So yea, Day 1 wasn't really a day spent in New Zealand. Most of that day would have probably been spent by us at home trying to figure if we'd forgotten anything essential that we have to bring along for the trip, or maybe some of us were getting as much rest as possible so that the arrival there wouldn't be so gloomy. And we gathered at the airport! Dionna was LATE by an hour but it was OK as we started with stuff only slightly before the time she came, which was at 7. Haha. We kissed our loved ones goodbye. Real emotional moment o.O And we went into the departure hall. That was the moment where the 'Guys on the left, girls on the right' thing began. Haha. We took a few group photos. It was a few photos of the same thing =_=
And then the dancers were shocked by what Mdm Ernie said next. "Dancers, follow me, we're gonna practice at Burger King" =O Luckily, only some girls rehearsed some stuff with only their hands. *Whew*
Waiting at the gate was another test of our patience. While Mdm Ernie And Mr Chew was busy planning dunno what, the students were quite well-behaved *clap clap* , leaving the teachers hassle-free (:
And since Mdm Ernie appointed me as the photographer, I took more pictures.
and there's some from WENYI too~ 
And when the gate finally opened, we were more than ready to get into the plane!
You might not be able to make out what's in the next picture. It's Singapore from the plane window.
But not everyone managed to sleep the whole time. One great example is me. Haha, so I watched movies or listened to songs. KrisWorld entertainment is great! I could find Sara Bareilles' album there. I'm her fan! Heehee. The window view was great...and boring. the landscapes changed, but VERY VERY slowly. 
I played multiplayer mahjong with sharil for 2 hours. Don't mess with him, he's quite skilled at it. Next, touch down. We reached NEW ZEALAND, yo!
Our guide, Jess found us, and took us to the coach, where she formally introduced herself. It was roughly 11 o'clock and we were headed for Green Bay High School.
Still remember the she said we were going to have pizza for lunch? We were scammed. Haha. And most of us didn't realise it. Arrival at Green Bay High School. The first thing was, the teacher welcomed us, and we had lunch. Lunch was garlic breads, strawberries, sushi-s(which I'm allergic to) and orange juice.
I confess that I didn't take this picture above on the second day. I missed it that day =x 
We went into a classroom after lunch. In it were our buddies for that day. We went in and each picked a seat. Beside each seat was a pupil. And we cross-introduced. 
With that, our buddies took us to a tour around the school campus. I have to admit that my buddy was very very very quiet. In fact, i was the one keeping the conversation going. He tried to avoid me as much as possible =_= but others like Wenyi was very fortunate to have gotten a more spontaneous one.
We were headed to Mount Eden after that. Mount Eden is actually an extinct volcano, and it has this super huge crater right at the top. What's best is that the view of Auckland from the top of Mount Eden is just fantastically breath-taking!
After that, we went to do some shopping at the CBD of Auckland. 
That was before we checked into our accommodation for that night. Empire Apartments!
The lifts there were super idiotic. You had to tap your card before the buttons of your floor can be pressed. Me, Sharil and William didn't know that and let Terence go up first with the card. Stupid us -.- And when we found out, we had already hitched a ride to the 10th floor. Whilst cursing ourselves, we climbed up 7 storeys by stairs. It was a very painful experience as I had my luggage, backpack, a plastic bag with things that Ernest, Xueli and I had bought, and the laptop. OUCH. And we had to wait for the arrival of Terence before we could shove our physical worries aside and have a short break before going down to the cafe for dinner. We were debriefed by Jess after our dinner, and it was free and easy for that night.
Free and easy until Mdm Ernie told me to do the vodcast thing for this blog. Zzz. After being stressed till 11 pm, it was real free and easy time. A group of us went to have supper. Sharil, Terence, William, Lynn Ng, Xueli, Ernest and me. 
And I have a confession to make. We played till very late at night, but it was just damn fun, with all the coffee, tea, creamer and sugar packets used in place of money to gamble. It made stakes virtually higher. And we played those kinds of card games that had forfeits like drinking super concentrated kopi O or teh O. Haha. Amazingly, the people in my room were the first to get our luggages in the bus. Cool, eh? And I finally got the internet thing and went up to update this blog. The next place to be at was Green Bay High School again. And we went to attend the Maori language class. That lesson was special as it was used for welcoming us into the Marae. 
We were hongi-ed. It's the traditional Maori way of greeting.
After the welcoming ceremony, we each got a buddy and went next door for refreshments. And we went back to the Marae for some story telling. One of the students there told us the story about how the North island of New Zealand was formed. Next was volunteers Dionna and Wenyi's turn. They told of how Singapore got it's name, making us laugh at the same time. The next moment would be one of my favourites. It's PUKANA time! Pukana is actually an action where you open your eyes widely and stick out your tongue. It was used in wars to scare enemies away. Now, it's the name of the game.
I (in fact, not only me) realised that in the Maori language, there are words or phrases that may sound wrong to us. Haha, but we must remember that we should respect other people's languages. They might find Chinese or Malay weird too. Next was cultural arts time. They sang and dance a few songs, and it we did the zapin. Then, we taught them the zapin. Wow!
What followed was we being taken to each of our buddy's normal lessons. The first period was form class. They don't have a fixed classroom where teachers come and go. It's the polytechnic style, where students do the walking. Following form class, there was morning tea. My buddy took me to the basketball court, and I played basketball with some of the students. Their style of playing differed much from Singapore's. My buddy's name was Tamihana, and his second period was something similar to our 'Step-up' program. Cool guy. Some of Wenyi's pictures.
For the third period, Manjusrians were re-united at the gym, which I already was at for the period before. Scheduled for us was a PE lesson with class 1001. The first activity was hockey. Ernest, Peiying and I went to form a group with some Green Bay students. And we won the first 2 games. (I scored for both games, that's why. Wahaha!) And no one scored for the third. A moment of rest, and we were back another time. This time, Peiying scored, giving us another opportunity to play. It felt pretty much like playing basketball in Qingdao. No perspiration, but I lose my breath quickly. After hockey, we had some sort of basketball race. Chengguan and Melita got injured when they knocked into each other comically. I was laughing my head off. I'm so bad =x
Lunch! Our pizza was compensated. But it was late, so we missed the 4th period and had lunch instead. Everyone's buddies remembered to come to the International Room, whereas mine forgot -.- so everyone got to give a last note whereas I didn't -.- Sad huh? Pizza was delicious.
We have to thank our hosts for that. The teacher is the one in charge of international students at Green Bay High School, and those 2 girls are the ones who helped out with out meals.
And with that, goodbye Green Bay High. Our next destination was where we were going to sleep for the night. The place was called Pacific Park, and it was sort of like a chalet. It's located in Tauranga, a 3 hour bus journey away from Auckland. Tauranga was also where Paul lived. By the way, Paul's our friendly bus driver. The bus journey was a very boring one. We were driven past many farms and plantations. So Sharil, Ernest and I did something stupid. We compared who's gang was the largest. Sharil's gang consisted of horses, Ernest's consisted of sheep, and mine were made up of cows. You can't blame us, we were bored. Along the way, we stopped at a river where mining operations once took place. there were still structures there. The operations were polluting the river and killing every living thing that lived in, on, under, beside and by the river. After operations ceased, the river was restored and is beautiful and healthy. 
Ernest had the lead for a few moments -.-
So, arrival. We were assigned rooms, and it was dinner time. 
When dinner was over, we had a lesson about the 2 types of volcanic eruption. The super violent one,
& the passive, easy-going one.
The night was free and easy. Many of us played. In my room, we can't stop playing the pukana game as our version was just so hilarious. Rated NC15. We played till around 2, without realising it. The next morning, we were greeted with breakfast. Ernest did a nice pose for me.
We were headed for Kiwi 360 after breakfast. Learnt a great deal about kiwi fruits. They originated from China, where it was a wild bush fruit. It really well in New Zealand because there were plenty of water, fertile soil, and sunlight. Bay of Plenty, remember? And, kiwis are insect-pollinated fruit, so they needed bees to be around in the plantation, and thus, the artificial bee hives at the 5th photo below.
Kiwi 360 was shopping opportunity No. 2. Next in line was Blokarting, a short bus ride away. We reached that place early, so we sat down and did our worksheets. Only 9 people could race at one time, so the rest had various forms of entertainment. I took volleyball. So, a few of us went to the volleyball court. It could be counted as a new experience? I felt that volleyball was more fun to play there. Haha. Blokarting was thrilling, especially when the whole thing is about to flip over. I was wondering whether I should flip over, because I probably would never get another chance at the Blokart. In the end, I didn't. Couldn't resist another game of Pukana after the whole thing.
Bus journey to a place called Fresh Fish Market. We had the local fish and chips for lunch. It was right beside the sea, so it was quite cool. The bus journey was another debative one, because I won Sharil and Ernest. Those are COWS!
The next part of the journey involved getting our hands and feet dirty. We went to an estuary.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/estuary: estuary = that part of the mouth or lower course of a river in which the river's current meets the sea's tide.
We did a cockle survey there. We didn't survey the cockles, but instead, we dug for cockles to survey the health of the estuary. Cool stuff.
We could see Mount Maurangi from the estuary. We put the cockles back the way we found them, and took another short bus journey to the beach facing the other side of Mount Maurangi. There, we profiled the beach, measuring gradients every 5 metres by comparing 2 heights and the horizon. The beach, like every one, was a windy place. New Zealand was cold to us Singaporeans. Our beaches, to us, have a shiok, windy temperature. To the New Zealanders, who are used to the cold, the beach is a place that has that shiok, windy temperature, which almost froze me to death -.-
And in case you were wondering, this, is Mount Maurangi. We climbed it to a nice spot, not to the peak. From there, we had a lecture about the surrounding areas. I was a bit tired, and plus the strong wind, I almost got blown off where I was sitting.
We headed back to Pacific Park for dinner. Jess wanted to let us use the facilities there. There was the trampoline and the warm pool (jacuzzi, I think). We played the trampoline for awhile before getting bored, then a lot of us gathered at the jacuzzi and played the pukana game -.- then Dionna went into the pool and got herself all wet. Others started joining in, while some fled before they were dragged into the pool. Some, like me. Haha. Mr Chew and the other guys from the other chalet did punishments for reporting late that morning. Then, it was debrief time. A VERY long one. It lasted around 1 hour. After that, all hell broke loose. I went to Mr Chew's game of daidi. Very difficult game, because we had to do the number of pumpings that were equivalent to the sum of numbers of the cards we ended up with. Mr Chew still owed 20 till the next day. Shows that he wasn't that good at the game afterall. Haha. There was a pukana game going on in my room again. I was tired and slept at around 11. For whatever reason, I woke up at around 1 and found that they were still playing -.- then I went back to sleep.The next morning, we were supposed to check out of Pacific Park. So, everyone cleaned everywhere up. William did his job really hard, really well.
Then, we went for lunch somewhere near, downhill. After lunch, we visited an animal farm. Don't expect it to be something like the farms at Seletar or Pasir Ris. The farm had SPACE. LOADS AND LOADS OF SPACE, and so, there was a great variety of animals present. It was a simply unbelievable thing. We grabbed bags of corn and followed the guide around the farm, feeding the animals. I started by feeding the horse. When the others fed the horse, it used its lips to get the corn. I'm so unlucky, because when I fed it, it covered my whole palm with its mouth. The result? Saliva replaced the corn. That was enough saliva for a day, and it was also the reason I put the corn on the ground instead of feeding it directly to the other animals.
We droppped by to the McLaren Falls Park next, where the McLaren fall was located. Nothing to do with Formula 1 racing. The river leading to the falls had many giant stones around, formed by a volcanic eruption long ago. We were supposed to be there to study about potholes, which were in abundance. Potholes, according to our textbook, are formed by attrition. Or was it abrasion? Haha. Gotta check it out again.
The first activity that we participated in would be the welcoming ceremony in the Marae. They did a mini cultural performance for us. Many nice songs. One of them caught my attention. It was none other than Po Karikari Ana, the love song. I realised that I heard it before, in primary school. And it's so cool to hear it directly from the tribe! Their Marae, by the way, was much larger than that of Green Bay High's.
And we were welcomed. Yay. Anita took us to a short tour around, showing us the Maori method of cooking in that village. They made good use of what they had in the village. They had pools of hot water. Very hot water. And they put their food in bags and dipped it into the pools. We were given eggs that were cooked that way to try. It was said that the favouring of the foods are actually enhanced, rather than being lost in microwave ovens. Their second method is just like a microwave oven. Photos would show you.
You'll get burnt to death if you fall into the pools. Haha. As we walked on, we entered a compound where it was too unsafe to build houses. Only plants and pools of hot mud were present, and there was a large body of water too. A lake, I think. Cool place.
We had our dinner, then Anita took us to see the geysers. And praise the Lord, the geysers were playing! So there was this spectacular scene when super hot water was shooting out of the ground. Anita said that there used to be more of them, but there are only 2 main ones now, because the energy that other geysers provided were used for construction nearby. Those 2 main last ones are being protected I think.
It wasn't a very close view, but it was good enough. How many times in our lives do we actually get to see an active geyser? Especially when we live in busy Singapore where there is no such thing. We washed up before going to sleep. Because of the warm underground, it was very surprising that there was no hot water in the bathroom. You either had to tolerate the temperature, or tolerate your dirty body. Sleeping in the Marae was quite comfortable despite only having thin matresses, a pillow, and a thick blanket. Has to be the holy-ness of the place. I had a very good night's rest. The next morning, we packed our stuff and had breakfast at Neds Cafe, the food outlet nearest to the Marae. The food was cooked the special way too. We were brought to sort of an amphitheatre and were seated down. There, Anita showed to us some basic Maori flax weaving. Flax is a grass like plant with strong leaves that grow to around 2 metres tall. The leaves look like pandan leaves, just that it's bigger, stronger, and more fibrous. When removing the leaves of flax for weaving, the Maori belief is that we must leave the inner leaves remaining, as it represents a family: father, mother and child. The innermost leaf is the child and we should not cut it so that the plant can continue growing peoperly. I think it's like that. correct me if I'm wrong? Haha. Next, we were taught how to make a rose. Each of us produced one. It wasn't easy! And it was only the very basics of flax weaving. =O
OK, so my rose wasn't that nice. It couldn't be brought onto a plane, so Anita kept our roses. She had a lovely bunch of it when we were done. She said that she would keep it with her forever to remember us, and that she would dye each rose a different colour and put it together in a vase. How sweet! =D It was soon time to leave. There was this unbearable feeling in me. It was the 6th day of the trip, and the last day too. How time passes so quickly. We rearranged the Marae so that it was the same as when we first stepped in. Then, we bade farewell, with a few gifts to Anita to express our gratitudes for her excellent hospitality.
The next place we were headed to was the Skyride Skyliner, also at Rotorua, to have a go at the luge. There's also one at Sentosa, but that one wouldn't give any kicks, not when you've tried the one at Rotorua. It's like, on a mountain top and we have to ride gondolas (cable cars) up. There's the Intermediate track and the Advanced one. We grabbed our helmets and queued up for our turns. Everyone had to take the Intermediate first as it was our first ride there. It was quite dangerous if you didn't steer properly. I didn't really care about my speed. I just went down all the way, overtaking several people. Haha. What a dangerous driver I am. Same for the advanced course, but the advanced course was much more exciting. After riding, we had to sit in this thing that would bring us up. There was only a seat and a safety bar. I don't really know how to describe it, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.
We left the luge for a beach to have lunch. We headed back to Auckland, where we had an opportunity to shop at this big shopping place. It was like one whole sheltered Orchard Road. Haha. Dinner was at Nandos. There, Jess gave sort of a goodbye speech, and some 'prizes'. I got one, because she dropped my camera. Haha. Everyone ended up having one. Win-win situation. And due to some excess time, we went to this place to play miniature golf.
We played till dark, and then went to the petrol station opposite to get a drink. It was our last moments in New Zealand, a country that most of us, if not all of us had never been to before, and it was ending just like that. At the aiport, we said goodbye to Jess and Paul. They had been very good ambassadors of their country, and we truly appreciate it. Some last moments..
And into the plane we went, back to the island we call home. This New Zealand trip has been one of my greatest times overseas, and in Manjusri, I am really grateful for the opportunities that abound. My heart feels very heavy now, after all this re-embracing. Thank you Jess, thank you Paul! Let's have some random photos uploaded too.. All taken during the trip. I still can't fix the Mount Eden bright photo.. Haha.
Remember to hand in your reflection on 5/12!! Haha. Phew. I took a few days for this. My fingers hurt already~
-junlin =x
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