New Zealand - part one

Alright, it's time for New Zealand pictures to arise! It has been a few months since the trip after all and it's at about this time that I am so totally missing it. The weather is warming up and all I can think of is that icy cold weather that makes your nose turn red and lets you get away with wearing big jackets, dorky gloves and beanies. I am definitely more of a winter person, although the Fijian weather was pretty sweet too! Ah what am I saying, I don't mind the hot weather - as long as all I have to do is lie in a hammock all day.

Anyway, with out further ado, I bring you part one of the trip!

As per usual, when flying to an overseas destination, we boarded a plane (or two) and landed in Christchurch after a quick stop off in Sydney. Christchurch was devastated by several earthquakes in the last year. The September 4th 2010 quake was bad enough, but in February of this year, on the 22nd, the Canterbury region faced it's most catastrophic quake. The death toll was unimaginable and the physical destruction of Christchurch was hard to fathom. Like every natural disaster, it made news headlines world wide for several days, or even weeks in Australia. But soon, another tragedy takes the limelight and the world seems to move on.

Landing in Christchurch, I had no idea of the true extent. No news report can really prepare you. Gorgeous weatherboard houses like to above were all destroyed and 14 days after this photo was taken, Christie and I were back in the same place watching this place getting demolished. One of the locals said that houses and buildings that needed to be demolished were running in the thousands.

This apartment building was getting demolished as we watched. Standing next to us was one of the apartments owners. Though most of the city centre was still blocked off, looking inside buildings was astounding - it was like life was just put on pause. Cutlery and crockery lay shattered on restaurant floors and tables remained on there sides.

Amazingly, Christchurch remains so absolutely positive and hopeful for the future. No doubt Christchurch will grow as a community following this disaster. There is hope that most of the older, historic buildings will be able to be restored including the gorgeous city cathedral.

Christchurch remains a beautiful place, especially along the Avon River. Gorgeous willow trees like the above dot the landscape along the rivers, and beneath them are little duck families. My heart was literally melting!

This is the window into a gorgeous cheese shop and bakery where we bought an absolutely picnic-y lunch. Yum!

Christie enjoyed some delicious pork ribs! Interesting...

And we both enjoyed the 'World famous in New Zealand' L&P which is surprisingly delicious. Also, even though we were travelling the world (or New Zealand at least), we still made time to watch the last Harry Potter movie on its opening day. Yes, I am a nerd at heart.

Next up is the beginning of our topdeck tour which I promise is a good story! Much more so then the Debbie Downer post on Christchurch. Hurrah! Catch you on the flip side peeps (got to love having my own blog where I can say exactly what I want).

Ode to ye Converse

Firstly, I am full away that this post might make you see me as a person with an unusual foot fetish but please know that this is definitely not the case. I do not like to touch feet nor think about them too much, I will certainly not touch your feet, even if they are really cool or something. That said, it appears that I do seem to have an obsession with taking pictures of my green converse lo-top all stars. And here is an unwanted and unrequested album of me and my connies over the years.

They wait at airports with me in 2007

And in 2011

The mull over whether to skydive or not (for about 2.1 seconds) before deciding that they definitely should.

They wait patiently to get up in the plane.

They leapt through the sky and the guy taking the photos pointed at them (or possibly just us in general..). Lucky I tied them on tight because apparently people have lost shoes several times before which makes me think that next time I see a lone shoe in the street, it might just be from a poor shoeless skydiver.

They checked out the awesome mountainous surroundings.

The sister wears them too.

The skydived with me again this year. Happy to be back again!

They go canyon swinging. Even if you can't see them well..

They go hang-gliding.

And soar through the sky. This beautiful photo is taken by my sister.

They fly on helicopters onto the tops of glaciers.

They pose pretty well on the pebbly beaches.

Even when my foot got mangled from white-water rafting, the connies still fit on. Ouch!

They rode out long journeys on tour buses throughout Topdeck.

They balanced on rocks nicely.

They relaxed by the lakes of New Zealand.

They held up surprisingly well in the snow and managed to keep my tootsies warm and dry.

Yep. They are good for dancing in too.

And did I mention they are freaking great for doing awkward poses in?

Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks if you stuck it out! And this is the abridged version that had to be cut down seriously. Oh lord.

Travelling Fridays

This year has been a busy busy travelling year. I've been 'down south' which is what us Perthian's call our favourite local holiday destinations of Dunsborough, Busselton, Margaret River and Albany to name a few. Please don't think that I am being crass as I continue mentioning trips down south because that is not what I mean! Then I went on a spontaneous trip to Bali with my friend and her family. In July I went to New Zealand and the islands of Fiji with another friend, and as I mentioned, I'm off to Vietnam in November. Phew! It makes me a little giddy thinking about it all. I'm making the most of all this travel because I won't be able to do it again for a while due to my lack of pretty pennies in the bank. Anyway, I've decided that Fridays are now the days to be showing pretty travelling pictures.

First off is Bali because I feel like it.

This rooster is one of the lucky ones that survived it's cock fighting - A tradition that lingers in Balinese villages. He was so awfully beautiful though.

A few days before my birthday, my best friend for a long long time called me up and invited me to Bali with her family in January. Bali had never been really high up on my list of places to go because all you hear are stories of bogan Aussies in Bintang singlets and Southern Cross tattoos roaming the streets. But because I know my friend and her family, I knew that we definitely wouldn't be in Bintang singlets.

This is my friend and I getting our legs exfoliated/cleaned by those little nibbly fish that have a fetish for dead skin. It was a very different experience to say the least.

Me with a local who really wanted a photo taken. He got so excited when he saw the little screen with his face on it. But then he started mentioning massage places and wanting email addresses so we slyly scuttled off.

The temple door in the Monkey Forest. Those monkeys were so so cute, except for the whole disease-carrying thing..

Our gorgeous deck chairs by the infinite pool, one of three different pools available to us. Oh except for my friend's families private pool of course.. My friend and I were staying on a hotel room at the resort but her parents and brother stayed in a private villa complete with their own sizeable infinity pool. Bliss! It was especially awesome when we went swimming in the pouring monsoonal rain.

The wall of the private villa and the pool. To the left was about a 20 metre drop to the forest floor.

The view from our balcony. The rice paddies were owned by a family and all the rice served to us in the hotel cafe was from those fields which is pretty-damn awesome. It was a little uncomfortable at time seeing this family living in a small hut while we were surrounded by pure and utter luxury. I didn't really know how to feel but you do have to remember that a huge majority of the Indonesian economy is from tourism. While the inequalities in this planet are appalling and intolerable, we have to remember that these people need to make a living and this can only be achieved through filling up the hotel rooms of this amazingly diverse country.

We also went for an elephant ride and our elephant had total attitude. Like honestly! Our elephant 'driver' and him had all these little tricks like casually pretending to flick us off his back and spraying water on us. Yeah cool Mr. Elephant.

He did have awfully pretty eyes.

This elephant looked like it had been to the salon with his gorgeous ombre hair. Stupidly, I didn't quite capture the mouth organ he was playing in his trunk. He was very musically gifted.

And this poor little sun bear in his enclosure. He sat on peoples laps and enjoyed lollies but I felt very sorry for him. At least he had company!

Bali was an awesome place that surprised me with it's diversity and incredible scenes. It was heartbreaking at times seeing such extreme poverty but so totally enlightening when you see the positivity that just beams from the faces of these people. Never have I ever seen such a cheerful country despite the conditions that they deal with. Inspiring to say the least! By next week I will pop up some more pictures from Bali that I took with my Diana F+ Lomography camera!

Hurrah chickens!

Vietnam

In November, I'm off to Vietnam. Hurrah! I'm going on a service trip with the nursing school I go and we'll be travelling to rural villages where the H'mong people reside to perform health assessments as well observing in Vietnamese hospitals. I'm super duper excited and keen to head off.

The ten of us have been fundraising our little tooshies off and collecting goodies like toothbrushes, soaps, toothpastes, dressing supplies, and toys to give out when we're over there. Today, we got given bags each to take home and sort through to write lists and the likes. And joy of joys, I got the bags to take to the orphanages. So I have spent the afternoon sorting through onesies, pencils, crayons, toys and colouring-in books. I will admit that towards the end I may have got slightly sick of counting each pencil, but hey!

I am so definitely ready to call it a night now. I will no doubt dream of pencils and frisbees.

I am a sucker for any m.a.c cosmetic. I recently purchased this lovely spf 15+ tinted lip moisturiser and I am loving it! The colour is spot on and it is ever so slightly tasty on my luscious lips.

The thing that gets me is that heart breaking moment when you have to break that beautiful even surface of a new lip balm and swipe your smudgy finger through it. Ugh. Such a gross look. I suggest someone ought to get onto a solution to that. And the solution is not to get a tube of moisturiser - they're worse. I have a tendency to lose them, more so than the tubs.

And there goes for another riveting post.

On other news, four days left til I hop on a big jet plane and go visit the land of the long white cloud and well, Fiji. I don't know that Fiji has a metaphor for it? Well.. Oh and finally, bad thinking me, you know choosing a trip that will have me encounter two different climates. I can't pack a suitcase when only one season of clothes is needed, let alone two.