The pickup from Green Monkey was at 7.10am, and they arrived promptly. There were two other guys in the bus with us, a Welshman named Dave, and a German caller Julius. We passed the time chatting with them, and Terence bonded with Dave over some football talk.

When we arrived at their base, we met our guide for the day and he briefed us on our itinerary. The company was very professional, even providing us with additional clothing, should we need it. There were fleece jackets, as well as thermal tops and leggings available. They did mention that as the day was going to be sunny, they didn’t think we would need the additional clothes, but if we wanted to, we were free to take anything we liked. Terence decided to borrow the thermal leggings which were bright stripey blue, and he looked hilarious!

Our guide briefed us on the kayaking equipment we would need, and procedures of launching / beaching the kayaks and then we were ready to go. There were five kayaks in total, which meant ten people including the guide. For some reason, Terence and I were always the last ones, I blame it on our kayak, or our paddles! There must’ve been something wrong with them.

My arms really started to ache midway through the morning, but there were quite a few pauses in between where the guide provided some explanations, giving me enough time to rest. We landed at a nice beach for a lunch break, where we had soup, bread and coffee.

The guide then took us up a path, which provided us a beautiful view of the beach, with our kayaks on the sand below.

We continued on with our kayak journey in the afternoon, and managed to see quite a bit of wildlife, including some seals! We didn’t really manage to get any good photos of the seals, though. After paddling about 19 kms, we landed at another beach, and were picked up by the aqua taxi to go back to our base.

My arms were aching like crazy by this time, and my cargo pants were soaked from the kayaking. With the wind blowing, I was freezing! I was just so thankful that it was sunny for the entire day, I read previously in other peoples’ blogs that on their kayaking trip it rained, and it was miserable weather. My advice for people going kayaking in the winter, bring spare clothes, and always bring your sunglasses! I almost didn’t bring it because I thought it wouldn’t be necessary, but the sun was pretty strong! All in all, it was a lovely day, and a nice rest from the long drive we had the previous day.

Related posts:

1. Christchurch – Kaikoura – Nelson (Day 6)
2. Franz Josef – Wanaka (Day 9)

As we drove along the roads, it was our first oppurtunity to really check out the car’s performance. The night before, we had only driven from the airport to the hostel, which was less than 20kms away. Overall, we were quite impressed with the car’s performance, it was fairly new, and didn’t seem to have any problems.

My first impression of the “highways” in New Zealand was that they weren’t like the highways we have back in Malaysia. They’re mostly single lane roads, and they have many curves and bends all over the place! On that morning, it was quite foggy as well, which was quite scary considering the amount of driving I had planned for the two of us over the next week.

We had our first glimpse of sheep early on, and we had to stop to take pictures. Our excitement over the sheep died down pretty rapidly as we passed sheep every few kms along the highway!

After awhile, the fog cleared up somewhat and the views whilst driving were simply magnificent. There are so many snow topped mountains all over the place, and we were truly awed by their beauty.

We reached Kaikoura after about 2 1/2 hours of driving and made our way to the seal colony. Apparently there were a few areas that we could trek through, and the views were supposed to be magnificent. We parked our car, and there was a seal right in front of the carpark! It seemed to be putting on a show for us, and we got a few nice pictures, especially with the gorgeous background.

After walking around for awhile, we decided that it was time for lunch, and we stopped at a roadside stall nearby called Kaikoura Seafood BBQ. It was kind of like a picnic with views of the sea, but we didn’t realize how cold it would be!

We ordered garlic scallops with rice, and a whitebait fritter sandwich. We didn’t know what whitebait was, but we thought it sounded pretty exotic. How were we to know…it’s more or less like ikan bilis. The garlic scallops tasted quite nice, although the food got cold within seconds of arriving on the table. We were really freezing by the time the food came as the wind was really strong, so we tried to eat as fast as possible and get back into the car to warm our hands.

After lunch, we made our way to Nelson, which was about 3+ hours away, and I had my first taste of driving in New Zealand. For those of you who know me, you probably know I hate driving, so this was truly an experience. Luckily for me, there aren’t many cars driving around, which makes things much better. Compared to driving to work everyday which is…5kms at most (I think), I drove an amazing 120 kms today!

We checked into the Green Monkey which I had chosen, mainly because of the free Wi-Fi that they provided, plus the reviews online seemed pretty promising. The owner is a really friendly chap named Steve, and he gave us a tour of the area. It’s a house which has been converted into a hostel and has about 6 – 8 rooms. A lot of the guests there are long-term guests, so they’ve made it into their second home.

We went out for dinner not long after we checked in, as we know that places close really early. We found a Pizza Bar nearby, and the food there was really good, they gave complimentary garlic bread for starters, and we had a salmon cream pasta and a four topping pizza.

After that, we headed back to the Green Monkey to check out our hostel a bit more. The heater in the room seemed to be controlled by a central switch somewhere. I have no idea when it comes on, it just seems to turn on randomly in the middle of the night, so the room could get pretty cold.

The living area was very warm, there was a fireplace there, and there’s free cake baked every night (I assume it’s every night, as we were there two nights, and both nights had cake). The showers weren’t easy to control, it kept on going from too hot, to too cold. Me being me, of course I opted for too hot, and came out looking sunburnt!

We had a pretty early night, as we were off on a full day kayak the next day. I was praying for good weather, as I couldn’t imagine going out kayaking with rain coming down, and this was during winter! Thankfully, the weather forecast was for sun, so I had my fingers crossed that it was correct!

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1. Melbourne / Christchurch – Day 5
2. Lake Tekapo to Christchurch (Day 13)
3. Nelson – Punakaiki – Franz Josef (Day 8)

After that, we met up with Tim, who had just come back from visiting his gf’s parents in Poland. He has a Polish girlfriend! He met her whilst backpacking in Rome, and he just went to meet her parents. Apparently, they don’t speak much English, which makes communication really difficult. They stay in a kampung area, and had never seen an Asian before! Hahaha, must’ve been an interesting visit.

And then, we were off to the airport again, Eel having kindly volunteered to send us. The Jetstar flight was delayed slightly, maybe about half an hour or so, which meant we reached Christchurch at about 1am in the morning!

Coming from Melbourne, it was so SO cold. We had already arranged for a rental car with Omega Rental Cars. Originally, we asked for a 1500 cc Toyota Corolla, but we ended up with a Toyota Corona (not a car I’ve ever heard of before). We had to go and look for the car at the long term parking, and the keys would be kept in a “secret” location. The only thing was, it was freezing! Windy, cold, and rainy…not the best weather at all. We eventually found it, and I just had to take a photo of our first day with the car.

If you’re in a warm country right now, don’t you feel glad?? Haha, it sure was cold that night.

From the airport, T drove to our backpacker place, with me assisting in the navigation (I can’t believe the car rental didn’t provide us with maps!). We stayed at the Dorset House. Because of our late arrival time, we had been given the access code, and the keys to the room were kept at the reception.

I was really impressed with Dorset House. Having recently come back from backpacker hostels in Egypt in Jan, I was preparing myself for similar accommodation. I find it’s good to always prepare myself for the worst, and then I’m never disappointed!

Just like in Egypt, when we booked a cruise, I was expecting something like the Hanoi cruise along Halong Bay, which was so rickety, a teeny room, and water in the shower at only certain times. But I was very pleasantly surprised by the luxuriousness of the Egypt cruise.

Anyway, at Dorset House, we got a really nice, brightly lit place, and it was so warm! There were quite a few shower / toilet rooms, maybe about four on the ground floor, and another four upstairs. The one that I used was fantastic, plenty of hot water (we were always running out of hot water in Egypt, and it was winter there too!), clean and well lit. The price we paid was only about 50+ NZD, cheaper than the YHAs in Christchurch.

We slept soon after showering, as we were planning on leaving early the next day, heading up to Kaikoura, and then to Nelson.

Related posts:

1. Christchurch – Kaikoura – Nelson (Day 6)
2. Lake Tekapo to Christchurch (Day 13)
3. Melbourne Day 4

We went grocery shopping with the extra time that we had, because he said that he would cook us dinner. I love grocery shopping, particularly overseas, because I get to see all the different food items that they have. This time round, we didn’t get too much, as we were leaving to NZ soon. We picked up a “few” things in case we got hungry whilst driving in NZ.

We went down to the city for yam cha @ Shark Fin House, and met up with Rex, Preema, her boyfriend Jason, and another friend of theirs. I’ve been craving the prawn salad ever since I left Australia! Funny thing is, like the jam donuts from Vic Mart, it didn’t taste as good as I remembered. The best part was catching up with everyone that we hadn’t seen in ages! It was particularly weird talking to Rex, he looks the same, but instead of talking the same, he now has a strong Aussie accent.

After lunch, we had..erm…tea? Haha, we went to Koko Black and had chocolate drinks. The concept is really similar to Theobrama back in Malaysia, it has chocolate drinks, desserts, etc.

Back at home a few hours later, we sat down to enjoy the pasta dinner that CS cooked for us. Kransky sausage pasta, I think he called it? It was pretty yummy, too. According to Steph, that’s the only dish he knows how to cook, so good thing that he only cooked one meal for us!

And so ended our day 4. We’re off to Christchurch the next day already!

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2. Melbourne Day 1 & 2 – *burp*
3. Melbourne Day 3 – Eel’s Big Day

After Eel’s hair was done, we took a few shots of us, in her last few moments as a single woman! Doesn’t she look fancy, with her hair all pretty and her super cool outfit?

We caught a tram back to her apartment after that, and the tea ceremony began shortly after. Tsin was delegated the…tea announcer? The person who announces who is serving the tea, and who the recipient is. She had to call out all the family titles in Hokkien, which was quite funny. Eel’s mum had to stand next to her and whisper the titles in her ear. I was assigned the tea lady task, passing the cups to each person.

After that, we went off to Chen Po’s mum’s house for the tea ceremony for his family. Here’s a pic of some of us standing outside his house, waiting to go in. As you can see from the photo, it was really windy that day! I’m so glad I borrowed Eel’s longer jacket, before I went to Melbourne, I told her I had no formal jacket, so I wanted to borrow one from her.

We had lunch at Chen Po’s house, and then there was a break of a few hours before dinner in the city. It was held at Quanjude restaurant in the city, and this restaurant was supposed to be famous for it’s Peking duck. The first course consisted of the various parts of the duck, from the tongue, to the gizzards, down to the feet! There were so many courses after that, but we only got a chance to take pictures of a few of them. Most of the time, we were just too busy eating!

We had tons to eat at our table, especially since two of the people seated with us were the photographers, and they were away from the table quite a lot, as they had to follow the couple around and take photos of them.

There weren’t too many items during the dinner, Chen Po’s mum gave a speech in Mandarin, I think, and Chen Po & Ee Leng gave a speech as well. There were the usual “yam seng” toasts as well, where we tried our best to out-shout every other table, to prove our Malaysian-ness. All in all, it was a really nice, simple wedding, and I’m really glad I flew to Melbourne to attend, especially since I’ve known Eel since I was…11? That makes it about 16 years that we’ve been friends!

Anyway, after dinner, we still had Eel’s car which we had borrowed for the day, so we volunteered to drop Tsin off at her friend’s house at Lygon. After we had done that, we were on the way back home when we saw on the opposite side of the road….the gelati shop was back in business!

I told T to quickly turn the car around, and we made a short pit stop for some gelati. Yes, even though we were still stuffed from dinner! So, here’s me at the end of the day, doing what we’ve been doing throughout the whole trip, eating!

Related posts:

1. Melbourne Day 1 & 2 – *burp*
2. Melbourne Day 4
3. Melbourne / Christchurch – Day 5

Ee Leng picked us up from the airport, and brought us to her apartment, which is on Swanston Street, about 10 mins walk away from Vic Mart. So of course, that was the first place we headed off to. It was so nostalgic, being back in Vic Mart after so many years! The first thing we did was to buy the jam doughnuts from the truck outside. We have fond memories of those doughnuts! For some reason, it just didn’t taste that good this time round. I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s really not that good anymore, or our expectations were just too high.

We also got cherries, dried fruit, yogurt sultanas…and then went off to meet another friend for lunch. There, we had a massive burger at Grill’d and a plate of yummy fries to share.

After lunch, we headed back to Ee Leng’s house to help her make custard puffs which she wanted to server during the tea ceremony over the weekend (which we of course sampled whilst making)! Dinner was at Lygon, where we had a few pizzas and pastas to share.

We made a mistake with the pizza, though. We ordered this pasta, which can be shared out amongst everyone, and you can choose three types of pastas that you would like. Everyone was calling out the different ones, and we ended up with three pastas, and all of them were cream based! Super full after the dinner, but we wanted to go for gelati. After all, how can you go to Lygon and not have the gelati?

Most disappointingly, the gelati shops were closed for winter! The sign said that they would re-open mid August, though, which should be around now. We tried to have dessert at this new place called Koko Black, but the queue time was 25 mins, which was just too long for us, especially standing outside during winter! So, we made our way back home for the night.

The next day, we went to Vic Mart again. I wanted to pick up a pair of tights for the wedding. I planned to wear a short dress, and I wasn’t about to brave the winter with bare legs! We walked around for a bit longer this time, and tried out some of their fresh yogurt. They had this stall which sells different flavours of yogurt. I swear I wasn’t planning on eating more, but the lady was so friendly, and offered us some to try. It was really yummy, so of course, I ended up with a cup. The top flavour was passionfruit, and the bottom was mixed berries.

For lunch, we had Jap food at one of the many Japanese stalls around the city, this one was called Sushi Sushi. Original name, eh? It wasn’t that fantastic, the rice was really cold, and some bits were hard. Probably because it was an open area, and the cold winter wind was blowing inside.

After lunch, we walked around the city a bit more, seeing all the new places that have sprung up since we left, like QV, and the new Melbourne Central. We were walking alongst Swanston Street and we saw this wood building, and wondered what that was. In turned out to be the newly rennovated Melbourne Central! Well, when i say newly rennovated, that’s because it wasn’t done yet when we were there 6 years ago.

Of course, we had to make a stop for Boost Juice at Melbourne Central! Here’s me having my juice, on the funky chairs that they have all over the place (we’ve had about 3 Boost Juices already since we arrived!).

Let’s see…after that, we went for dinner, although we weren’t remotely hungry yet. Melbourne’s become a lot busier than I remembered, it was pretty difficult to get places to eat. We ended up at a pub for some pub food. I half expected to get carded, and had my hand on my passport all ready to show them that I was legal, but surprisingly they didn’t ask me my age. We had a big plate of nachos to share, and mains all around. So, as my blog title says… *burp*!

It’s now two days later, and I’ll blog about Ee Leng’s wedding another time, but everything else I’ve done, revolves around food. Is it a wonder that my pants are starting to feel tight?

Related posts:

1. Melbourne Day 4
2. Melbourne Day 3 – Eel’s Big Day
3. Melbourne / Christchurch – Day 5

Checking in wasn’t a problem, they asked to see the Australian visa. I couldn’t show them one because I never received anything that I could print out. All I got was an email saying my application has been received, and it didn’t have any details like my passport number. Furthermore the email said that the visa was linked to my passport, and there was no need to print anything out, so I didn’t! T had a printed copy of his business visa, so he showed that to them and they seemed to be satisfied.

Interesting thing to note, when T was helping me carry my suitcase to his car, he remarked that it was really heavy. At the airport, when we weighed the two suitcases, mine was 12kg, and his was 20kgs! Hmm….what does that say about him?

OK, off to the washroom before we board the plane. Stay tuned for our upcoming adventures overseas!

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