Picture Story. A thousand words.
A chance to get away from home on Easter for my night revisions. Yep, I'd make that swap. I was a little undecided when I was offered the deal. My friend Idris convinced me to go saying that "This is an opportunity. If it is not for Easter, we wouldn't go. You wouldn't have time on your weekends during normal times... bla bla..". Yep, my time management suck anyways so let's go. Off I went to get my bag packed at home only to realize there's nothing extra I could bring from home. I was at my friend's place before that. Two and fro, the distance is around 3km? Complete waste of time.

Destination: Davonport.
We left for the port at around 5.50pm to catch the 6pm ferry. Unlike fellow Malaysians with the infamous Malaysian timing, the ferry is really punctual and leaves at 6pm SHARP. Well we weren't late but one of my friend was so ... hehee. Thankfully, the ferry does it's rounds every half-an-hour. Well everything happens for a reason... While waiting, we got ourselves Ice-creams from Valentino's Gelato.

Ice-cream head. This is "Vanilla Hazelnut", which sucked.

Ticket.

Sailing away from the City of Sails was a great feeling. I had this thought, or rather visualized myself being stuck in the city for 3 straight years as if behind bars. Horrid.

Mt. Victoria. Our destination.

New Nikes hee! Hiking? No problem.

There were two options to reach the summit of Mt. Victoria. The shorter yet steeper path or the long winding road for cars. Being a young man.. not to mention being lazy, we decided to hike up. You wouldn't realize how steep the slope was till you turn to look behind your back. There was not a proper path either so I 'could have' slipped if I weren't too careful with my steps. Each step I took took a lung-full of breath away which caused dizziness at the summit. Lasted a few minutes.

Half-way.

The view at the top was spectacular. Portrait views, like those painted on post-cards. Mt. Victoria used to be a fort for the New Zealand army to void pirates away. There were clear historical signs all over it.

A Historical sign.

This is good for your eyes.

Khairy. Final year Medic student. See those white hairs died black.

Malay friends. :)

Defying gravity.

The place grows gigantic mushrooms as well. Furtile soil, very.

Shroom field. Bad dudes from Classic Super Mario?

Tough 'Shroom' to crack.

Being a Giant. Behind me, the map of Auckland.

The sun sets eventually.

It was still really happening up at the summit even though there weren't any streetlamps. No signs of light at all except for those from the the city and the eerie looking moon. There were people who actually drove up as well, blasting music from their cars. Bad place to be for couples despite the romantic view around. It was all great till it started to get chilly. I was shivering. Soon, it was dinner time and the good thing about being with Malaysian Malay friends are that they are all well prepared. They brought along food from home.

Nasi Lemak ~ Classic! :x Probably the first Malaysian to eat Nasi Lemak at the peak.

We joke around as we were eating. We had nothing but the eerie looking moon and lights from our phones to illuminate our food. After dinner, we cleared EVERYTHING. There were small bits of plastic leftovers that was blown away by the wind. Yep, we took them up too not wanting to litter the scenic spot. Headed back to the port with the long winding way this time.

Eerie looking Moon.

Zebra-crossing pose.

We tested the New Zealanders at this point. See.. there was a car heading our way but it was still quite a distance away. We stopped right before the Zebra-crossing to wait for the car to pass. To our surprise, the car came to a halt at that point for us to safely walk across the road. It's really not surprising at all for the outskirts New Zealanders to do so. Talk about the city, its rare to find such people there. OH don't even mention Malaysia. Having a zebra-crossing back home would be pointless.

Multi-cultural Friends.

All in all, I had a great time.

Here's three great views of Auckland at different times.

Evening.

Dusk.

Night.

Happy Easter people! For the first time, I attended Church on a Good Friday.

Loads of goodies and Chocolate eggs to be shared around; also a week's break to ease the workload from eventual overflowing. Okay I'm not here to blog about work but yeah primarily, I've got two assignments due this Friday, a day's long Field Trip for the weekends then two tests ON THE SAME day the following week. God Help Me! I can't take this break for granted. Seriously, no no no.....

So its Easter. Everybody benefits from the break. I went down to Queens (The Main Street) to get lunch only to find out that all the shops were closed. Seem to be the busiest street any other days, today the street was totally empty, nothing!, not a single soul within say 10 meters of radius from me. Ha! They could afford to close the road lanes for re-tarring. It would be chaos to do this on normal working days. Okay so the FastFood outlets were open, the usual exploiting employees thingy tempting them with Double Pay. Mann.. I'd rather be home. Should I be thankful for this or am I one of them to be blamed because that's where I got lunch from. I left for Uni's student commons wanting to do some readings but it was closed. There goes my spirit for the day. I am really not used to studying at home. Too much distraction.

Did you know I had to pay for Internet usage in Uni last year? Costs like 7 cents per MB during peak hours. That's really a rip-off. Here's the good news. It's FREE now thanks to some complications done by the AUSA first Asian president. Woohoo~ Great job there. See what Asians can do in a foreign land.

That evening, I attended Jars of Clay concert at the Aotea Center. It costs like 45 bucks and I got it for a discounted price of 15 NzD. What an Easter Bargain! Went with a few Malaysian friends. This Rock group, I've heard of them and only knew ONE song which was "Flood". So I guess you see my point? I rocked comfortably singing along when they played "Flood", and rocked, as well, uncomfortably and pretended to sing (Well, lip-singing) throughout. Ha hA! Their songs are arguably Good because I actually liked it even though that's the first time I heard it. Live! Is it like a trend or something.. It seems every concert, so far for the ones I've attended, the rock groups would "pretend" that they have come to an end and leave the stage. The fans the crowd would then get all hyped up and start chanting "Encore Encore Encore..." and what's next? They're back on stage playing their final one two songs. It happened here and we went like, Ole.. Ole ole ole.. Ole.. Ole. Ole.. Ole ole ole.. Ole.. Ole. Hallelujah or something.. and Poof* They're back rocking! If I was them, I would have let them carry on with their chanting and Laugh Hahaha! Out Loud!

Here's a picture of the ticket, 15NzD only! Rm45.. come on, that's a sweet deal.

At the entrance, the one in charge of clipping the tickets actually collected the whole thing instead of just tearing it. OMG! I couldn't bare witness losing my copy. :S Well upon exiting, I manage to get back a copy from the guards (after some begging) but it wasn't the exact one. Sigh.

The stage was set. The lightings were awesome.

That's Dan Haseltine the vocalists.

Photography was NOT allowed. If caught, you'd be thrown out. I was lucky enough to snap a couple before the warning smacked me. The night was just great. It started at 7pm and ended around 10pm. Left in a hurry to FoodTown to do my grocery shopping right after. I had to. I was in desperate need of food and FoodTown (normally 24/7) will be taking a long break for Easter. Yep. It closed at 11 that night. Had to rush so there weren't anytime to snap post-concert pictures. I had an opportunity to snap a picture of the moon though, on the way there.

The moon.

* * *

After some readings today, I decided to do some workout or any activities I could possibly find other than walking. Was suppose to play VolleyBall with friends, ended up playing WaterPolo with the Volle~y ball. Bad mistake! The pool was chlorinated excessively. You could smell it; you could feel them burn your eyes without a pair of goggles. My eyes were red. I enjoyed at the very least. Never expected to ever swim in Auckland. Now, my whole room smells like chorine. Engulfed in Chlorine. Yeah.. my wet pants. I have no place to dry it. That's the source.

Freakin' stinks.

As for now ..

Zzzzz...

Good night. Have a lovely Easter break.

Here's Flood by Jars of Clay.

There's another better version of it (mix).

Nostalgia.

Quench many mouth, it has. Once, Wen's. It's mine now. :D

Here's what I study.

The 33rd copy: For Free.

A picture a day. Instead of a post. It'll be handy.

The things that matters most will be there when you call to it. But not always.. You'll tend to scream your lungs out calling to it, but it still won't show itself to you. A place called home. I'm missing it already.

Shiau and the miceys were there plus Xu to wave me off at my place. Jit was there too; he left early because he had to go fetch his mum from the LRT station.

Su-Ann was shocked when she found out that I was leaving on that day.

Orange-fest. Xeeling, sobbing tears.

Why.. Jit came back to meet up with me at the airport with Weng and Ying Choy as company. They wanted to surprised me but Ying Choy really blew it over the phone. Haha!

Buds we shall be. No tears, that's lucky.

Wen and I.. (emo me)

Family, where the heart and soul rest.

Goodbye Folks. Had a splendid time in Malaysia and I'll be back soon enough to shatter the peace during my absence.