**Iris' Castle of Happiness ^_^: 19 days New Zealand Trip Part 3

Day 9 - 2nd day in Queenstown - Bungy Jump & around Queenstown...

Brrrr.... is cold when i woke up early in the morning!!! gosh... is only 1 degree celsius ah!!! whahaha... when i went out of my backpacker, the strong wind splash on my face. gosh... cold sia! & presenting to me in front of me is Lake Wakatipu... beautiful morning... plan for the day is to book all my activities in Queenstown and then go for a tour around Queenstown. 1st stop, at the NZONE Sky Diving centre to book my sky dive for the next day. yeahz! got tat... and pray hard for good weather the next day so tat it will not be postponed or cancelled. next stop, Bungy Centre. at the reception, the lady asked wat will i like to do? i said i wan to enquire on the prices for the bungy jump. she showed me the price list and asked when i would like to go for it. then at the side, this man who was the driver for the jump trip going at 9am. there at 8.55am, he asked me "i'm going off in 5mins time, do u wan to join in now?" there i went "okay!" so without any preparation, i went! all decision juz happened within mins.. paid my money, got my ticket and hop on the bus and off we go towards the jump spot! Kawarau Bridge, 1st bungy jump in the world or NZ which ever it is ah. is 43m high and a jump cost NZD$150. heehee... did i wanna back off at tat moment? not really but i was feeling very excited. can feel my heart pumping really fast sia... as we get closer to the spot, i get even more excited. after 20mins, we r there! gosh... i am going for it.. really going for it! got into the centre, listen to all explanation, fill up the indeminity form and took our weight and off we went onto the bridge to get ready for our jump! yeahz!!! *nervous liao... cos i saw the height...*

welcome to the 43m Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump... u will have fun... cos i had fun!!!

view from the bridge along the Kawarau River...

a bird's eye view from top of the bridge... tat yellow boat is to unhooked all jumpers after their jump... saver~

after a long long wait... shivering in the cold early in the morning, finally is my turn to sit down quietly and wait for the pple in charge to tie the hook, rope and everything securely on my legs. heehee... see tat i can still smile here... i was quite nervous liao...

a pic i grabbed from the bungy jump webby as i purchased the photos. i am trying to smile to to the camera but my feet is shivering. due to the cold and height! hahaha... the guy next to me counted "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" and i am supposed to jump! but i din! cos is really quite high worr... then i said "2nd try & i will go!" so he went again.. "5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."

off i went! plunging down the 43m... woohoo~!!!! with eyes open, i swear! is like diving into a pool of water but is juz so much different in heights...

how abt a side view of me jumping down? heehee... tat's me!!! half way thru... i was bouncing up and down for a while. wondering where i was lor... honestly speaking, it really take great courage to jump down for bungy cos u r so on ur own and is really so FREE tat u may wonder how it is really like when i really jump. with all these in ur mind, u will have resistance and u will hestitate. so the longer u hestitate, the worse it will be. advice for future jumpers, dun hestitate too long. get it over and done with asap. & i hail to all who go for bungy jumps. be it the highest or lowest or watever, cos bungy really takes hell of lots of courage!

from far tat is how high the bridge is away from the river... heehee...

here is my jump certificate showing tat i really jumped lor... yeahz!!! i did it! woohoo~~!!!! *clap clap pls...*

some reward after the jump... lunch @ tis famous Fernburger in town. mega size burger with juicy beef steak and large size chips. yummy~!!!

Me & Carolyn from Singapore... she is studying in Melbourne. went to NZ for holidays with her friends but none of them wanna go Queenstown so she went alone and met me! heehee... how nice to meet pple from home... yeahz!

a walk around Queenstown after lunch... here is Queenstown Mall... shops by the side & this is really a very touristic place. so many different activities around and amenities and shops r all especially for Tourists. not really into Queenstown other than the activities as it is over touristic. lack of the locality. becos of the over touristic, locals dun really enjoy staying in Queenstown cos land property cost higher, amenities and shopping cost more. well, on the good side, NZ oso prospered alot from place such as Queenstown catering to millions and millions of tourists each yr ah. and is okay for them to contain all touristic activities within Queenstown so tat there will not be major touristic changes and influences on other areas in NZ... *tips here: activities such as sky diving, water rafting cost almost double at Queenstown as compared to other places. if u r om budget constrain and u can go to the north island of NZ, try all these activities there. is almost half price of Queenstown's rates.* i did it in Queenstown for all becos i wun in north island. :D

Harbour walk along the lake...

me in the beenie tat enlarged my face! hahaha... background is mountain view... yet again..

houses and property in Queenstown r all squeezed at one area... all trying to face the lake to get a good view. esp all those hotels, tourist apartments. well, so it resulted in overcrowding to a certain extend for the places along the lake... hmmm.... & tat oso caused all prices of property along the lake to increase like nobody's business... gosh...

weather is good on 2nd day in Queenstown... blue blue sky... yeahz.!!! so i could take another postcard pic of the mountain and sky!

Day 10 - 3rd day in Queenstown - Sky Diving...

a day of excitement! early in the morning, i called the sky diving centre to check if the sky dive is going on. YES it is! so off i went! headed towards the centre with the sun smiling @ me. i knew is gonna be a wonderful day despite the cold wind and cold weather.... after signing our indenminty form, off we went! to the sky diving ground. woohoo~~!!! is a all girls' power as all of us on tat jump trip r GALS! Girls RULZ~~!!!

upon reaching, we r divided into grps of 3. & lucky me get to go on the 1st grp lor. wat a great ting ah... but oso prevent me from tinking so much while waiting. whahaha... we get to the back area to prepare ourselves with the gears. we met our tandem master who will be doing all the job for us. i met my master, Kras. he is very frenly, trying to explain to me what i shld look out for when we r in the air. after abt 15mins preparation, we r on our way to tat small plane tat had to contain all 8 of us. 3 masters, 3 students, 1 cameraman, 1 video cameraman... up it went! we r half way thru to the height tat we need... 12,000 feet! woohoo~~!!!! everything happen within split second. at abt 8000 feet, Kras attached me to him. so tat i am firmly attached and hooked on to him. at abt 10,000 feet he got me ready. then at 12,000 feet, the door opened. the 2 cameramen jumped down 1st. then the 1st pair went & we were 2nd pair. off we went! out of the plane with the strong wind blowing and splashing strongly on my face... i could feel the numbness on my face due to the cold air... after a few tumbles, we finally stablised. heehee... time to enjoy tat magnificient view... photos time again... cos i grabbed all these from the webby... i purchased the photo package tat cost me abt NZD209 and the dive was NZD259. in all i spent NZD568 on tis sky dive. worth it or not? YES it is worth it! once in a life time... when is the next time i will do tis kind of activity again leh? mmm... so dun say i am rich. i am juz willing to spend the money on tings i really wan to do. i am juz as poor as many of u. juz like pple will spend 1000plus on a LV bag, on shopping... i juz choose a different way to spend the money. a way which i enjoy most.

my tandem master, Kras & i in the plane... at tis point, we r firmly attached to each other! heehee...

woohoo~~!!! isn't the pose cool? isn't the view splendid? i tell u ah... the view from up there is really brilliant. in my mind, i only noe how to enjoy the view and not worry at all liao. my eyes r wide open from the moment we jumped off. with the wonderful view ahead, all others dun matter. the lake on my right, the skiing mountains on my left... 45seconds of free fall gave me ample time to enjoy... really shuang ah!!! i wanna go again!

upon reaching the ground... Thank u to Kras for giving me such wonderful time... Bravo~!!!

end of my sky diving trip... back to Queenstown main area to enjoy the series of winter festival activities... woohoo~~

with abt 0 degree celsius, these guys r gonna jump into the lake to swim across to shore! winner will get a cash prize of NZD$600. wow... but is freezing cold in the water... i tink is abt minus 5 to 8 degrees lor... heehee... this is one of the competition to celebrate the arrival of winter... how extraordinary. i admire all these contestants sia... *hail*

* poommmm* off they went, plunging into the super duper cold lake for a swim...

winner! winner! winner! we have a winner here... here is the 1st guy to reach... NZD$600 is his! for 2nd guy to reach, super duper "dui" ah!... hahaha...

party time!!!! the party to celebrate arrival of winter was postponed. so i was in time to have a feel of the winter party! under the cold weather of winter, here we r... embracing thru the coldness of winter at tis outdoor stage area... the Winter Festival in Queenstown!

the dark sky of Queenstown was literally lighten up by these fireworks... nice... but river fire in brisbane is still nicer ah! heehee....

my roomie @ the backpacker... Emily from Taiwan...

the competition for most hunky hunk... some r really good but some r juz okay okay... whoever the winner is, i tink the gals for the nite of judging will be shuang ah... whahaha..

Day 11 - 4th day in Queenstown - White Water Rafting...

suppose to have jetboating and water rafting today but weather had not been in favour. reported tat it was too cold to go for jetboating so it was cancelled. only way out is to go for water rafting... well, oso good lah. better than nutting... heehee... hooked on with the gears, off we went on to the white water for our rafting adventure!

tat is me on the extreme left hand side... juz in case u cannot see me... & next to me r the couple from Brisbane & far right hand side r the 2 sporeans living and working in Sydney, at the back is our instructor....

rafters in action! we juz braced thru a rapid... can u locate where am i? juz to say.. i am not the one at the far end with the hand high up and mouth open hor... heehee...

tiring day... ended with fun and laughter cos i met some familiar faces for coffee chill out. yeahz! Isaac was in NZ with his bro from spore and his fren who is studying in NZ. heehee... they had a hard time trying to convince me not to have coffee but i insisted. his fren wanna go back to hostel cos is too cold but i insisted we muz go have coffee. hahaha.. i noe i am trying to be irritating and tat is not very nice to someone whom i met for 1st time ah. but is okay lah, all youngsters mah, can take such jokes and laughter ah. heehee... well, Isaac still considered as fren lah... willing to listen to my nonsense and at the end still got 2 of them to send me back to my hostel together. whahaha... lucky he still got ren xing lor... if not, hmph~!!! hahaha... anyway, as i said, is always nice to see some familiar faces in foreign land ah... :D

Day 12 - 5th day in Queenstown

today is skiing day! up to the Remarkables ski field for a day of skiing (tips: a day of skiing is not enough! muz go for at least 3 days or 5 days if u wanna master the skill of skiing. me juz go for a try cos i dun have enough time to go for 2nd day or 3rd day. i will go for more skiing in future...) is really good experience... but i had a price to pay. i got abrasion cut on both small thighs as the ski boots r juz too power for my legs ah... whahaha... no lah, i din prepare long socks, tats' y...

Me in my skiing gear... nice? tat pair of pink gloves is from Chee Wei. heehee... finally, i can show off in public! yeahz!!! who say i dun have items in pink? hmph~

see tat line of pple in the middle... they r travelling on the "magic carpet" to get onto a higher ground...

i reckon is a good day to ski cos the sun is shining bright on us & the weather is juz good... with warm and frenly and VERY HANDSOME ski instructor (no photos ah! argh~), i enjoyed my skiing very very much!!!

have a rest before going on.. here r 4 guys who r resting with their snowboards on... snowboarding seems fun too... heehee..

Me @ the Remarkables Ski Field... nice view..

see tat line of tings... do u noe wat r they? heehe...

here u r... these r chair lifts bringing pple up to a higher ground so tat they can ski all the way down... woohoo... i din go on tat cos i was only beginner lor... :D

the sun is on me! i like it... cold and warm... good combination...

on the way down from the mountain, we saw Queenstown Airport.. heehee.. small small one with only 1 run way...

Day 13 - 6th day in Queenstown - Day excursion to Wanaka, Puzzling World...

is a wet wet day as it was snowing for the whole day... upon reaching Wanaka visitor centre, i had to walk abt 2km to the puzzling world under the snow.. well, juz walk lah since i am here liao... heehee...

along the way, i saw pple's front yard covered with snow.... is freaking cold~ brrrr...

how long more to go?? mmm... along the way, i was trying to avoid puddle of ice water and melting snow to prevent myself from slip and fall ah... it was damn funny how i had to walk sideway, left, rite to do all these. whahaha...

finally! i reached puzzling world! woohoo~~~ ready for the illusion world and world of puzzle...

the unique landmark of puzzling world... if i have 2 pple with me, i can show u the effect. it can be show as if u r pushing the tower down on the 2nd person standing below the tower. hahaha...

how many animals can u see on tis picture? mmm...

heehee... i din fall even with such position ohhh... y leh? miracle leh...

how come the swing can stand so still?? mmm...

mind u ah... water is flowing uphill... whahahaha...

these faces of famous pple r following me thru the room... eerie ah? no ah... is illusion...

is juz 1 piece of aluminium... so how did they do it? dun ask me... i am clueless... they din explain either... haha...

from outside, tis is a normal room... but...

when i am inside... i nearly knocked my head at the left handside of the room & cannot touch the ceiling at the right handside of the room... y ah? illusion again..

olden days... Roman style toilet... cannot be used now liao lah... proper toilet inside... but..

isn't the toilet seater cover nice? very innovative ah... hahaha... mind u ah, i din go and use the toilet. i juz go and take photos ah... whahaha...

the Great Maze! it took me abt 1 and a half hour to finish it and find my way to the exit. i tot of giving up half way but i am not willing to. bu gan yuan ah! there r pple who gave up and went to the emergency exit instead but i dun wanna ah! i noe i will solve it and get to the exit eventually. under the cold and harsh and slippery condition.. i finally did it! (shall bring tis spirit to my studies hor... stubborn and persistance!)

at the end, i was all wet and cold... but is worth it! look @ the smile on my face! when i finally got to the exit! hurray~!!!

my last nite in Queenstown... so i decided to pamper myself... haha... no cooking tonight, i shall eat out! decide to have Thai food... tis is the Tom Yum Soup... yummy~!!!