New Zealand

All right, landed in Auckland, New Zealand and decided to go to the Bed and Breakfast that night to get some sleep before the drive. The next morning we went to get our van and took off, we will come back to Auckland later.












This is our first night, in the parking lot of the Glow worm cave. We paid $25 each to go see the cave. Dad was not impressed, he said the light was fake - christmas light. 8)
Actually this was one of the nicer place we camped out at. This place has picnic table, restroom, what more could you want? The van has a cooking stove that can swing out and a built in storage box that has plates and water, all the camping stuffs. There is a bed in the back portion of the van. It was pretty tight for 3 though.











New Zealand has tons of sheeps. This area is still near the cave, Waitomo area. This is the Hobbiton area in the Lord of the Rings movie. The next picture is Mt. Doom, actually Mt. Tongariro. The ground is all rocky. There is an 8 hours hike to go across the mountain, but we're not up to that kind of hike.










This is Tuapo lake, a very long large lake. We got a nice spot right next to the lake. BTW, this is illegal camping. You're suppose to pay $10 a head to camp, that pricey.












This is a Gypsy caravan near Taupo lake. It's like a mini carnival, a lot of stuffs for sale. They also had these home for sale and are looking for a magician to join the tour. 8)


Bungy, woo hoo... It was great. We were thinking we'll just go look, but it didn't look that scary and a bunch of girls were going so I went for it. It was awesome. This was about 150 feet, great view. Definitely have to drag Michelle with me next time. 8)
I closed my eyes before hitting the water, couldn't help it heh heh..

Rarotonga

Here are some details on my vacations. Michelle couldn't make it due to classes so this year we are vacationing seperately. She was in Oaxaca for a class when I left. The first stop is Tahiti. 8) only 90 minutes tho. Anyway, I heard it was not that good. Everything is very expensive and they didn't have any good beaches. My first real stop was Rarotonga, Cook Island. Rarotonga is about 30km in diameter. I rented a scooter and had a blast riding it around. The food on the Island was pretty pricey. Good thing the backpacker place had a kitchen, there are only expensive restaurants near Muri beach. I had mostly ramen and tomato sandwich. I call it the Rarotonga diet.
My room is right on the beach - 20 bucks. There were 5 bed in that room though. A lot of people were from the U.K. Mostly starting off or ending their year long trip, nice...
Anyway, I spend a nice relaxing 5 days relaxing and snorkeling. It was great, I'll definitely bring Michelle next time. This Island is pretty relaxing, not a lot of tourists.

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summer garden

Hola,
Here are some shots of our garden. We had a very good crop this year on pretty much everything except Blue berries. Blue berries did not have any fruit this year again, I don't know why, probably something to do with the soil. Here we have Grapes, Asian Pears, Figs and Kiwi. The Kiwi does not have fruit yet, maybe next year. It is still growing, hopefully next year it will cover more of the porch. Most of the Figs are not ripe for some reason. We ate a few ripe ones and they were really yummy.
We had really good apple crop this year too, but we don't eat them much so they just fall to the ground.
That's it. Pretty slow week. I'm looking forward to seeing mom and dad soon.