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NZ 2015: The beginning
posted : Saturday, January 02, 2016
Had been talking about going for a trip to NZ for a while but it wasn't until CNY 2015 before we really set our mind on it over a small gathering.
Some pre-trip info: Original group was supposed to include Kheun...but girl cancelled on us after realizing she has more commitments than she remember. So she found us a substitute in Beh, but she couldn't commit early on coz of her uncertain schedule given that she just started a new job. We went ahead and bought tickets in April without her, and eventually by August she confirmed that she can't join us either and we ended up in a group of three. Got the route settled in about September, taking reference from Pei Lyn's grad trip with the RH gang few years ago coz it made most sense hahaha. Then broke it up into three parts and each of us took care of one part.
Two week trip started on 2 Nov! In hindsight probably not the best time to take leave oops coz my new staff just joined a week earlier and I barely get to train him much but thank goodness he is in Shahiful's good hands. And my new covering officer XF happened to be taking leave during the same period, approved earlier when she wasn't covering me yet which meant that Nora had to handle all three teams. Oh well. Did my part by delegating some of the admin work to DY so as to not overload her.
As usual, the mad race to the end and left office later than I intended. Met up with the other two in airport, had dinner, and off we go!
All set to go!
10 hour flight @.@. My longest flight ever. I think that the fact that it's SQ helps a lot, with the in-flight entertainment and comfort - even then, it was a bit uncomfortable for me and I got restless especially for the return flight. More on that later. Chris and Sam were pretty excited planning which movies to watch. I was hoping to catch some sleep. So much so that the night before I actually slept at 3am so as to tire myself out.
Should have known that it never works. Oh well.
Oh look there's a menu. Haven't seen one on a flight in ages.
Dinner menu for the SG-CHCH flight.
Not featured: the ice cream!
After a couple of modern family episodes and a documentary...brushed teeth and began attempt to sleep. (A bit suaku but I wowed at the fact that they provide toothbrush set lol). I think I managed to clock like 2-3 hours of restless sleep FML. Chris was having trouble too and at one point when we both were awake I was like, "how ah die alr...Who to take the first drive tomorrow?" Sam managed way better than us I think.
Air stewards and stewardess don't get to rest throughout I think. They were just busy serving meal after meal. Even when most people are sleeping they move around trying to pass out snacks like sandwich etc. Which we decided to tapao hahah.
Eventually gave up and just waited out the remainder of the flight.
Breakfast menu!
Yay yoghurt!
Landed at Christchurch at about 10.30 in the morning. Again, pretty small airport which just reminds us how spoiled we are by Changi and KLIA etc. NZ customs are pretty strict too, comparable to Australia, and Chris got stopped for what they suspected as "organic material" which they couldn't find in the end (we suspected it's a bar of soap). And we had to discard all the snacks we tapao-ed from the flight sigh. 
Kia ora! Pretty cool weather, me likey.
Caught a 5 minute shuttle bus ride to our car rental depot. Knowing that it's a road trip..one of the first things we settled was renting a car which was really hassle free actually. Compared prices, settled for Apex eventually and a Ford Focus, which was advertised as enough for 3 big + 2 regular sized luggages in the boot. Uh...my foot. All we managed was two big luggages (mine and Sam's) and we had to remove one part of the separator (duno what you call it but just know we have to improvise a bit) to fit in Chris' stuff, and the rest (backpacks) went into the backseat along with the person sitting behind. Lol. Which left us with a running joke that we can never pick up any hitchhikers not because of security reasons, but because we genuinely don't have space hahaha. And secretly thankful there's only three of us coz the 4th person wouldn't have fit. Price wise it's pretty decent at about 660 for 14 days of rental. 
Our little red car.
Plan was to head to Christchurch city first to buy groceries coz our first destination - Punakaiki - is kinda ulu with no supermarkets or petrol station or food places around. Only that we didn't know where exactly to go so with the help of mighty google maps, we found this place called Pak n Save. Which turned out to be heaven lolol coz things were so cheap and we nearly got carried away.
"Oh, can buy this, we can eat in the car"
"Oh, we can have this for breakfast"
Bought quite a bit haha. Turns out we never get to finish some of the stuff :/ Stopped at a random mall after that to get lunch before leaving Christchurch.
Random street scene. Actually it's to show how many aspects they use for a single approach at a junction, really overkill. #θδΈη
Oh yea and thankfully we came from a country which drives on the same side of the road as NZ. Otherwise in our mental condition I don't think we would be able to keep to the correct side often.
Bye Christchurch! See ya in about 10 days.
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