University of Otago

As much as i doubt the necessity of me going abroad for tertiary education, Otago indeed broaden up my thinking in many ways. Of all the things i learned, cultural enrichment and the method to acquire knowledge benefited me very much. The European lifestyle in one way or another altered my perspective jobs and career. I have yet to discover how much it actually enlighten me, but the Otago will always be closed to my heart.

my wallpaper

favourite picnic spot. green grass, flowing river, and the unwelcome ducks

the dead autumn leaves.

the only cool looking lecture theatre

another picnic spot. i am missing Fish & Chips~

i walked pass this street almost everyday

cherry blossom

the legendary clock tower.

campus

still clock tower

tennis court that i never use

typical student home. bet u love the bungalow. wait till u see the Pink Porn Palace

hall of resident. Selwyn if i not mistaken

again, clock tower. bet you know by now this place is quite small

supercool looking library

Dunedin

the problem of having a digital camera is that you tend to snap lots of picture for a place, and chances are they are all of lowly quality. As i was screening through photos, i realized a shocking truth that i never actually snap some decent picture for the city that i resided for almost three years! its either blurred or the pictures emphasized too much on the person that you cant really see the background. Luckily there is still a few to select from after searching through the folders for hour.

welcome to Dunedin

wind, is a factor here. i sat next to heater almost an hour after this short walk i had around the town.

flower here just seems some fake

NZ native duckand Seagulls are kinda hard to miss here

my lovely home for my first year. its a motel now i heard

Knox Church that woke me up every Sunday 9am

Seal can just came up to the beach here.

beer, beach and random post. sigh, i did have a good run..

tunnel beach

reason it is called tunnel beach. You need to get through tunnel to reach there

nice cliff view

meow...

historical church. But i cant remember the name

st. Kilda Beach. The not so happening version of Bondi Beach

winter look of the town

South Island (2)

Dunedin

Its been 2 years plus since i left Dunedin, but i can still smell the air by just closing my eye. Interestingly, i have not written down anything about Dunedin at all in any form! perhaps the image is so vivid that words are not required to remind me how the city looks like, but since my holiday was started from this humble town, let's know more about the the City of albatross, Dunedin.

little facts from wikipedia:

Dunedin ( dəˈniːdɪn (help·info)), Ōtepoti in Maori, is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the region of Otago. It has the largest council boundary area of any New Zealand city, and is the hub of the fifth-largest urban area. For historical and cultural reasons and its location, Dunedin is considered one of the country's four main centres, although Hamilton has overtaken it in urban-area population.

The city stands on the hills and valleys surrounding the head of Otago Harbour. The harbour and hills are the remnants of an extinct volcano. It is the home of the University of Otago.

what is not written down is that as much as being 2nd largest, it is REALLY SMALL~i have never measured the size before, but giving the fact that i walked from one end to another end of the city on a daily basis, i am estimating the size of the city centre is about 3KM x 3KM only. another fact that is not written here is it has only population of 122,000, and there is easily 30,000 are students. So this is an indeed interesting studentville (i think there is documentary on how crazy this student town is. How lovely is that...)

So, with no surpirse, " SO SMALL~~~" is what i heard from my family members.

South Island (1)

finally, at year 2009, i am beginning to write down about my graduation trip with my family members that happened in year 2006. its really bad of me for not keeping my words, but i am trying to discipline myself now by fulfilling all the things that i promised myself so far. ( being a overnight millionaire and have Megan Fox as wife are excluded)

Another good reason for me to resume writing is 2006 is a bit too far away from 2009 already, god knows how many more places i will be traveling and i can so foresee myself giving up on chasing the long list. i am indeed fortunate for having such privilege of going around, and writing it down is one of a way that i remind myself how fortunate i was. i am still half way learning to appreciate events that happened to me,but when i am done, i am pretty sure i will be a better man, at least i would be more humble and calm.

so yes, after 2 months of planning on the route with the very helpful tourist information centre, i drafted out a route that my family and i will go around NZ south island in a circle in 12 days time, but the first stop of course is my very own home for 3 years, Dunedin to attend my graduation.

bangkok (7)

how much can u spent in bangkok? well, according to my experience, you can almost spent your fortune away, because this is what we, the whole family, left with in the airport...

4 penny+ a sushi = total assets in airport

was actually trying to spend it away as well, but cant find a thing to buy

and with that, we happily ended my family holiday in Bangkok

bangkok (6)

We went to china town after being recommended by passerby and ended up went into jewelery shop. So obviously the passerby is not really a good Samaritan after all, but since we ended in that place, so i might as well do what tourist do best, take photo~

random house that looks kinda cool

when we tried to go back to hotel, we found out that we kinda caught in the wrong area to pick up taxi. We took almost 20minutes before we got into a taxi that later found out to be unlicensed. Mum was insisting that the driver was keep on looking back through the mirror, checking out our attire when we got down the car, but the rest of us didnt feel anything. So we had arrangement with him, and asked him to bring us to dinner later at night. We were brought to a rather expensive restaurant, so sister decided that be it he had good or bad intention, he is obviously earning commission out of this, so on the next day, while we were suppose to take his taxi to go around city, we hide in the hotel lobby and asked the hotel owner to chase him away. Its kinda cruel, but at least later on my mum was happy.

bangkok (5)

touristy photo.....

tomb that is looking cool

found the place by chance and 2nd sister love the buddha statue so much that we were talking about how to smuggle it back

the grand project of Thai kings

had this pic on my table for almost a year, just love looking at it

the not so real sea market

bangkok (4)

we went around the famous tourism place around Bangkok like the palace that is crazily decorated with gold, sacred temple, and ride the boat across the Mekong river (i think...its been too long.

took a number of good shots and enjoy being tourist that do nothing but snap~snap~snap~ then the rest of the travel time was nothing but shopping, but i actually enjoy it. its kinda hard not to enjoy the market here as it is soooo huge. the best part of all, Thai are just so creative, their home decorative items are just so interesting and refreshing to look at. In fact, many things that i saw here was only able to find in malaysia after a good few years.

I had massage with my dad, and i actually dont really enjoy it. ( and i proved it again in year 2009 when i gotten a coupon to try massage in classy KL massage center). but i am so regret now for not trying the grasshopper, as i was prohibited from doing so by my mum. shouldnt have shown the intention of buying in front of her, sigh...

Bangkok (3)

The problem with traveling with bagpacker is that, we tend to find way to save up money in many ways. Perhaps, this round, we kind of overdid it. We were told that his hotel is famous for having spacious room, and hence we sort of decided to get a 3 bed-room for 5 person, after all, we are all family member, no problem squishing a bit.

As many might aware or might not aware of, hotel actually have a strict policy on the number of people staying in a room due to safety purposes (obviously is bad for business also-lar), and my sister was stupid enough to bring out all our passport during registration (when i said all, i means 12 passports, as we all so happened all renew the passport and decided to bring along the old one). The person over the counter got the shock of his life, and sort of like keep an eye on us since then.

When we going up the room, we kinda feel like we are being watched. Later, upon entering our room, we received a phone call regarding how they charge extra person for this amount and bla bla bla. Then 5 minutes later, we received a call saying that they usually check on the number of people in the room once in the afternoon and once during the night. Then 5 minutes again received another called saying in fact they do rounding and checking throughout the midnight.

My sister was kind of irked by the calls and she stand up and shouted, "i had enough, lets go to another hotel!!" so we went down to the counter to return the room and request for refund. Interestingly everyone in the counter know us and our reimbursement was done in like 10 minutes.

As we are still puzzled over the incident, we seek some clarification from a local friend of our sister. Then only we realize, the hotel staff actually believe that we are doing prostitution business, WTF~~!!!~~

Do i look like someone who need to do this? my sister screamed.
No, i said calmly,then i grinned at my dad and said, perhaps he looks like a pimp to them.
Received nothing but an innocent stared from him. How i not love my dad :)

Bangkok (2)

Traffic, is what you cant missed in Bangkok

heaven~~obviously that's what my sister was screaming...

In PJ,i totally ignore all this. In bangkok, i find it interesting. Pathetic tourist