda spooky ^_^

what's she doin??

some park at the center of christchurch. ivy says this picture can be used in uni brouchers to con overseas students to study in christchurch ^_^

my "peaceful" cable car ride (anyone likes new transformers t-shirt??)

The view of christchurch harbour from the cable car station...pretty isn't it?

Day 2: Arthur's Pass
If you want to drive from the east coast of the south island (christchurch) to the west coast (dunno the name of the town), you will need to drive through the center range of mountains. The little pass thru the mountains is called Arthur's Pass. It was snowing when we arrived, and we weren't dressed for snowy weather. But the views of snow capped mountains and free flowing rivers was well worth the freeze ^_^

Snow capped mountains at Arthur's Pass. I should have taken this same photo the next day.. it was snowing and cloudy when we arrived, thus this gloomy looking pix.. but it was clear and sunny the next day. Was too lazy to pose for another pix ^_^

Our little pad at Arthur's Pass (Bealey's Hotel) Our window view was just picture perfect

Photo of the little shacks that we stayed in... cozy and simple

Day 3: Ad Hoc Travelling
We didn't plan our location for the 3rd day and landed up driving to a few towns on the map. Small towns in NZ are SMALL. You will be lucky to find more than 3 buildings in those little towns and a medium sized town is probably about 7 buildings. After our aimless driving adventure, we landed back in Christchurch :-P

See, Hear & Speak no evil. Just had to take tis pix ^_^
We visited a little nature reserve just outside Christchurch where they had local animals and Maori Presentations... typical tourist place

Day 4: Akaroa
Akaroa is about an hour's drive east of Christchurch. It's located on an ancient volcano crator which has erroded over time by the sea and is now a harbour town. A typical postcard town.. very cantik ^_^

Our room at Akaroa. Another picture perfect room view

french anyone?? (i wud like to say kay-poh, but ivy will most likely smack me ^_^)
Akaroa is a former french town.

The town of Akaroa

Day 5: Christchurch
Not much of a day coz our flight back was at 3pm. But ivy did manage to hunt down her "Manuka Honey". Not cheap at all. That honey had better have the abililty to extend our life. A really short and fast trip.... but will be fondly remembered ^_^

Spore Reception

alamak.. why so much smoke ^_^

Beddoe Gang (sort of)
Back Left: Khin and Mark (my ex spore colleagues), me & wife, wyang, katherine & yyee
Front Left: Khin's wife, ling & wife, mich & hubby

The new family
Back Left: Ray, me & wife, ivy's younger bro gf, ivy's younger bro
Front Left: my dad & mum, ivy's mum & dad

I have selected just a few pictures from our Spore reception to be posted here. We had 3 photographers, ivy's cousin (Wendy), my friend Scott and my cousin Raymond. Scott is still compiling his photos and i think i accidentally deleted the pictures taken by Raymond :-P My wife did look good at both receptions ^_^ I will post more photos in my Facebook account for those who are interested.

Quickie

Spore Reception Photo Collage.. taken and edited by Wendy (ivy's cousin)..she had a BIG Canon EOS30D camera.. put our hobbyist Nikon gang to shame :-P

Just a quick blog entry. Haven't had the time to edit the Spore dinner reception photos. For the time being, I will only post a collage pix of the night that was done up by Ivy's cousin. Ivy put in a lot of effort to make the spore reception special and it did look really nice. The big difference btw the spore reception from the JB's was that most of the guest arrived really LATE! Must be a spore thing. It was really nice catching up with the old beddoe gang.. will post pix of them next week. Flying back to Sydney in a few hours time and heading to NZ after that. I need more Zzzzz ^_^

Green

Ta front desk..my aunt, her daugther+bf, my sis, ivy and me

Ivy's and my family

My family

Green was the theme color of our JB reception. Ivy was dressed in green, my tie was green, my mum was in green ^_^ There were heaps of photos, but i have only selected a few key family photos for tis blog. I will post the whole collection in my flickr site later on. The JB reception went really well. No invitation cards were sent....we only started looking for a hairdresser, makeup artist, hand flowers and my tie 3 hours before the reception....and surprise surprise, 98% of the guest turned up, the reception started on time and my wife looked great ^_^ Ah.. the joy of ad-hoc planning :-P Special mention should be given to my mum for organizing everything... the old style of organizing, where everything is based on word and mouth and trust actually works ^_^

Lelong...

The Loot. I should get a pasar malam stall when i am back

Gosh, i can't believe the amount of foodstuff that i have to bring back to Msia everytime. It's quite embarrassing buying all the tin tams, chips and cheese babi balls.. the cashier asked me "Do you have all that for your meals everyday?".. i just answered, "That's my sis... ^_^" The long 3 day weekend was sufficient for me hunt down all the stuff in my shopping list. I expect the next 2 weeks to be really hectic.. But i am looking forward to seeing my folks and old friends.. and having a wife ^_^