As mentioned in my previous post, I came back from New Zealand not too long ago and I’d say that I love the place a real lot. The scenery there is awesome, in fact, stunningly beautiful, and the people there are very friendly. Though it cost me a bomb to go there, I don’t regret paying that amount at all — totally worth it.

Anyway, I went to NZ during early winter and the not-so-smart me went there completely under prepared for the weather. Thinking that it was only going to be around 8 degrees celcius at Christchurch, I only brought keans and a thick coat to last through winter… until I realized that I forgot to factor in the chilling wind (which was EXTREMELY cold) and the… rain. And also, I forgot that I was going to travel much more south from Chirstchurch to Te Anau, which means that the temperature would plunge even lower. Erm. One night at Queenstown, the temperature went all the way to -4 degree celcius… and I think it’s not a good idea to walk in the night with only a pair of jeans. (But luckily my dearest cousin saved me and lent me some warmer clothing so that I could brave through the colder days. Thank you cousin!

The trip was purely a South Island trip; I decided not to go to North Island because I wasn’t very keen on the North Island tour package schedule. The route involved traveling from Christchurch to Fox Glacier, Fox Glacier to Queenstown (passing by the famous bungee jumping site and also Arrowtown), Queenstown to Milford Sound and back (passing by Te Anau), Queenstown to Ashburton, and finally from Ashburton back to Christchurch. I’ve seen most of what I’ve always wanted to see — such as Lake Wakatipu, Milford Sound (though a bit disappointed because of the poor weather), Lake Tekapo and the Church of the Good Shepherd, and a few national parks along the way too. Besides those, I managed to see Lindis Pass (a treat, really, considering the brilliant weather and lovely scenery), Mirror Lake (stunning) and also Monkey’s Creek. Anyway words can’t really describe how beautiful the place is, hence I’m gonna post some photos below for your eyes.

Summit of Lindis Pass – Full of snow, snow and snow. And contrary to popular belief, snow isn’t all soft and fluffy but in fact pretty hard. Snowball fights ARE painful and they’re not fun when you have to protect your camera from being whacked by a stray snowball.  *winces*

Milford Sound – very disappointing trip, mostly because of the weather. The place itself was beautiful, yes, and so were the waterfalls… but the cloudy weather spoiled any good opportunity for photos. The sky was just one solid patch of white, with no clear blue skies, nor rain clouds. The sea breeze was good though!

The Remarkable Sweet Shop @ Arrowtown – Their fudge is SIMPLY AWESOME. I have never seen such a variety available here at Singapore. The nice lady let me take a photo of the shop! I was pretty amazed that fudge could be kept for up to 6 weeks! Hence I brought home some Hokey Pokey (NZ’s famous flavour) fudge for my family members to try.

Lake Wakatipu – A pity we had to leave early on Friday morning from Queenstown and failed to catch the proper sunrise. Still, we managed to catch a glimpse of the sun rising over lake tekapo… unfortunately the weather foiled any nice photo taking opportunity. Karen and I had to climb down a very steep hill just to reach the lake… and we had to climb back up again once we were done looking at the lake. Not fun to climb up and down steep hills with a D700, 14-24 and a tripod. Really.

Sunrise at Langry & Maureen’s Farm - we (four of us) stayed over at Langtry & Maureen’s farm on Friday night and we had an awesome time there. Maureen taught me how to knit, and Karen had her chance of hugging a very cute lamb. Their cat George is awfully cute!

It’s a short drive from Ashburton to their farm – I think around 10 minutes – but the difference in terms of landscape is huge. I’m quite glad we actually managed to catch a sunrise at NZ… most of the time we were stuck in the coach when the sun rises, which made me rather annoyed after a while because I couldn’t photograph the beautiful sunrise. Really glad that I finally managed to take a shot of the sunrise at NZ.

Mirror Lake - Took a photo of the mountains at Mirror Lake when we were on our way to Milford Sound. Beautiful reflections.

Lake Tekapo and the Church of the Good Shepherd – had a stroke of luck and managed to get a panorama shot of the small church by the side of Lake Tekapo. The church services the town nearby. Further down from the church is a statue of a shepherd dog.

That’s about it for photos! If you’re really interested in viewing more of my NZ photos, check out this site. I’m definitely going back there again someday, most likely during spring, to see the flowers blooming instead of the snow capped mountains. I bet the photographs that I take then would be very different from what I’ve taken now. Hope you’ve enjoyed the photos as much as I have enjoyed taking them!

Back from Tokyo! Though I arrived in Singapore much earlier, I haven’t had the chance to write anything because I was so bogged down with university applications and settling other miscellaneous things. In any case, I’ve managed to clear (most) of my outstanding work and I’m quite glad that I can actually take a deep breath for now.

ANYWAY, TOKYO!

This time round I went for a free and easy trip around the city and well I’d say it’s quite an experience. First of all, the subway is… MASSIVE. I resided at a hotel near Shinagawa (??) and took the train to Ikebukuro and Shibuya to shop, shop… and shop. And eat too! The food at Tokyo was generally good and pleasant; I loved the oyako don at a restaurant near Shinagawa Station and the mentaiko pasta at La Pausa in the building opposite Ikebukuro’s Tokyu Hands.

yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! This is the photo of the Oyako don that I ate at Shinagawa! Pity I didn’t bother remembering the restaurant’s name. AND I JUST REMEMBERED! UDON!

teeheehee udon is LOVE! Especially the udon at Japan! Nice, warm and GOOD.

Besides shopping at Tokyo, I went to Disneyland too… though it wasn’t as fun as I’d expected it to be. The queues were really really long and since I’ve been there before, it wasn’t really much of a surprise or awesome. However, I managed to see someone make glass Disney statues in one of the shops around the Disney castle! The glass figurines were really pretty, though quite expensive imho.

We checked out an old samurai’s castle too and we had the opportunity to play with some of the leftover snow from the day before. The scenery there was awesome, but I felt that it wasn’t as tranquil as it would have been because of the huge crowds that go there for sight-seeing purposes. Apart from the nice Japanese-styled castles that we saw, there was also a very pretty red bridge that I saw and took a photo of:

I was told by my tour guide that this bridge was used way long ago… I hope it doesn’t get torn down anytime soon! The red colour adds a nice touch to the river that flows below.

Yup, that’s basically what I did at Japan. Not many photos from this trip but oh well, I didn’t expect much photos either since it’s mainly a shopping trip. Thank you D for helping me to carry my D700 though! Without him I wouldn’t be able to take these photos. (:

Anyway, I’ve finally sent in my University applications for NUS and NTU. Took me some time (and a lot of nagging by many people) to finally sit down and be cool enough to think through what course I should take and submit my applications… but well, at least it’s done. DONE! Now that I’ve made my decision at least people can’t influence me to take other courses that I don’t want. Hopefully I will be classmates with Jolyn and I get my first choice for all the universities that I applied for!

Btw, starting an extra new job tomorrow… hopefully it goes fine and well.

Been blasting Les Miserables’ One More Day into my head. It’s a very beautiful song, and I love it when they sing the line “Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store”. It sounds so optimistic and well, in a way, inspirational to me.  If you want to watch Les Mis via a recording, please watch the 10th Anniversary Version! That version is really awesome.

Anyway, I had the opportunity to try out my 14-24mm today (because I lugged it to work and managed to squeeze in some time to try it, although I was mainly using my 60mm to take photos of other things) and I’d say it’s FREAKING AWESOME. BEST BUY EVER. I  DO NOT regret buying this lens; besides being so great at taking wide angle photos of rooms (which I will need at my work), it’s secretly a very good camwhore lens. Luckily Miaoster advised me to get this instead of a MacAir! Teehee! I bet the ladies will be camwhoring with the 14-24 soon. (:

GAHHHHH should have bought this lens before I went to the Maldives! Using the 14-24 on those waters and skies would have been a much better (and sharper) option compared to the 28-200. Ah well, at least my 28-200 took some decent photos and it wasn’t as heavy as the 14-24. Luckily Derrick was there to carry all my luggage. Btw, more photos of the Maldives below!

Here’s a photo of a bunch of villas that D and I came across during our stay at one of the islands in the Maldives. Pretty cool eh! The grayish spots on the water are actually schools of herring swimming around in the shallow parts of the sea… waiting to be eaten by the reef sharks. One of the marine biologists at the Diving Centre told us that these fish come every year to mate here, and they never leave after mating… hence they get munched on by the sharks after that. How tragic right. I suppose it was a blessing that D and I managed to see these herring because they only come to the Maldivian waters once a year.

One of the nicer sunsets during my stay at the Maldives. The photo was naturally very purplish in nature, compared to some of my photos in my collection which were more blueish. It may be due to the fact that I gave it a longer exposure. I was lucky enough to find a spot which I could prop up my camera to take a long exposure shot; my other sunset photos were taken using spot metering and pumping my ISO to ridiculous levels. This naturally means that my other sunset photos may not share the same quality as this purplish photo. Sad.

This is the photo that has a more blueish tint in it. The white spot in the middle of the sky is actually the moon. I am so glad I bothered to bring my camera there. The vignette here is quite beautiful! However, I still prefer the previous photo. It’s much more soothing somehow heh. Or maybe I just prefer purple. Ladeedum.

I’ve got work tomorrow and I think I’ll have a chance to try out my 14-24 again under official capacity, which is a good thing, yay! 14-24 FTW! But Nikon should have made it in such a way that a lens protector could be mounted onto the lens. Now I have to spend half of my time worrying about this precious glass ball that protrudes out slightly from the lens hood and make sure that it doesn’t get damaged. :\

Ah well, being able to not damage your lens at all is a skill on its own (that all photographers should master)!