lunar.soliloquy

I wish I had them back in high school. But that doesn't matter now, all that matters is that I have them, and what's in the past doesn't matter anymore. I have to keep telling myself this, otherwise I'll never stop thinking of the high school life I could have had, the memories that should have been made, the people I should have met. Stop it now damn it, the past's gone, and the future awaits.

I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather for some reason. Probably I should have spent Sunday resting after going on a six-day long road trip to the Coromandel but instead I went and hung out in town. Meh, not the smartest decision I've made in my life but I sure as hell don't regret it. Time in Auckland is running devastatingly short with my parents coming up on Friday and taking me back on Sunday (with work commencing immediately on the following Monday, gah ><). When you want to spend time with people in a limited timeframe, you have to work around their schedule and to do that sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices, and that's just how it is. At the time of writing I've just received a text from a friend who's organising a get-together dinner before I head back to Rotorua for the summer. I feel truly blessed to have this opportunity to say my goodbyes to my friends before I head off. Thanks for organising this, you know who you are =) I saw the facebook movie yesterday. It wasn't a super-epic movie I'd have to say, but it was interesting nonetheless since most of the events were based on what happened in reality. It was a little heavy on the business and political side of things, but that's to be expected of any film involving large amounts of money. I did like the Harvard university setting, it's always nice to see what other kinds of university life are like across the world.

Coromandel road trip was epic. Although the accommodation wasn't quite as cosy as the ski lodge last time it was still pretty adequate and the facilities were good. Not having to bring sleeping bags on the bus is a definite plus, the beds were pretty good for a backpackers and there was some nice solid water pressure on those showers. The soundproofing could have used some improvement, the walls may as well have been made of paper for all the sound that carried through even while just having a normal conversation. i admit, the amount of noise generated during games of Pictionary or Monopoly are probably a bit above normal conversation level but for the noise to carry all the way through 2 doors and a corridor? Seems a bit dodgy. Perhaps because the building wasn't as insulated as the one at ski since at coromandel people usually come during summer, and the building needs to let in some ventilation? Lol, I'm thinking too much again xD.

We arrived at Hahei beach at around half four in the afternoon, iirc. Lol I couldn't blog during the trip cuz the internet there was devilishly expensive ($1 for 10 mins? Come on...><) so I'm trying to remember everything off the top of my head now. I think we just checked out the place and unloaded all our stuff that day. I remember having some nice egg omelette with some other stuff (cucumber, probably) along with some suspiciously soft and squishy rice. Lucky for me I wasn't on dinner on day one, because I was pretty damn tired that day if I remember. Well, not tired enough that I couldn't participate in the poker that happened that evening. I'm always up for a game or two. Or three. It's amusing how over the course of the evening we got to know people's poker personalities and know who's bluff to call and which people raise big only if they actually have something.
I think we may have played something else that night (jenga?) but trying to recall events from a week ago is hard for intellectually challenged people like me so I'll leave Monday for now.

Tuesday was beach day at Cathedral Cove. Breakfast was cereal and milk and was going to be cereal and milk for the next five days. And cucumber, if you're into that stuff. Oh yeah, before I forget I'd better mention that we came to the trip with a supply of about 20 odd cucumbers. Don't ask why, we just had them. Hence the having cucumbers with every meal, I don't think I want to touch any of those long green sticks for at least another week. Anyway, cucumbers aside, we went for a bit of a walk to Cathedral Cove, think it took us about 1 hour 30mins to reach there including the random stoppovers to gemstone bay and stingray beach to check out the scenery those places had to offer. Didn't see any stingrays that day, though. Apparently Cathedral Cove was where the opening to the 2nd Narnia movie was filmed. I guess New Zealand does have some pretty nice beaches, I probably take these sorts of things for granted after living in this place for so long. I didn't find this particular beach too special, though. Probably since it was quite small. Even beaches at the North Shore are longer and vaster than this one, according to some friends who live there. At least the weather was good. Even with sunscreen on I think I got a little tanned from that day, for some reason I tan real easily under the sun. Probably due to that bit of Indonesian blood in me, heh. Dinner was pasta and more pasta. Pasta is surprisingly good despite the simplicity of its preparation, with the right sauces. I should make it more often at home, instead of haing rice day in and day out.

We went on a 3 and a half hour kayak on Wednesday with some tour guides who showed us the ropes on basic kayaking and the various attractions around Hahei beach. We pretty much just went around the same places as we did on Tuesday (Gemstone bay, stingray beach, cathedral cove, etc), except this time experienced it from a different angle (from the sea! lolz xD). It was cool being shown the different types of animals that hung around the beach and the sea. It's been a while since I saw a gannet skydive into the sea to grab a fish at 120km/hr and the first time I've seen a stingray up so damn close (yeah, we actually got to see stingrays at stingray beach for a change!). Haha, Shaochen and me were always speeding away from everyone else and had to wait for the rest of the group a couple of times to catch up to us. At one point, we were so far ahead of them that they didn't even bother to wait for us before starting the tour commentary and by the time we paddle back to them they had already finished. Lolz.

Dinner was vegetarian sticky rice dumplings (compliments of mum and dad) and potatoes with stock. Apparently someone didn't know the difference between stock and gravy but she does now ^^;. Oh yeah we also went around the place looking for fruit trees in the backyards of various unoccupied holiday homes. According to our tour guide on the kayak he and his wife often went around picking figs, peaches and loquat from the various fruit trees that grew in the area. Fruit at the convenience store was so expensive that we didn't get any and since fruit doesn't keep so well we didn't get any prior to the trip either. Unfortunately we didn't find any figs or peaches but we did find a lot of grapefruit, lemons and loquat, which was better than nothing. The grapefruit was a tad sour, though. Had a bitter aftertaste too. Ah well, fruit is fruit.

Thursday was our free day. Sleeping in ftw. Woke up at around 9:30am and I was still the first one awake. So I played my DS, lol. Played a few games of chess with two guys over breakfast while waiting for the rest of them to wake up. I think the lovey-dovey couple went for a romantic stroll along the beach while the rest of us geared up for some tennis at the local dive shop. My arms still ached from kayaking but nonetheless had a good few hits (and probably even more misses). First time playing tennis for me, lol. But it was all good fun. Came home in the afternoon and hit the mahjong again with junk food and cucumbers. I managed to salvage the dodgy-looking overcooked rice from Monday's dinner sitting in the fridge by turning it into fried rice with mixed frozen vegetables and egg, which I thought was quite a success by how quickly it went. The guys fired up the barbecue and everyone had their meat and sausages while I had my veggie patties and dumplings in the cool evening breeze. I think that day we ended up gossiping a bit about other people which I found a bit boring so us guys went inside and went back to the mahjong. Yeah, we played a shitload of mahjong that day, it was epic.


On Friday we went to Hot Water Beach, supposedly one of the main attractions in the area. Despite it being a rather cloudy day the place was pretty damn busy and none of us realised exactly how small the actual thermoactive area was. We probably spent at least an hour poking around in the sand looking for a hotspot before finding a place near the tide where we started building fortifications to keep the tide out. Unfortunately despite it being low tide at that particular time we found our efforts to be in vain as our walls were constantly overrun by the massive tides that just washed all our work away. In the end we resorted to waiting for other people to leave their little hotspots and sniping their spots once they were gone. It was then I realised how damn hot that sand was, and why it was said to be used by the Maoris to cook people in. It was so hot that I would voluntarily let sea water in to actually cool it down to get it to the right temperature. I think I'll just stick to the Polynesian Spas in Rotorua for natural hot spas. God, if anyone stayed in that place for too long they'd surely get cooked to the point of being dinner.

After the beach we went on a short walk up around the various cliffs around the area where we took some pretty awesome photos of the beautiful scenery around the area. The weather wasn't spectacular that day but there was layer of mist covering the horizon which I thought was really pretty, in a mysterious sort of way.

For our last dinner we had rice again with some potato chips, egg omelette and those funny green sticks who's name escapes me at this moment - oh wait, of course - CUCUMBERS, duh xD. That night, six of us stayed up til 2am playing Monopoly which was epic. I went out pretty fast but still had lots of lols watching the rest of the game while retiring to the position of real estate agent and banker. Probably the craziest game of Monopoly I've ever played, oh the lols.

We had to gaps the place by 10am in the morning, so couldn't sleep in too much, unfortunately. They even kicked us out in the living and dining areas so we resorted to playing mahjong on the outdoor tables. It didn't last long, however as there were mosquitoes everywhere and people were getting bitten. So we packed up and headed to the park instead. Not really much to do around that area besides browse overpriced gift shops and hang out, really. Our bus came at noon, so we had a bit of time to kill. Probably the longest couple of hours in my life. At least the bus trip back was good. I was rather tired and managed to get some shuteye on the bus. All in all, a great trip with awesome people, I won't forget it. Well, except maybe the cucumbers. I don't really wana remember that Dx.

Thanks Lester for taking all those amazing pictures! U r da man =D