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28 – 29 Dec 2009 – I have many fond memories of Blenheim from our honeymoon back in 2003. Blenheim is situated in the Malborough region, a place famous for its many vineyards and wineries. Blenheim seems to have grown quite a bit since 2003 and is no longer the small town that we remembered. Unfortunately, our stay this time was pretty short so we didn’t have a chance to go on any wine tours. Not a big loss though; it took us almost 7 years to finish the two bottles of wine that we bought during out last trip so buying wine wasn’t very high on the agenda.

We arrived in Blenheim to really gorgeous golden evening light. Thanks to that, we made a snap decision to drive up to the hills to take some pictures for Project New Zealand. After consultation with the motel owner, we settled on Wither’s Hill Farm Park, a short 10-15 minute drive away from where we were staying. The hike up the hill was another thing however, and by the time we reached the middle, the sun had already started setting. Such a pity!

Ashley walking up Wither’s Hill Farm Park while trying to avoid the many clumps of cow dung.

Probably the only decent shot we got halfway up the hill. This was taken at around 8-9pm and the moon was already up in the sky.

Ashley getting in on the picture.

On the way down, Ashley tripped on some gravel and scraped her knee pretty badly. I’m not sure if it was the pain or the sight of blood but she ended up crying all the way back to the motel. Luckily the motel owner had some first aid supplies so we managed to clean the wound and get her knee bandaged. I remember teaching her how to play cards that night to distract her from the pain.

The next day, we had lunch at the Montana Winery, a place where we enjoyed a really nice lunch in 2003. Sadly, the menu had changed and the food wasn’t as nice as before. There must have been a management change during these few years!

Lunch at the Montana Winery.

View the full Blenheim photo album here.

27 – 28 Dec 2009 – Christchurch was hit by a devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Sep 2010, almost a year after we visited and I remember opening the morning papers to see a picture of how the tower at Christchurch Cathedral had collapsed. It was a sad sight to see as the cathedral was one of the most beautiful structures we had visited during our time in New Zealand.

The tower behind us collapsed during the quake. I wonder if they have rebuilt it yet…

Inside the cathedral – it was fairly empty as choir practice had just ended.

Ashley also had fond memories of spending time in the cathedral square playing on the bungee trampoline for two days in a row. I don’t know how she did it but she didn’t find being propelled 10-20m in the air scary at all!

Boing boing boing…

Apart from just hanging around the square, we didn’t really do much else in Christchurch. I hope we didn’t miss much!

Link to the full album here.

26 Dec 2009 – Nothing much happened on Day 4 apart from our epic 8 hour drive from Queenstown to Christchuch. Along the way, we stopped at familiar places like Lake Tekapo for lunch and to relax a little.

Driving along Lindis Pass. It’s hard to keep your eyes on the road with such nice scenery!

Taking a short break along Lindis Pass as Ashley was feeling quesy and threw up outside the car right after stopping. She kept complaining that she was uncomfortable but did not know how to say that she was giddy.

Picnic at Lake Tekapo.

Another stunning view of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd.

How does it feel like driving for almost the whole day? All I can say is that I’m glad that my dad-in-law and I could take turns at the wheel or else it would have been very tiring!

The full Day 4 album here.

25 Dec 2009 – This being Christmas Day, a lot of shops and attractions were closed for the day. Not Puzzling World at Wanaka though, which was our destination. Wanaka is around a 1-2 hour’s drive from Queenstown along the scenic Crown Range Road.

The view along Crown Range Road. As the road goes pretty high up into the hills, you get a very nice paronamic view of the valley below.

Puzzling World is a great place for families to visit and you can easily spend half a day there just exploring attractions like the Great Maze and Tilted House. There are also optical illusions aplenty like the Ames Forced Perspective Room and Hall of Following Faces, the former displaying the same type of illusion used to make characters seem either taller or shorter in the Lord Of The Rings movies.

The objective of the Great Maze is to navigate to the four different towers on each corner of the maze. Not an easy feat and one that could take a few hours!

The Tilted House – believe or not but the seat would actually slide upwards due to gravity because of the tilt of the room.

After we were done with Puzzling World, we drove around a bit to take some photos of Zhiyi for Project New Zealand (She had her makeup and hair done while the kids were having lunch). Here is one of my favourites taken among the tussock at Outlet Road.

Link to the full Day 3 album here.

24 Dec 2009 – After spending the night at Lake Tekapo, we drove down to the adventure capital of New Zealand – Queenstown – to spend 2 days there. But before leaving, we woke up early to take some pictures at Lake Tekapo. Dad-in-law was kind enough to act as my photography assistant by holding the reflector! As you can see from the photo below, the lake has a very unique turquoise blue colour.

Zhiyi modelling for “Project New Zealand” – a collection of bridal photos for my portfolio.

Along the way, we stopped at a fruit farm/shop called the Jones Family Orchard near Cromwell. It’s a great place to pick up souvenirs (fruits, chocolates, nougats, etc) and try the natural ice cream. The blueberry ice cream we tried tasted so good and fresh!

Jones Family Orchard

Nothing like good ice cream to perk up! This was taken at the garden next to the shop.

The first time we visited Queenstown, I remember staying in a small cozy motel by the main road that looked a little like a tree house. This time round, we put up at the larger and more posh looking Autoline Motel. Right after checking-in, we made our way to the town centre and waterfront for an evening stroll. Needless to say, it being Christmas Eve, not many establishments were open though there were a lot of people strolling about to catch the nice evening sunset.

Sunsets are always so beautiful in New Zealand. Golden hour at the waterfront.

The little photographer springs into action.

Link to the full Day 2 album here.

This post has been a very very long time in the making as I only just managed to finish editing all the selected pictures from the trip from the few thousand taken. With photos from so many paid jobs to edit as well, this always ended up taking a back seat. Now time to move on to the photos from our Hawaii trip in 2008!!!

23 Dec 2009 – Today was the day we headed off to New Zealand for a 12 day trip. For Zhiyi and I, this was the second time visiting (first time being our honeymoon) but the first time for the kids and in-laws. Apart from it being a family holiday, we also flew over to attend my cousin Snowdon’s wedding (at the tail end of our trip). Needless to say, we were looking forward to visiting many of the places we had fond memories of. True enough, New Zealand had not changed much since we were last there in Nov/Dec 2003. The countryside was still as pristine, the roads and motels just like brand new and people as friendly (except for one bad incident of racism in Christchurch).

Alicia’s 2nd plane flight, at 8 month’s old. She coped well with the 11 hour flight from Singapore to Christchurch, though I think my mum-in-law was a little nauseous from the turbulence.

A majestic view of some mountain ranges on South Island that we flew over en route to Christchurch. I wish my camera had geo-tagging!

Our first destination was Lake Tekapo, a small but very popular and scenic town among tourists. Lake Tekapo has an amazing turquoise blue colour, a byproduct of “rock flour” from the glaciers interacting with sunlight. We stayed at a motel called the Lake Tekapo Scenic Resort which was only a 5-10 minute walk away from the lake, making going for a morning and evening stroll very convenient. We also had plans to take a stroll at night to see stars but the temperature was just too cold then even thought it was the middle of summer.

Catherdral of the Good Shepherd – Lake Tekapo’s most well known landmark. When we last visited on our honeymoon, we saw a couple getting married here.

Link to the full Day 1 album here.

Ever have those days when you just feel so lethargic and uninspired, and getting out of bed seems so tough? Well, that was me two weeks ago. It didn’t help that I was also recovering from and on-and-off bout with flu which lasted for a few weeks, the start of it which saw me nearly hospitalized (again!). I knew that I needed a break and some vitamins from the sun to get my mojo back.

I received many helpful recommendations from colleagues on where to go for a short weekend getaway and finally settled on Club Med Bintan because of its close proximity to Singapore.

Compared to some of the other resorts I’ve stayed at in Bintan, the surf and sand at Club Med are really good.

The beach is really well maintained and the sand white and powdery.

Our 3D2N package for 3 adults and 2 children had cost around $2.3k which was inclusive of ferry tickets and stay at the resort. This is pricier than many other resorts, but after experiencing the service there, I’m not surprised why.

Club Med was the first hotel we’ve stayed in that is so kids-friendly. They have programs for children between 4-11 (Mini Club Med) that stretch all the way from 9am till 8pm, essentially leaving parents with the whole day to do their own things. They have one for toddlers aged 2 and 3 too (Petit Club Med) but we decided not to sign Alicia up and opted to spend the day with her instead.

Ashley braving the trapeze. She said her heart felt like it went up to her throat afterwards.

For adults, there are a lot of sports activities to join and the pool is always available. Zhiyi and I attended tennis coaching classes for two days in a row and it was really fun. They have other things like archery and golf too but we didn’t have time to try those out. At the end of each day, the GOs (guest officers) would perform musicals. The themes during our stay there were song and dance tributes to “Glee” and “Michael Jackson”.

This young girl wanted a close up view of all the dancers!

And finally, with regards to food, it was practically all-you-can-eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with snacks and drinks served all around the clock at the pool bar and various other locations around the resort. Apart from certain alcoholic drinks, everything was already included in the initial bill so we could eat as much as we wanted till we got sick of the food! I for one took full advantage of the free flow of ice cream served at The Waterfall restaurant.

On the final evening there, Zhiyi and I went for a wonderful massage at the spa. We had ours in a nice spacious room situated on a rock outcropping looking out into the South China Sea. Nothing is more relaxing than having a back rub while listening to the sound of waves crashing against the rocks below!

View of the pool area from the reception area. Definitely a place that I would love to visit again one day!

View the full gallery here.

Not much words for our last day in Hong Kong. Just a few pictures as we say goodbye to this wonderful island.

View the full gallery here.

Prior to this trip, I didn’t have much impression of Macau other than it being a city with lots of casinos and hotels. Nonetheless, wifey insisted that we should make a day trip there and have a look at some of their huge malls. It was a toss between either this or going to Hong Kong Island for more walking and shopping so I picked the former.

The journey to Macau took about an hour and a half by ferry and was largely uneventful apart from the fact that we had to run almost 800m to catch our boat. We made a mistake of checking-in with only 15 mins to departure as we thought clearing customs and walking to the ferry wouldn’t take long. Bad move as there were travel declaration forms we had to fill up inside and the ferry terminal itself was very long with our ferry unfortunately being right at the end. We were quite tired from the run and slept most of the way.

Upon arrival, we took a bus to The Venetian, a huge resort/hotel/casino/convention centre/mall. No prizes for guessing the place the mall was modeled after, and they even had gondolas sailing along an artificial river built along the length of the mall. We were so caught up looking at the surroundings that we accidentally left Alicia behind in one of the walkways only to realize a few minutes later that she wasn’t in her pram. Panicking, we rushed back, retracing our steps, to eventually find her bawling along a corridor with a few concerned people surrounding her. She was really scared and seemed pretty traumatized by the whole event even until a few hours after.

Inside The Venetian. Shortly after taking this picture, Alicia wandered off and almost got “lost” again. Actually we had our eyes on her the entire time but wanted her to learn her lesson of not wandering off alone.

Later that afternoon, we took a taxi to Senado Square, a famous landmark that’s identifiable by its waved patterned mosaic pavement. We bought a lot of almond cookies and egg rolls from one of the famous bakeries along the square and took a few pictures before it started to get dark.

In front of St. Dominic’s Church built by the Portugese in the 1590s.

After a long day of walking around, we decided that it was time to head back to Hong Kong. Unlike Hong Kong though, it was almost impossible to get a taxi and after trying for almost an hour, we gave up and luckily managed to take a bus back to the ferry terminal. Exhausted and hungry, we then had to make another dash for the ferry as it was departing in only a few minutes after we arrived. Bad move! Exhaustion, hunger and the choppy sea were all ingredients for a pretty unpleasant ride back. Ashley was the first to barf all over her seat, followed by Alicia, mom-in-law and finally wifey. I was actually ok, but repeated trips to-and-fro to clean up all the vomit plus its lingering smell on their clothes also made me a little sick towards the end.

I guess we won’t be making any more day trips to Macau the next time we visit Hong Kong as Ashley is now quite worried about long ferry rides!

View the full gallery here.

One of the best reasons for visiting Hong Kong is for the shopping and food. For that very reason, we decided to stay at the Royal Plaza Hotel near Mongkok which is only a 10 minutes walk away from shopping streets like Tung Choi Street (Ladies’ Market), Sai Yeung Choi Street (Electrical Appliance Street) and Fa Yuen Street. There is also a “Goldfish Street” with lots of shops that sell dogs, cats and fish.

Fa Yuen Street

I let Ashley use my heavy 5kg camera, much to the amusement of passers-by

Can’t remember what else we did today but walk and shop and walk and shop for the whole day. Wifey was kind enough to let me go off camera shopping halfway and if you’re ever looking for cameras and lenses, I can’t recommend Echo Photo enough. The staff there were very courteous and not once did I get the impression that they would rip me off just because I was a tourist. The only downside is that their shop is very small so they might not always have stock and might request for you to come back later or the next day. It thus pays to call before going to make sure you don’t make a wasted trip.

Echo Photo and Audio
Hanyee Building
19-21 Hankow Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Kowloon
23760478

What, we’re not done yet??

View the full gallery here.