More pictures! The mountain in the background from the above picture is called the Remarkables. Its easy to see why it was given that name! And if you think the mountain looked familiar, you are probably right! The Remarkables was filmed in LOTR as the Misty mountains! Go back and watch the film again because I have! Haha. The Queenstown region is down right Lord of the rings territory baby! Ruth and I sat on the skippers canyon jet ride high up in the shotover river as well and it was fantastic! We got such an adrenaline rush from that ride! The ride to the site was breathtaking as the driver took us to the cliffs edge throughout the journey. Some parts of the ride were so scary that the Yanks that came along even talked about death. Morbid bunch of people. We even went past the rivers bed where Arwen rode across with Frodo and said " if you want him. Come and Claim him!" How epic was that?! Picture below was where the scene was shot at.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tim.widmann/NewZealand06Queenstown#5157338062460465266

We even had the best burger ever at FERGBURGER. I can honestly say, I will never look at burgers the same way again. All the other burgers out there are no match at all for the Fergburger. You can only get this in NZ. No where else. Extremely Scrummy and the portions were huge as!

We splurged on the buffet up on the skyline where we had the best views in town.
Loved it!

Desert wine

Queenstown

This was my second trip to Queenstown, it was the first time holidaying without parents for the both of us. Let me just say this, holidaying without your parents is certainly an experience and a very fun one at that! We had to settle our own accommodation, meals, itinerary, budget, transport, the list was endless but I guess it taught us how much we can take care of ourselves. The journey to Queenstown was a very long one and we swear by the end of trip, we became seasoned coach riders. Imagine 12 hours to queenstown and another 12 back to christchurch. Thank God for the scenery though. We passed by the southern alps, went to mt. cook villiage, Lake tekapo, Lake pukaki, cromwell, Geraldine, Ashvegas, Oamaru, Twizel....A wee bit tiring for us but it was well worth the trip. We went to the skyline by the gondolas, took the luge (invented by kiwi's just to put it out there and a hell lot better than the SG luge. The scenery was magnificent!) , met so many people from all over the world...Including the hot luge guys, brazillians, hot blonde singer and the cute fergburger dude. Guys galore! Haha. Will show you more about what we did in the next post!

Not forgetting our awesum accomodoation. I scoured the internet and I came across Mecure Resorts, Queenstown. The hotel was along Lake Wakatipu and we even got Lake side views and Alipine mountain views! Would definitely recommend it to anyone who is heading to Queenstown. Great bar staff as well! Haha.

Chill .

Chillaxing and enjoying the cafe scene in Chch central after the beach. Brought Ruth to C1 cafe, one of my favourite spots to sit down and enjoy a cuppa.

Sumner beach (18december 08)

Loved all the sweet memories of our trip. Captured it, so that we can relive every moment of it.Thank God for technology I'd say.Summer time can only mean sand, sun, shorts :), bikini's and heaps of fun in any part of the world that experiences the 4 seasons. NZ is no exception. After hibernating indoors for the last couple of months, the sun is finally out and my legs can finally get a healthy dose of much needed sunshine. Its time to slip ,slop and slap Baby! Haha. Unfortunately we didn't do just that. I knew that the UV rays here are killers but instead of slip, slop and slapping on some sunblock, we left our vulnerable skin to the elements. Asian skin like ours have pigments, that would "hopefully" block out some UV rays. That's what we thought. But no.. we were no match for the intense UV rays. Especially me. Sun burn never felt any better. The horror.

Le Petite Akaroa

The mind certainly does play tricks. When someone plants a seed of thought into your mind, you continue to feed that seed with your own thoughts , growing it. It can destroy you . It can certainly take away your sanity, making you ponder about things that weren't there in the first place. Growing a sense of falseness. Foolishness. If its meant to be, its meant to be.
My heart is yearning but Paris is burning.

Sorry for deviating from Akaroa. You probably have no clue on what I was talking about.Neither do I! Haha
Crazy one minute rant.
Enjoy the pictures of the always picturesque French town, Akaroa.

Akaroa in doses

Akaroa was our first trip out of chch when ruth came and we brought monsieur Bungie along! Wanted to impress ruth you see. Starting of with Akaroa and then the climax at queenstown. Funny. Ruth was amazed with the sights and sounds of Akaroa. Beautiful peninsula out of chch. I called it the gigantic pimple sticking out just to help ruth understand the geography of the place.Been to Akaroa heaps so I enjoyed seeing the many expressions that Ruth had when we were travelling to Akaroa. Classic.Reminded me of the first time travelling and exploring NZ. Gobsmacked. Do you get all this in little ol' Singapore? Not in a million years. I'm so lucky that I live in NZ. Thank you God!