On this last day of my birthday month that happens to also be in pay week, I indulged myself in a bit of online shopping. My random surfing brought me to ASOS - The Online Fashion Store. And omg. I couldn't stop adding stuff to my shopping bag! Here are some of my favourites below.
First I had a look at the dresses clearance section. I have shortlisted four and ranked them below in order of preference. I have all of them waiting to be checked out for delivery except for the purple one which was out of my size. They are all going at >50% discount!
Prophecy Gathered Bandeau Dress - Teal
Prophecy Draped Embellished Dress - Purple
Freesoul Abstract Stripe Strapless Dress - Black
One Teaspoon Freelove Maxi Dress - Smokey Quartz
Then I ventured on to the other sections and discovered all these cute Wellies. I've long made known my love for such gum boots and seeing these selling at half price at only 37 USD each is making it very difficult for me to resist adding them to my shopping bag. The strong AUD now - almost on par with the USD - is also not helping much in my quest to save some money for other more important things.
Left to right:
- Cath Kidston Mini Dot Shine Wellington Boots
- Cath Kidston Spring Wellington Boots
- Cath Kidston Stanley Dog Welligton Boots (this is the cutest! It has these little bones and doggies in red vests all over.)
I discovered more and more bargains the more I explored the site.
Left to right:
- London Rebel Buckle Boots
- Jonathan Aston Leopard Print Hold-Ups
- Pleasure State VIP Eva Silk Satin Mosaic Print Midi Brief
Ok. The plan now is to log out of the site and sleep on it for a night or two. If I still feel as strongly then about the items in my shopping bag, I'll buy them. Otherwise, I'll just save that money for other more important stuff than clothes, shoes and accessories.
clearance on asos
nz day 5: craters of the moon
Read:
- 'NZ Day 1' here
- 'NZ Day 2' here, here and here
- 'NZ Day 3' here
- 'NZ Day 4' here and here
On our last day in NZ (we were due to fly out before sunrise the next morning), we took some time to explore the main town of Taupo. It was surprisingly huge with many interesting shops. I was initially half expecting it to be like another Wagga Wagga but it turned out to be a lot more hip! Breakfast was heavenly at the Bodyfuel Cafe on Tongariro St. I had something really interesting - a baked tuna risotto patty and two poached eggs in a homemade hollandaise sauce. And coffee was so good I slurped down two in a row.
Somehow we found ourselves in a Pumpkin Patch shop where we spent at least an hour in. For the ignorant, it's actually a chain carrying premium kids clothing. It all started with Van wanting to get some baby clothes for her newborn niece in Singapore until we spotted a teens section. That was when we promptly forgot about the baby and went about tending to our own retail cravings as a matter of priority. There was a mega up to 60% sale going on and I got myself a colourful striped jersey, a purple long knit cardigan and a pair of hot pink tights for like fifty bucks. Below, you'll see us all decked out in our new garb, colour coordinated, as we went on to our next destination the Honey Hive where we spent at least two hours browsing through and purchasing Manuka honey, royal jelly, honey skin products and more. It felt like one of those trips I used to go on with Mum, Granny and Aunts where the focus of the holiday was to purchase as much local specialty foodstuff as possible.
Left: My cool new long cardi has two very convenient pockets for emergencies like storing half-eaten apples.
Right: The purple puff girls rawk!
Due to the lack of time, we had to can our plans to drive up further north to Rotorua and end our Taupo exploration at Craters of the Moon before embarking on the long drive down south. We did the full 45min thermal walk where we fully immersed ourselves in the sulphuric fumes spewing out of the ground, gawked at the ugly craters and shivered at the sinister boiling mud pools.
We were quite excited at the start of the walk as neither Van nor I had been in such a geothermally active area before.
We saw a lot of warning signs. It was towards the end of the day when we entered so we were quite eager to complete the walk soonest possible to avoid being trapped in!
Still quite chirpy and energetic at this stage, a far cry from our exhausted panting selves towards the end of the 45min walk. We are such unfit lazy bums.
A huge smoking crater.
A section of the footpath.
An enclosed lookout platform that allows you to look down into a deep smoking crater.
Mud pools... scary... what do you think will happen if you fall into one?
The final stretch...
We had a late homecooked dinner back in Otaki courtesy of the boy's mum before driving the last stretch back into Wellington to rest our final night at the Holdens' again. We woke before sunrise the next morning to catch our return flight to Sydney where Van and I got upgraded to business class again!
All in all, even though we passed on all the adrenaline inducing stuff we could have engaged in due to budget and time, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. There were many first time experiences for me. It would be very presumptuous of me to say I've experienced NZ or Wellington or all the areas we've visited as they were really more like touch and go affairs. As with all countries I travel to, I hope I get chances in future to really immerse myself in the local culture and way of life in NZ and to get to see more of the beautiful country.
The hospitality we received from all the accommodation, transport and meal sponsors was overwhelmingly heartwarming that I felt a bit embarrassed to be receiving so much. I hope there will be a time for me to return the welcome to our very lovely hosts in NZ if and when they ever head my way.
nz day 4: taupo
Read:
- 'NZ Day 1' here
- 'NZ Day 2' here, here and here
- 'NZ Day 3' here
- 'NZ Day 4 Part 1' here
We set off on a four hour drive up north to Lake Taupo, the largest fresh water lake in Australasia created by the world's largest volcanic eruption in the past 5,000 years - so claimed on their official website. I was told that there was a saying that went around years ago that the Lake is bigger than Singapore, but you can never be sure now as Singapore has been continually doing land reclamation on her surrounding waters. So I did a wiki search (assuming the information there is updated) and found that the Lake has a surface area of 616sqm while Singapore's is 699sqm today up from 581sqm in the 1960s.
We did a quick pit stop somewhere along a stretch of road on State Highway 1 called the Desert Road, the only road that bisects the Rangipo Desert. It was a beautiful sunny day and we could see the snow-capped Mount Ruapehu clearly from the road. That view stirred up feelings of desire to go skiing for a couple of us.
A stylo Van walking out of the car towards the desert.
There were very few cars on the highway.
These power poles run along the entire State Highway 1 along the length of both the main islands of New Zealand.
Left: Tank tracks. It was only after we ventured by foot off the main highway to get a better view of Mount Ruapehu and back to the car that we saw and read the sign that warned drivers not to leave the car or road as that was an army exercise area.
Right: I was standing right next to and under these.
Striking poses with a mountain scene behind.
Mount Ruapehu, home to some awesome skiing and snowboarding terrain. We didn't have time to include skiing in our itinerary so I guess I'll have to try again next winter.
Our first touristy stop when we arrived in Taupo was to check out Huka Falls. There is so much to explore and do here such as walks to the Aratiatia Rapids and jet boat rides to the base of the falls but being the lazy and budget conscious tourists we were, we opted for the 1min walk to the viewpoint, snapped a few pics and left to continue our drive to the hotel.
We put up at the Wairakei Resort Hotel that has really awesome indoor hot tubs, big spacious rooms, and serves an excellent buffet dinner. We went to check out both the private and public hot springs at DeBrett's Spa Resort that was just a short drive from our hotel, where we smuggled a bottle of French Viognier in to enjoy while constantly reminding ourselves not to lower our heads into the spring to prevent meningitis before returning to our resort to attack the sumptuous buffet.
We checked into the Wairakei Resort Hotel just as the sun was setting.
The central courtyard within the resort. Every one of the rooms has a second internal door that opens up onto the courtyard. Because we seemed like the only occupants there, it would have been nice to laze around on the deck chairs in the morning to enjoy a slow leisurely breakfast in the courtyard, if only we had the luxury of time.
The two queen sized beds in our room.
We were dead tired upon arrival.
I slipped into slumberland after gorging on a few helpings of roast at the buffet with Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen playing on the TV in the room.
nz day 4: otaki
Read:
- 'NZ Day 1' here
- 'NZ Day 2' here, here and here
- 'NZ Day 3' here
We left our first accommodation with the million dollar view of night lights and morning mist and spent our third night in a big house with 10 acres of manicured Victorian gardens courtesy of the boy's mum. There were plates of homecooked hot breakfast waiting for us when we awoke the next morning on day 4.
Highlight of the day was that we got to fire some shots on a rifle courtesy of the host's partner who owns several such weapons. It was nothing new to the boy nor to Van who had lots of firing opportunities in the UK army in her past life but it was a brand new experience for me!
These 22mm bullets have a range of 2.5km.
Left: One of the rifles on display.
Right: Our targets for the morning. The toughest one would have to be that white bread tag hanging off a twig at the bottom and the black square drawn on the piece of paper.
We've taken quite a number of videos of our shooting practice which I will try to put together for uploading soon. In the meantime, here are just a few close up shots of us looking like professional rabbit killers.
My virgin shot went cleanly right through the can. Not bad for an amateur huh?
I also managed to put two bullets through the matchbox.
And two shots right on target on the tiny black square. ^^v
We had to leave the guns way too soon because of our tight schedule - the plan for the day was to make a four hour drive up north to Lake Taupo - and also because we were causing pandemonium amongst the resident white doves. While the mum and her partner prepared for the long drive, we took some time to explore the garden; we felt like we were taking a stroll in a botanical garden or something.
A white rose bud symbolises the start of a new romance.
Apparently this is for scaring the crows away.
These trees must look really scary at night.
We were tasked to pick some oranges for our road trip while passing through the fruit trees section in the garden. There were more lemons than oranges that we could find so we failed miserably at our assignment.
At that, we left this beautiful place for our next destination.
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