New Zealand Trip - Day 1 - Part 3

It was summer in New Zealand and the sunset at 9pm. Since we still have a few hours of sunshine, we bade farewell to our hosts and we were off to explore the city on foot. The Addington suburb is quite plain. While walking towards the city, we did stop by a few motels/hostels to see if there would be vacancy for the following night. Unfortunately, everywhere either fully booked or they were too expensive. Before going to NZ, of course I did research on backpacker's hostel and one of the top rated hostels is Jailhouse Hostel. From the website, the place seems full of character and quite close to town but the room rate is off the roof! (no pun intended. ;p). Interestingly enough, we came across the hostel on our way to the city and decided to take a look around.

As the name suggests, it was a former prison converted to hostel. 

The place looks decent and we tried our luck for vacancy but we were turned down. Honestly, we didn't see that much people at the viccinity. Ok. Maybe because it was 5 o'clock and Kiwis rather be in their house at that hour (really? Solely my assumption. hihi), but come on! It didn't look like Christchurch was full of tourists or anything. Weird.


We continued our journey to the city, our destination was Hagley Park. From the Google Map, it was the nearest park to Addington so I thought it would be a short walk from our lodging however, it took us half an hour to get there. Phew. Once we got there, my fatigue immediately vanished. It was everything I imagined a park in a 4-season country would be. Big trees, benches, green grass, a lot of sunshine. BEAUTIFUL. :)

Such a pretty tree. LOVE IT!

Faiza, my travel buddy.

One chap going barefoot in the park. Hipster? Thihihi.

We walked through the park and somehow we ended up in Christchurch Botanics Garden. I didn't know the parks were next to each other. Hahaha. I planned to visit this park later but since we ended up there by chance, might as well take in the stunning view. During the flight, I read in AA's magazine that a flower festival was going to be held in Christchurch Botanics Garden on the 17th. Well, we stumbled upon the park on the 16th but the flowers were already spectacular. Summer in NZ is awesome! :)

My favourite colour. Lovely.

The abundance of ducks in the park. Extremely tame. Was literally charged at as soon as I sit by the river bank. They must be famished. 

I swear I want to post more photos but Blogger is being difficult at the moment. Urghh.. Apologies. More pictures in the next post. Pinky promise. Heeee..

After spending some time at the park, it was getting darker so we made our way back to Addington. On the way back, we stopped by a Chinese joint that sells fish and chips. I KNOW. Chinese + fish and chips? But it was the most decent place that sells fish and I bought the fish and chips for $4. CHEAP! The portion was gigantic and I didn't even finish the french fries. The taste? It definitely tasted like a four-dollar-fish-and-chips. If you know what I mean. ;p

One thing I have to state here. The weather during the day was excellent. Very sunny and just a bit on the chilly side. When night set in, the weather did a 180°. Brrr.. 

We went home and L, J and A's roommate, was home and let us in. Both J and A went out. J worked the night shift at a bakery, A returned to her parents' place for a family dinner and L works in the same bakery as J's and he's doing his apprenticeship there. L was very sweet. He was playing video game on the tv when we came in but he switched his game off and asked us if we want to watch a particular movie. I objected to LOTR since I had spent 11 hours of my life watching the extended version back in Malaysia, just the week before. We ended up watching the animation movie, Monsters vs Aliens together while I had my dinner in front of the tv. I must say, it's a bit awkward watching the movie with a stranger, in his house. HAHAHA! While watching the movie, A came home and joined us. I asked her if there's any interesting place in Christchurch that we should visit and she suggested Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. That's how we decided our itinerary for the next day. Easy-peasy. :) 

New Zealand Trip - Day 1 - Part 2

From the Red Bus, we transferred to The Orbiter. Thank goodness, the bus stops right at Whiteleigh Avenue. We called our host and asked him for directions. We were right on the street yet, we walked towards the OPPOSITE direction and got further from the place. Haha! 5 minutes of confusion later, we arrived at our hosts house. Since it is basically a frat house, I was not expecting neat and tidy lawn but whoa.. there were lots of stuff on their porch. Haha!

The equipment-laden porch. :D

Our host, J, welcomed us. His roommate, A was on the phone when we came in. J told us that we could have the living room to ourselves and sleep on their couches. Err.. but on their Couchsurfing profile, they mentioned that we would have our own private room and that's mainly why I requested to surf in their house.

Of course, out of courtesy I smiled and said "Yeah. Couch. No problem.". God knows my brain is racing to find some solution to this issue. After awhile, A came out and greet us. Our hosts dropped another bomb. They told us that tomorrow night, their other roommates, N and other two guys whom I forgot their initials are having an initiation party. Apparently, the next Monday is the first day of the new semester and the party is to welcome the new students. For the rest of the summer their roommates went on a camping trip and guess what? They are coming back tomorrow, just in time for their initiation party. Picture drunken, rowdy 20-year-old college students. Attractive. NOT.

J and A have been accepting requests on Couchsurf during the summer and since their roommates are on camping trip, the surfers HAD private rooms to themselves. It's just that J and A forgot to amend their couch's description. This is getting interesting, eyh? ;) From their conversation, J and A are quite reluctant to have the party at their house and prays that none of them will enter the house. They're having the party at the backyard.

Our hosts' green front yard. Love it!

While our hosts gave us the low down, I kept my composure and tried, real hard to keep a straight face and pretend that the arrangement works for us. Suddenly, a light bulb turned on!

Me: Hey A. Since N will not return home till tomorrow, do you think we can use her room?
A: I can try asking her is that's ok.
Me: Ok. Cool.

Both J and A texted N but they got no response. Before we left the house, A told us that since N is not replying, we can stay in her room instead. That is so sweet of her! I was so grateful that at least, tonight, I won't have to sleep in my hijab, in the middle of the house with boys walking around me while I am sleeping. One problem SOLVED. :)

Oh wait, what about the party tomorrow? *cue doomed music*

New Zealand trip - Day 1 - Part 1

On 15 February 2012, I boarded D7282 from KUL to CHC at 2340. It was my first time taking Air Asia X. My verdict: MAS>AAX in terms of seat comfort, food, in-flight entertainment, cabin crew. Basically everything. BUT, the AAX's service commensurates with the low airfare. :)

On my own in-flight entertainment. iPad is my saviour. :D

After 10 mighty uncomfortable plane ride, we safely arrived at Christchurch International Airport at 1535, 16 February 2012. The time difference is 5 hours and I was totally exhausted from lack of sleep and jetlag. The immigration was a breeze. One officer randomly pick passengers to ask random questions and "lucky" me, I was randomly picked out the crowd and the lady officer asked me about my plan in NZ, how much money I brought with me, etc. Don't get me wrong, she questioned me politely and even made attempts to engage me with small talk. Like it or not, the staff of the airport is the first impression the country is portraying to the tourists like myself. My first impression of the Kiwis: polite and friendly.

As soon as I step out of the airport, I knew I am blessed to be on New Zealand soil. The sky is glorious blue. Eventhough it was summer, the breeze is pretty cold but the sunlight kept us warm enough. Excellent weather on our first day.

Information on the public transportation available at the airport can be found on the airport's official website. Right outside the airport, we boarded the Red Bus No. 3. Our destination is Whiteleigh Avenue, Addington where our Couchsurfing hosts' place is located. I used the Journey Planner on the bus company's official website. I was informed that we need to transfer to another bus once to get to our destination at "Riccarton Rd and Field Tce" and take bus No. 40 to "Church Rd". It is a bit confusing for tourists since we are not familiar with the street names. Plus, the bus stops do not have any signboards to indicate their names or locations and there is also no indications on the bus of the name of the next bus stop that the bus if going to stop at. During times of like these, I miss Seoul's superb public transportation. Easy peasy. To avoid further confusion, we told the driver our destination and he was more than happy to let us know where we need to alight and the number of the bus that we need to get on.

While waiting to get on our 2nd bus, a few Kiwis helped us to identify which bus we need to get on. According to them, it has been raining everyday until that day. Talk about sheer luck, huh? Alhamdulillah.

One interesting observation - the Kiwis (people of New Zealand, not the kiwi bird) once they get on the bus, they ALWAYS acknowledge the driver by either a simple "Hi!", "How are you doing?" or "Thank you". Kiwis do have excellent manners which I found very delightful. Well, this conclusion was formed when I was on New Zealand soil for just 3 hours. Too early to see the Kiwis' true colours. Hehehe.

Honestly, I am beyond sleepy right now. Will update the blog tomorrow. Pinky promise.

Tale of a Stalker

Once upon a time, during the MIRC era in the early 00's, I chatted with a guy named Taufiq (bukan nama sebenar. *wink*) I had a HUGE crush on him because:

a. He's CUTE. Totally my type. (I've seen his picture. He's photogenic, at least. ;p)

b. His name is TAUFIQ. ("Taufiq & Hidayah" does have a nice ring to it, kan? Aiyooo.. berangan!) 

c. His English is superb. (My kryptonite)

After 1 year of knowing him online, we lost contact with each other. Bummer.

I would be lying if I were to tell you that I have never tried searching his name on facebook/twitter, once in awhile.

Just 10 minutes ago, I tried googling his name. 22,400 results came up and I clicked the third link randomly. 

Lo' and behold, the elusive Taufiq. I FOUND HIM!

But the blog post is about his wedding. *cue thunderstorm and heavy rain*

AAX debacle update

I don't want to relive the horrible attempts to get the attention of AAX, it'll just spike my blood pressure.

To cut things short, I called their "premium line" (that's just their fancy term for "fucking expensive call charges"), went through their incompetent live web chat, sent 3 emails and all of them failed to get them to move their ass, do their job and settle my urgent problem.

My travel buddy Faiza, called their premium line as well and on the second call, she managed to get them to give us the new destination itinerary. Phew~

Can you believe it? I had to go through all the available channels and none worked. It seems they will only pay attention to us with a little bit of scolding over the phone. To say that I was frustrated would be the understatement of the year.

Alas, they managed to settle the recovery options and we were given another destination at no extra charge. I just wish they are more organised in handling their customers and not brushing them off easily, just transferring the customers from one channel to the other. We know, you are a budget carrier and you did offer cheap price for the airfares but we did pay with our hard earned money. Please respect and value your customer.

"Thank you", AAX.

One of many first world problems

I noticed, these past few weeks.. the things people post on social network sites are annoying the hell out of me. I will not go into details because I have about umm.. 34678 reasons for feeling so. 


Social networks are double-edged sword, for example:
a) helps you to keep in touch with strangers (hello, stalker generation!);
b) serves as public diary for people to air their dirty laundry;
c) are effective tools to spread mundane news such as how terrible government servants' English is. (Ok, now I am just being mean. SOME government servants' English. Sorry.)


Full disclosure, I have done the aforementioned. 


Now that I have established the pros and cons, here's the tricky part. Moving forward, what is the best step?


Here are my limited options:
a) Delete my fb and twitter account and stop inflicting harm to myself;
b) Delete all strangers on both accounts and use the sites to communicate with ONLY the people that I actually like; OR
c) Let it be and continue to be annoyed on a daily basis.


Hmm...

"Smart" move, AAX

Last Wednesday, I was scrolling my fb news feed and suddenly stumbled across an announcement from Air Asia X. They are cancelling a few routes "due to soaring taxes and higher jet fuel prices". Unfortunately my flight to Mumbai on 16 February 2012 is affected. Bummer. 


Well, all is not bad. Air Asia X promised to give three alternatives  "including a full refund, a reroute to another AirAsia X destination (e.g, in Australia and North Asia), or a move to an alternative carrier where available" and all these " at no additional cost".


Air Asia X, I sure do hope you keep your promise this time.


FYI, I purchased my flight tickets a year ago during the RM0.10 promo and I bagged the return ticket to Mumbai at RM260. Sounds like a pretty good deal at that time but why oh why must you make a drastic change without much earlier notice?


The route to Mumbai is cancelled from 1 February 2012 onwards but this announcement was only made on 11 January 2012. Come on, it's common sense that ample time of notice must be in order before you simply cancel your customers' flights.

Mass email from Air Asia X

According to the email, they are going to send another email to individual customers to inform  the options available to them. Well, today is the 14th and I see no email from you, AAX! Nak cancel flight cepat aje.. nak remedy the situation lembab pulak kan?


Lady Luck is on my side as I have not made any accommodation arrangements yet and have yet to apply for my visa. Phew!


The only silver lining I can see out of this shenanigan is that I have the option to travel to other countries with no extra cost. I am definitely picking somewhere far, somewhere expensive. Hahaha! I really want to go to New Zealand so, fingers crossed! :)