NZ-OZ Trip: Auckland - Wintergarden, Parnell

Just few hundred meters from War Memorial Museum of Auckland, there is Wintergarden. Being designed in 1920s, it is consists of 2 Victorian style glass houses and one quarry at the rear.
One glass house shows tropical plants, and the other glass house shows seasonal plants. I didn't go in to the quarry as it fills with wide variety of ferns, and frankly, I'm only interested in flowers and sometimes fruit plants.

A short walk from Auckland Domain (where the museum and Wintergarden are), there is Parnell Road and it's a good place to take a walk. There are restaurants, cafes, galleries, etc, and also rows of houses made of wood. There is also St. Mary's Cathedral, which is just beautiful. It was the first time for me to see a large wooden church, and it is really a beauty.

Selwyn Library

Apple store housed in an actual house building

NZ-OZ Trip - Auckland War Memorial Museum

War Memorial Museum, Auckland

Though the name is War Memorial Museum, this museum also covers other stuff, like history of New Zealand (including Maori people and culture), wild life, Asian culture, etc.
There are 2 entrances, the one near Wintergarden and the other one close to Parnell area.
I came in from the latter entrance, and welcome by a spacious atrium with souvenir shop and cafe.

The souvenir shop offers wide range of postcards, and it also sells stamps, with the postbox right next to the entrance. Convenient for those who likes sending postcards like me :)

Here some pictures of the museum:

This kid is so brave. He opened each drawer filled with all kinds of insects and practically stared at each of them! I myself had to stay at a safe distance...

At the war memorial, the walls are filled with panels of names of those died in the wars, except for one. One would wonder why there's one panel with no names, until their sight goes to the writing at the bottom.

New Singapore Attraction: Haze

After a few days of haze, I would have thought that there would be lesser and lesser as the time passes by, but I was totally wrong.
Monday (17 June) was worse as PSI hit 111 (unhealthy level), and again I thought it couldn't have been worse. But I was soooo wrong...

Today I went out to do some errands, and I got teary eyes, and trouble breathing since the smell of burning wood was just so strong. All around me was covered with smog which at quick glance, people might have thought it was just a mist, til they notice the faint shape of skyscrapers and realized 'hey, this is Singapore, there's no mist here!', then the smell of burning wood just wakes the sense out of them.

Chinatown

Chinatown

Then when I was waiting for bus at Bugis, I looked up the sky and there it was, a faint color of blue... which got me thinking that today could have been a bright and good day if only the haze hadn't worsened.

Bugis

Anyway, I was glad when I finally reached home. I then took a shower to wash the burning smell off my skin. Once my laptop was booted up, I found news that today, PSI hit another new high, 172 at 3 PM. Sigh...
From wikipedia, the highest 3 hour PSI ever recorded was 226 in 1997.

From the news, Indonesia government said that they had the water dropping aircraft ready if the local governor ever made a request. This kinda puzzles me. Can they do some checking instead of waiting for any request from local governor??? It is obviously bad enough as the haze already affects their neighboring countries greatly. Can they leave their as*** off their comfy chair and actually do some work that could help improving the situation???
Another ridiculous remark from a ministry official of Indonesia, he shifted the blame to Singapore and Malaysia, saying that it is their palm oil companies that impose slash-and-burn method to clear the forest with minimal cost/effort. This really baffles me. Was he trying to say that the government was sooo weak and powerless to actually enforce their authority??? It is on their power to investigate or even sue or forbid those companies from doing such thing, but the fact that they still do it anyway, it means that they are given permissions to do so, and by who? Hmmm.. one can only wonder...


Well, enough ranting for today, it's time to show some beauty! I got some batiks from Indonesia that I want to show off!

Aren't they pretty?!?
I can't wait to make something out of them!

NZ-OZ Trip - Arrival at Auckland, Mercure Hotel

My vacation was started with a very interesting incident.
It actually could be considered darn annoying, however surprisingly, I felt light and took it very easy.

My flight to Auckland wasn't a direct one as there was a few hours layover in Sydney. The first flight was Qantas, and I have no complaint about it. The second one was LAN, and I have one very strong complaint. The lunch was AWFUL! A bun, with very cold cheese and ham in it. It was a huge difference from what I had on my first flight. But no, this is not the incident I wanted to talk about.

Upon landing, as everyone do, I went to luggage carousel to get my baggage.

So I waited... and waited... and waited... and after maybe 30 mins of waiting and the luggage on the carousel was getting scarce, I had a suspicion that maybe something happened with my baggage. There was another girl waiting for her baggage. We shared concern that maybe we should ask someone, and off she went to lost and found (or is it baggage service room? I can't remember...). I waited for another few minutes before I also headed to the room I saw that girl went in.
A very nice lady checked our luggage whereabouts in her computer, and it turned out that my luggage was on its way to Auckland and it would only arrive in 2 hours, and the other girl's was still stranded in London...

So, the nice lady helped filing in report for the other girl, and it turned out that her first name is the same as mine!! what a very strange coincidence, right!?!

Then, since the nice lady assured me that it would be better if I left now and had my luggage delivered later tonight, so I left the airport after giving the details of my luggage content to the custom officer and also my luggage padlock code.

I was fully aware that I should at least feel a little bit annoyed about the whole delayed luggage thing, but surprisingly, I wasn't annoyed at all. I believed that everything would be alright. The luggage wasn't missing, it was delayed and it made a whole lot different. It would come back to me soon enough, and at my hotel, I was sure toiletries were provided, and I had my toothbrush with me, so I could manage for another few hours until my luggage was delivered to me. If anything, I felt like a heavy burden (literally!) was lifted upon me. I didn't have to haul 17 kgs luggage me all the way from airport to hotel. All I had to carry was my backpack and it weighed less than 5 kgs!
*Though in the end, I only got my luggage the next morning, I can't say that it affected my mood at all. 
**By the way, I almost lost my passport at the airport too due to my stupid clumsiness. I truly thank the information uncle who patiently advised me on what to do (and again asked if I got my passport back when I passed by his counter on my way out), the custom officer who seemed to think the passport incident amusing since he kinda held back a smile throughout explaining where I should go to get my passport, and Air New Zealand baggage officers for keeping my passport when I stupidly left on her table, and passed it back to me without anything but a smile. 

So then, I took Airbus to CBD area, and it stopped at a bus stop near Mercure Hotel at Custom East Street. I found a deal from Wotif - 2 nights get 1 night free - and considering its nice location in CBD, I just had to take it and I was glad I did.

The hotel is definitely not new, but it's decent enough to stay for a few days.
The location is very good. Close to Ferry Building and Britomart Train Station. Bus stop is practically right at the door. And it is also one of the hotels in hotel pick-up list of many local tours. There are a lot of eating places around the hotel, and Esquire Coffee is right across the street. Shopping street - Queen Street is only few seconds walk from the door.
The receptionists were very helpful and friendly - the check in took only few minutes without any hassle; when I had a problem with my television, they responded quickly, and this I truly appreciate.
The room was clean and big, though tired. I got a room with 2 single beds, with a view of Custom East Street. Bathroom was a little aged, but clean.

Here is some photos of the room and surroundings.

Ferry Building

Britomart Station

Recent Updates: Rainbow in Purwokerto, Jakarta National Monument, Singapore Haze

Things have been quite hectic since I'm back from my looooong vacation in New Zealand and Australia... God knows I haven't even posted anything about my trip and it's been more than a month! And so I promise myself to start posting this week. However, I do have several updates on my last trip to my hometown.

I came from a small town in Central Java, Indonesia. Though I have not been living there for almost 14 years, I do frequent trips to visit my family. Just as everyone living far away from their family, no matter how busy our life is, we still have to remember that we do have obligations and duties as a daughter (or son), sister (or brother), aunt (or uncle), cousins, niece (or nephew), etc. And I'm a firm believer that family comes first, thus every year, I go back to my hometown for at least 3-4 times and stay for at least a week. So since I am currently no longer bound by strict office hour and limited number of leaves, I spent 3 weeks visiting my family since late May until last Friday.

My hometown is indeed a small town, named Purwokerto. It takes around 5 hour train ride or 7-8 hour car ride from Jakarta. Though it is still a place where people still know their neighbors; there's a lot of small warung, street food stall; and becak is still operating and well used by everyone; now it's rare to see paddy fields in central town area compared to 20 years ago; old houses are torn down and replaced by ugly minimalist shophouses; while my street was a quiet one and it took no problem to go across the street, now it is terribly noisy and difficult to cross. I remember saying to my mom that I miss the 'old' Purwokerto...

Since I know have a new habit to look at the sky and admire how beautiful the blue sky accompanied by clouds with many shades of white, I was disappointed that the sky was always cloudy throughout my stay. But on one afternoon, I was chatting with my niece when I suddenly noticed, there was a rainbow across the sky!

The photo might not do justice, but I assure you, it was beautiful :)
Especially since the sky was so grey, and the rainbow kinda signified a beauty that could come out from such dark and gloomy surroundings, that somehow it gives hope that there's always a silver lining in every situation that we may deem bad (maybe I'm being a little bit poetic here...)

Then, on my journey back to Singapore, I took a train to Jakarta, and continued with a bus to airport. The train station is right next to National Monument, and when the bus passed by it, I was surprised to see that the National Monument park looked maintained and even rather beautiful (by Indonesian standard). I just said to myself that I had to take a picture of it.

When I arrived at Singapore, another surprise waited for me. Singapore haze is back!!
I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I looked out from my plane window and saw how foggy Singapore was. In taxi on my way home, I was feeling strange to see how hazy it was. And not after browsing, I found news that Singapore is indeed 'under attack' by haze. I'm not proud to say that my beloved country is the cause of it...

On Saturday, it was actually clearer, but by Sunday night, I was in my room when I smelled something burning. I looked around my room for a few seconds before I realized that the smell came from the haze. Today, I could straightaway smell the smoke when I got out of my room in the morning. And by late afternoon, it got worse...

view from my house

The news doesn't look promising either. There's even a blame game played by officials of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, sigh... I can only hope the haze will be clearer in days ahead, though I will not get my hopes up either... :(

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On a side note, I went to Beer Fest Asia 2013 in Marina Promenade last Saturday and I had a blast!
Killer Queen was performing and boy, they do still have their magic!

I first saw them in Beer Fest 2011, and they turned me to a fan overnight. When I heard that they were having a show in Timbre in December 2011, I went with a group of friend and I wasn't disappointed. So when I learned that they would perform in this year Beer Fest, I knew I just had to go.

This time I managed to stand very close to the stage and I truly enjoyed every song they performed. The crowd was so full of fun, and one memorable moment is when 'Freddie Mercury' went to backstage to change costume right in the Opera part of Bohemian Rhapsody, the whole audience sang along the whole part without stopping until he came back to stage to finish the song. It.. was.. AWESOME!

Killer Queen, I'll see you at your next gig in Singapore!