One of the nicest singing pop-up cards I’ve seen, a whole village spanning the entire card which is as big as 20x9 inches when opened. 
Mailed by air on the 19th of April 2011.
Apparently it took thirteen days for the card to travel 7872 kilometers. That’s 0.007 km/s .
Now, time to get started with work.
Par Avion
Saturday
Three things I find really essential to own nowadays:
1. Waterproof shoes.
I hate it when my feet gets wet from the rain or when I step into a puddle of water.
2. Beanie, specifically a slouchy beanie.
Keeps my ears nice and warm when I am out at night.
3. Gloves.
My best friends here since my hands tend to get cold really fast.
Nowadays, I keep a beanie and a pair of gloves squashed somewhere in the corner of my bag everywhere I go.
Got four parcels to anticipate, two from the U.S containing coats and tops (one of the parcels shall be arriving this Monday!), one from the U.K containing these pair of awesome suede gloves with fur trims which, I got for a bargain at GBP 24.00, and a parcel containing heaps of stationaries and random items from my parents. Have I mentioned that stationaries here are bloody expensive? I probably did but I’ll mention it again, two mechanical pencil refills and one packet of staples ripped off NEAR SEVENTEEN DOLLARS from my pocket.
Parcel unboxing is fun.
Chopsticks
Bought a really cute pink pair of chopsticks made in Japan for $3.
Different coloured chopsticks had like different really cute kokeshi cartoons on them.
Walked along the streets and I found a hawker stall selling baos for $1 and hence, I bought three of them.
One of the three vegetable baos I bought.
I got a woolly beanie as well, keeps my ears from freezing off.
What’s better than a cup of hot white chocolate mocha on a cold, rainy day?
Trippy…
The kiwi bird was too overwhelmed by the amount of money matters.
Pause. Too bad that didn’t stop time.
Day one returning back to lectures after the brief two weeks Easter break, my study desk is already overwhelmed with stacks of readings for an assignment due on the 18th of May and notes for tests respectively on the 18th and 23rd of May. My university email is flooded with announcements about the assignment, tests and exam timetable.
Trippy.
I had a whole lecture on economics and markets of the health sector yesterday morning and stacks of readings for an assignment on that. No wonder some countries have such high foreign currency exchange rates, they really drill business strategies into you even though you aren’t in the business stream.
Now I can even tell you what a perfect market is. A day ago, I would have been thinking of an ideal shopping complex with the best-looking black boots somewhere inside alongside with just plain old healthcare.
I don’t make much sense but now’s not a good time to blog, it’s an awesome time to get some shut eye.
Bran and Brain
Best raspberry and apple bran muffin ever that accompanied my chicken and avocado sandwich.
Woke up at 8.30AM today, got bemused by furry down jackets, went on Facebook, did like half an hour of chemistry and crashed at 10.00AM, unfortunately all the way until 1.00PM and hence, I missed catered lunch today. Went down to the streets at 3.00PM and had kimchi tuna stew for $11.00 at the Korean restaurant that I visit nearly weekly. This time, the Korean owner spoke Korean to me. Not the first time here when a Korean thought I was Korean. Another thing, it seems to be a peculiar thing here I don’t speak Mandarin. I know of Kiwis who actually speak, read and write Mandarin or Korean or Japanese.
Bummer, lectures commence tomorrow. There goes my Easter break. Thankfully tomorrow I only have one lecture from 9.30AM to 10.30AM. Unfortunately, I have to get up earlier and catch the 9.00AM bus since that lecture is at a campus 20-minutes drive away from the city campus. But that’s not half as bad as getting up for 8.00AM lectures.
Exams on the 9th of June until 20th of June and then, three weeks worth of winter holidays. I sense a busy two months interval from now till then.
Rainy Week
Weather forecast for the week is bad. Plain bad without any silver lining. BBC weather forecast just repeats the two words “thundery storm” on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and “light rain shower” on Wednesday. Since tomorrow’s the last day of my Easter break, there goes all plans to stroll by the seaside or visit harbours or chase after sheep. All that, looks like I have to push it to my winter break plans.
Rain drives me mad, staying indoors particularly when it’s a holiday today. However, since the rain at night wasn’t that heavy, what could be better than a warm bowl of spicy miso based ramen with boiled egg, pork and seaweed at a Japanese ramen shop for a $12.00 treat?
Gyoza in Japanese or jiaozi in Chinese (which means fried dumplings) with rice.
Cake at a bakery’s window display.
Another good treat on a rainy day, gelato down by the city harbour. Feeling brave, I tried mango yogurt and coconut and rum gelato. Wasn’t all that bad, mango yogurt was nice. Coconut and rum was… interesting.
This “Dance Dance Revolution” thing is just so… awfully… *inserts adjective*…
Impact
Why does it have to rain all day for the rest of the week?? Ruins my plans to go chase after sheep to snap photographs, or go down to the port across the city or to even go strolling along the streets.
On the bright side, we saw Bruno Mars on the streets a week ago but not that it had any significant impact on my life.
Village
Weather was good yesterday, we headed up north to Matakana which was like an hour’s drive from Auckland city. I tagged along with two aunties, an uncle, two brothers, a car and lack of sleep.
Vineyards along the way, not to forget a lot of cows and sheep.
I found the place to be rather interesting, not your conventional street with gift shops and grocery stores kind of thing. The crafts were interesting to look at.
Lots of people.
Lots of prepared food, from pastries to mussel patties.
Lots of sweets. These are iced coconut candies.
Lots of preserves too. Spreads, dips, bacon and the sort.
Heaps of fresh fruits, flowers, nuts and vegetables.
Stores that sell pretty looking things.
Reminds me of my mum’s Radley handbags except that this has a cat for its logo instead of a running terrier. But note that nothing in that shop was cheap.
There was this lady who was selling handmade felt hats that she made on her own for $75 each.
More handmade crafts.
This reminded me of Alice in Wonderland’s Mat Hatter’s tea parties.
I met another friend, this time a Golden Retriever.
Had some blueberry and macadamia and honey ice cream.
On the way back, lunch was at this place called Dragonfly which, again sold really pretty looking things as well as food.
Lunch.
Then it was time to head back to Auckland city but not quite time to head back to my place so I did more tagging. 
End product of the day apart from 200 photographs, I got a handmade clay sheep for $15.
As well as a bar of pretty looking soap from the stacks of colourful looking handmade soaps. They had pink, orange, blue, any colour you just name it.
Chair Potato Day
Today’s just one of those lazy days when it rains all day and all I do is get up at 8.30AM for breakfast and sleep all the way under the world’s most awesome mink blanket (for only $15 on sale!!!) until 12.30PM for lunch, only to discover that it was Good Friday and hence, I can’t have beef and nachos with cheese. Instead, I had tomatoes and nachos which, weren’t as good because they ran out of cheese but I’ll make do.
I’ve eaten the last of my persimmons from the island, I should have bought more. All I have left is a lot of instant noodles, butter shortbread, chewing gum and cheese. I’m quite certain that 20% of my allowance goes to my weekly store of cashew nuts and other “rabbit food”.
On the bright side, I’ve got a new red wool coat. I vow to set up an Ebay account and sell off my coats one year end.
Island
With a couple of sandwiches, Doritos and bottles of water, we headed down to Waiheke Island for $35 in the morning.
Along the way, heaps and heaps of birds.
Heaps and heaps of boats and ships too. This is just one of the many.
Heaps of hills and cliffs too. Again, this is just one of the many.
And we’ve reached Matiatia Bay at Waiheke Island after 40 minutes.
More boats, more green hills and a lot of walking up ahead. Shame we couldn’t rent a car (I didn’t have my driver’s license with me), there are so many nice places further away from the ferry terminal. One of them was Stony Batters (historical WWII site) which was 23km away. Horu Horu Rock’s probably 30km away. There were olive groves too and vineyards. Probably a good idea to do so if you have a day or two to spare.
Onerua Beach, the nearest beach which was a 1.5km walk from the ferry terminal.
Did what I did best, looking for seashells or rather, picking them up then tossing them back into the water.
Heaps of these mussels. Some of them have rather nice blue insides like those blue abalone shells they use to make shell jewelry or crafts.
Lunch was a chicken sandwich and heaps of Doritos.
Then, more walking along the shore walk since it the tide was low. Along the way, heaps of rock formations, seashells, coves and rock pools. Next door was Little Onerua Beach. All in all, walked 7km today.
Went to one of the lookout points on top of a hill for more photography opportunities. The view was amazing. These furry grass look nice but apparently they can give you hay fever or so I was told.
View of Little Onerua Beach.
Still a part of Little Onerua Beach,
View of Onerua Beach,
Then we took a walk through the village and browsed through their gift shops and fruit markets. Along the way, I saw traditional fire baked pizzas for $12 which was pretty reasonable. There was Italian gelato for $16. Waiheke Island’s mostly expensive real estate and fine dining. A lot of liquor stores too.
A new straw hat that I got from one of the island shops because it was rather sunny.
I bought several persimmons from the fruit market and they were incredibly sweet and juicy not to forget, seedless.
Perry bought a bag of apples for $3.
My hat wouldn’t be too practical to wear back in Auckland City but nevermind, I shall make more trips down to seasides and islands especially Muriwai Beach around October to February to view the gannet colony. Great Barrier Island’s would be awesome to visit too, they’ve got this dolphin and whale safari whereby you get on a boat and go mammal spotting on sea. That would be awesome to snap more photographs.
Soon it was time to go back home.
On board, I met Bingo the big brown labrador retriever.
Here I am, back in Auckland City.
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