New Zealand Day 1

left home at about 5 pm on the 4th of december. it's going to be the first trip where i don't have to think about looming tests/ exams/ training following the trip, and the most pertinent life issue that i have to bother about it uni apps which honestly I'm not completely dreading? so yup, it's going to be a great trip and i can feel it :-) ((also determinedly ignoring a level results but i guess thats something i really can't control?)

had an early dinner at pappa mia before checking in

drinks-- i had some cucumber mint thing that had a lot of suan mei.

ipoh hor fun

mom's collagen fishball noodles

beef burger

after checking in!

usual airport procedures- lazing about while waiting to board so i shan't elaborate much. 

first plane ride to sydney took about 8 hours, during which i watched 2 movies and (tried unsuccessfully) to sleep. i swear as i get older i dislike plane rides more and more because it becomes so difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position :(

airplane food wasn't fantastic, i had fish curry with rice for dinner (super salty fish curry) and in the middle of the night they gave us a box filled with munchables (like a bacon egg and cheese sandwich but i do not like bacon)

transit at sydney was about 2 hours, which passed quite fast because i slept most of the time.

the second quarter of the journey took a more manageable 3 hours. we reached auckland airport at about 3+pm local time. 

this statue greeted us as we exited the checkout point. the words read 'on loan from middle-earth. do not touch' 

hopefully we get to see hobbiton because i really want to see the cute hobbit holes in middle earth!

the rental car is the one in white. a really sleek, brand new SUV. looking forward to being a passenger in this car for the next 2 weeks or so!

view from the balcony of our inn- mostly more houses

i like the interior a lot, it has these windows on the top that give the whole place a very open feeling.

headed out of the inn for dinner and decided to eat at a thai restaurant.

pad thai- sticky and chockful of ingredients

supposed to be pineapple rice but they gave us chicken fried rice. it was nice though :)

and the soups were really flavourful! the tom yam goong was not too spicy, and had a tinge of sweetness that went really well with the plain white rice that was doled out by the waitress.

then we went grocery shopping at the adjacent fresh grocery store. the goods were rather pricey, like  how cold storage would be in singapore.

they sold kombucha! (albeit for a pricey 15+ bucks per litre) it's a type of fermented black tea that i've always wanted to try since i was a hardcore fan of those wellness & health blogs.

coconut yoghurt for about 5 bucks

and petit pain- literally little bread

some of the more interesting of the buys! the kombucha tastes like a really fizzy drink by the way. its supposed to have a multitude of health benefits from cancer prevention, to boosting mood and immune system and whatnot. hmmm. 

Post A's Malaysia One Day Trip

A's are finally over! Hence the ability to update this blog after near 1 year of inactivation. Had a sleepover with Shi Ying and Xin Ying the day before this half a day trip.

We woke up bright and early at 6.15am ( i woke up before that because 1. could not sleep due to excitement and 2. i had to rinse since i didn't rinse much the day before after dyeing my hair) and set off at about 7am. We chatted a little in the car and before long we reached the causeway. fortunately it wasn't super jammed and we managed to get into malaysia pretty uneventfully. (the other highway lane was already jammed at that early hour already though)

playing with my hair on the way to the mall

dad drove for about 20 minutes until we reached the mall (called Aeon), but since it wasn't opened yet we had breakfast in the part stall opposite first. 

we had pratas and thosai and milo and teh tarik all for a grand total of 21 rm ( or 7++ sgd) which is INSANE considering the prata meal i had with (the shitties hahahaha) the day before was like more than twice the price in sgd? thank goodness for the 3++ conversion rate.

we headed to tesco to shop for groceries and it was huge!!! size wise, i wasn't like super duper impressed probably because i've seen bigger supermarkets but price wise, WOAH. they sold legit water bottles for less than 10 bucks and their baked goods could be as low as a buck for a sizeable portion of cake. Shi ying and xin ying ( for simplicity's sake i'll just henceforth refer to them as 2ying) bought a lot of stuff but fortunately i had my parents there so i didn't have to buy anything! also got contact lenses for a fraction of the price here in singapore :>

went to Aeon after that and 2ying and i diverged paths from my parents and agreed to meet for lunch at 12.30pm. we had a pretty swell time just walking around the malls and popping into random stores that looked affordable and basically just not giving a heck about time unlike the past 2 years. also happened to meet lynettelimenxuan in one of the stores hehehe such fate with each other :'))

just after lyn burst forth

there weren't many options for clothes, the only prom dress i managed to try made me look like a nun . bought eyeliner and eyebrow pencil then went to get tau sa pia and stuff! happened to bump into the parents there :)

debated whether to eat kenny rogers or secret recipe for lunch as the two stores were parallel to each other but in the end we decided on the latter for the cheesecakes! 

yay 'family' shot

the food variety really astounded me! they had a wide range of cuisines from the quintessential western to vietnamese and japanese etc...

xinying's japanese soba 

my beef noodle

shingz's thai aglio olio

le spread

the food was great! or at least mine was haha can't say for the rest though from the few fries i lynched from my dad, it was awesome as well :) the soup from the beef noodle was a tad too salty but the beef was tender and managed to satisfy my craving for meat :)))

moving on to desserts because that was the main point of choosing secret recipe in the first place:

yoghurt cheesecake

i liked this! it was tangy and not too sweet, yet light as well. my type of cheesecake :)

i don't know what this was- some chocolate walnut brownie with chou mousse on top? it was studded with walnuts and some cookie crumbles. the base was nice but i didn't fancy the mousse top much because i have an aversion to creamy desserts.

and the weirdest and most novel of all- high fibre cheesecake!! just the name itself seems to be an oxymoron but this was quite nice surprisingly. its rather an acquired taste as its like a highly dense cookie dough ( the less sweet version) studded with various nuts and oats with a cheesecake base. at least i felt almost healthy eating it :)

then it was back to sg! played kpop songs on the care and 2ying went berserk (esp xinying) but it was so fun and nice, like having sisters :))) jammed another 1++ hours on the courseway  before we reached singapore. t'was an awesome day :)))