Blogs from Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 23

Our last day in New Zealand, We got to Christchurch on Sunday night. Eddie flew to Wellington on Monday to try to set up a New Zealand distributor for Quadraspire. I took him to the airport had a run and then had a lovely quiet day with Patsy and the children doing school work and going to the park. Today her and Ross had to leave for Invercargill as Simons mum, Tui died on Sunday. The funeral is really quick , Wed am so we are in thier house getting ready to fly to the States tomorrow. Trying to gear ourselves back into work mode and get the children ready for school again. Talking of school, we watched the bungee jump Mr Croker, your are braver than we are... well done. Attaching some photos of our ... read more

Geo: -43.5316, 172.637It was quite a nice contrast to be flying into New Zealand from South East Asia, a considerably less populated country, cleaner and organised. I was excited to be able to see my parents and enjoy a Christmas together especially with Anna and to show Anna around my birth and childhood country.Christchurch hasn't had the best of luck recently with four major earthquakes crippling the city over the space of over a year, and it is sad to see the destruction of some places and heartbreaking to hear the effect on peoples lives.We arrived in to Christchurch with Air Asia from Bangkok via Kuala Lumpar and picked up by my Aunty, Cousins and Grandmother after spending a long time trying to clear customs with seeds bought for Dad.I was especially excited for Anna and ... read more

It’s our last full day in New Zealand and Kristy has arranged to meet up with a work contact from Christchurch. She met him at a conference in Texas in August after she presented on her dissertation work looking at the impact of introduced trout in alpine lakes. After the talk, this man (Angus) walked up to her, introduced himself as a professor from University of Canterbury in Christchurch, and said that her work fit well with the focus of his lab in the New Zealand alpine areas. And lo and behold, she was going to be in NZ in just a few short months! So today we’re headed to some alpine country so Kristy can get a good look at some lakes to see if she could potentially use them for study sites. I get ... read more

I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. Always. I knew that it’s a gorgeous country. But: a) it’s expensive, b) visa is hard to get for Indonesian that already had a history of visa rejection from other country – or at least that’s what I was told. So my love for NZ is like a puppy love back in junior high school. You can only gaze from afar, too scared to do anything about it. But then, with encouragement from my nearest and dearest – I decided to pull the trigger and see what happened. Surprisingly, things started to fall into places. I got the visa easier than I thought – perhaps living & applying from Singapore plays a big part of it. Then I got the 2400 SGD Singapore Airlines peak season return ticket ... read more

New Zealand is like paradise on earth! Imagine every conceivable geographical and topographical phenomenon crammed into two tiny islands that look like the size of my baby toenail clippings on a world map. Unbelievable! This place has mountains, canyons, waterfalls, glaciers, fjords, rainforests, gorges, rivers, 33 million sheep (down from 80 million), geothermal hot springs, farmland, cities, wildlife, lakes, oceans, and beaches. A mecca for climbers, skiers, posers, shoppers, wannabes, hangers on, hang gliders, bungee jumpers, swimmers, rappelers, sailors, hikers, trampers, campers, fishermen, hunters, boaters, kayakers, naturalists, and gawkers. I gotta tell ya though....the people need a serious attitude adjustment. Australia is bigger and economically richer than you are. GET OVER IT! They'll never have what you have geographically, and you don't have a plethora of poisonous... read more