Recent Nightlife

Hello lovelies, I thought I would do a little blog to show a few pics of recent nights out! Has been busy busy social life lately with my bestie Elle...

First, if you read my post about my 19th birthday, you'll know I went out that night. The lovely Liana came around to get ready with Elle and I. We had a great night just getting ready together..Elle did our hair and make-up! She's my personal beautician..haha.

Babes In Black

Shatter Girls

Elle also surprised me with this cake, YUM pink icing sponge cake with a photo of us and Victoria Secret Beauty Rush lipgloss. Cute!

More photos follow...

Liana and I drinking cocktails out of a jar..normal!


The next lot of photos are from last night when Elle and I went out with her friend Jessie who is home from Australia...

Always a fun night when Elle and I are about!

Best Blog and Butterfly Awards

I've been awarded two blog awards! I love finding that someone has enjoyed my blog enough to award me one of these!

First off, Rach at Island Girl Insights awarded me the Butterfly Award. Thank you!

Rules of the Award:

- write a random fact about yourself

- pass the award on

- notify the bloggers who got it

Random fact: I've just booked flights to go to Australia. Yay more adventures!

I am awarding a blog I just discovered, Anna Bell and also Megan and Katelyn at Crosswire Dreamers.

I was also awarded the Best Blog Award by both Island Girl Insights and Hannah Michelle, both really cool girls. You should check out their blogs if you haven't already!

Rules:

- Link back to the person who awarded you

- Share 7 random facts (I've done this before here!)

- Award 15 blogs

- Answer the following questions:

Name your favourite colour: Pink!

Name your favourite song: I can never chose just one but I love Pretty Wings by Maxwell

Name your favourite dessert: A really yummy carrot cake, apple crumble, chocolate cake.. There's too many!

What is pissing you off? My skin is being stupid and dry no matter what I try

When you're upset, you... Go quiet

Your favourite pet: I've only ever had one rabbit and goldfish so Honey my rabbit who I used to call honeybun haha!

Black or White?: Black

Your biggest fear is...: The idea of a house fire really freaks me out

Your best feature is...: My eyes, and my long legs haha - i'm TALL

Everyday attitude: PMA - Positive Mental Attitude. Gets you places!

What is perfection? If we were perfect, we would have no room for mistakes, and then we just wouldn't be human!

Guilty pleasure: Long lie ins

I'm just going to award my couple of favourites

Superficial Sanctuary
Click and Make Up by Vonnie

and my sis Elle at Ellary's Place

Happy Birthday To Meee!

Today is my 19th birthday! Yay!

I've had such a lovely time already. My boyfriend Vincent surprised me by organising a really thoughtful dinner last night! His two friends who are qualified chefs cooked us a 5 course meal with champagne and candles. So cute and romantic!

They also surprised me with a birthday cake, carrot cake mmmm.

I woke up this morning to find out what my present is...

Firstly Vincent's family gave me a card with a voucher for 2 nights in a spa motel in Taupo - wow! Sounds perfect.

Then I found out what Vincent got me....

A SKYDIVE!!

So next Tuesday I'm going to be falling out of a plane from 12,000 feet! Yikes!

This morning we went out for breakfast with his friends who cooked us dinner, yummy pancakes and coffee.

I didn't actually have banana hearts! But this pictures cute.

Tonight Elle, Liana and I are heading to Lava Bar. They helped me pick out a dress where they both work yesterday. Gonna be a nice girly night getting ready together. Elle is going to do my hair, make-up and nails! Looking forward to it!

Christchurch - Part II

I woke up on Saturday morning at 6.50am to another aftershock, 4.4. When you wake up to one you don't fully register what's happening, so I found that once the shaking stopped I just went back to sleep. It still felt surreal, the room shaking, hearing rattle sounds around the house, really kinda freaky!

That morning Lisa took me to a market where I was hoping to get one of the 'Munted' t-shirts (there's a picture in my previous blog) but unfortunately that was the one week that the man who made them chose to take a day off - typical! Not to worry, I'm going to try and order one online and get it sent to my Rotorua address, however I would have liked to have seen them properly first!

Lisa and I decided to go to one of the big shopping malls just for a look around, so we walked about, testing out different make ups in the Body Shop and a pharmacy. I was very good and didn't purchase anything because I've spent soo much recently on my Kiwi experience and all the activities I did while on it!

That night Jacqui and I were looking for something to do - a hard task when most of the city is closed! So we looked online and found that Speight's Ale House had a band called Smashbox playing who looked pretty good so we decided to eat there then stay for the band. Jacqui had blue cod fish and chips which came out in the Otago Daily Times - a really good touch! This was when I learnt blue cod isn't actually blue.... haha.

The band was really good and played music that got people up dancing. Jacqui and I had a laugh watching some people and decided you can have a really good sober night just watching drunk people!!

On Sunday we went to Hanmer Springs where they have a whole complex of thermal hot pools. This was bliss! We had a nice relaxing day broken up by going down the slides, some of which were actually kinda scary! There was one of those pitch black ones where you don't know when a corner is coming up, and another where you get dumped into a big bowl and go round and round..and round!

Me with Lisa on the left and Jacqui in the middle

That evening we went to Woodpecker's for Tim's 3rd birthday - Lisa's partner's son - where we had lovely food while the kids all played in a big ball pit next to us. I got my picture taken in the birthday seat because I turn 19 on Thursday!

My flight leaves Monday early afternoon, so I have to say goodbye to Lisa on Sunday night as I would be asleep when she leaves for work. It was sad having to say goodbye to her because she's a cousin who I've only just met from across the world and have to leave again! But I'm sure I'll see her again sometime. Same goes for Jacqui who brought me to the airport on Monday. We got coffee and hot chocolate and sat until my flight was called to go through security. I really didn't like having to say goodbye to her either - I'm not good with goodbyes whether I've known them a lifetime or a weekend!

I board my Air New Zealand plane and got a nice surprise to find it was one of the All Black planes for the Rugby World Cup with black leather seats, all very spacious! The outside is painted black and white too. New Zealand really is crazy about rugby!

Christchurch - Part I

If you haven't been paying attention to the news you might not know that Christchurch experienced 2 big earthquakes on Monday 13th June 2011 following the massive shakes that devastated Christchurch in February 2011.

I'm still behind on my Kiwi Experience blog, but I arrived in Christchurch yesterday so am putting the other on hold as this is more current.

If you've had a look through my blog you'll know that I have been touring the whole of New Zealand, but not only that. I have been meeting family members on this side of the world for the first time! So the reason I've come to Christchurch and not listened to the tour guides recommending you avoid it, is because my mum's cousin's two daughters live here.

As I said, I arrived here yesterday. I took a 7 hour bus journey from Cromwell (an hour outside of Queenstown) which was the longest most boring bus journey ever!

So as we got closer to Christchurch, and as I saw the number of kilometers get smaller and smaller, I must admit I did feel a bit nervous. I really had no idea what to expect..I mean I've never in my life felt an earthquake, I've never been to an area affected by one; you see it on the news but these things don't feel real until it's right infront of you.

We arrived through a side of town where you wouldn't even think there had been an earthquake. Everything seemed intact. Roads normal, no cracks. Houses still upright. I thought to myself "Ok maybe it's not going to be that bad?".

I got dropped off at the airport (flights weren't even running, but that's a whole other story due to volcanic ash from Chile...) as it was easiest for Lisa to pick me up. We drove to her house where on the way I saw some evidence of liquefaction, which is when a mix of water and sand bubbles up from underground and causes a right mess of the roads and properties. Lisa showed me round her house, showing where cracks had formed in the brickwork and in walls. Thankfully her house hasn't been too badly affected when you compare it to some other places.

I arrived at 4pm that afternoon and went to bed not having felt an aftershock yet. That lasted for over 12 hours - unusual for Christchurch! - until I woke up just after 6.30am to what felt like someone had come in and started shaking my bed. I could hear things in the house shaking. I just lay there, probably half asleep, not fully registering what was happening. And then it stopped. I thought to myself "hmm.. my first earthquake..." when Lisa ran in to see if I was ok (she knew I was feeling kindof freaked out beforehand) to which I replied "yeah, it was actually kinda cool!"

I soon found out it had a magnitude of 4.4. Not enough to cause any damage but enough that you'd certainly feel it!

Today, Lisa and her sister Jacqui took me on a tour around Christchurch showing me the most damaged areas. In one case a bridge that people use to drive over everyday has physically raised up so you drive up an angle to get on it! It's so amazing just how much everything moves and the results you can see.

The place that shocked me most was the Central Business District, which would normally have been thriving and so busy on a Friday evening when we went to it. It was completely cordoned off. Not a person could be seen in the area. Complete ghost town. The Hotel Grand Chancellor is a high rise building which is actually leaning at an angle not far from the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy!

This boat house is on a bit of a lean

My hand can easily fit in the crack in this concrete wall 

It's just so shocking to see this kindof thing right infront of your eyes!

There were two more aftershocks today after this morning's. A 4.4 and a 4.5, however, I didn't actually feel them as we were driving, but those who did said they felt rather big!

Hoping for a quiet night's sleep. Don't want to speak too soon. We'll see!

xxx

KE - Westport

The next day we drive from Nelson to Westport on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. We stopped off at a lake in Nelson's national park...and I just have to show you these photos because it is b-e-a-utiful!

A couple of brave people jumped in right off the pier. Now let me just say,there was definitely some frost on the ground in the shaded areas so it was COLD!

Charlie and I with Donald, he's 6foot10!

Charlie and I changed into our bikinis to jump in....

.....not! It was far too cold but the guys joked they were going to throw us in!

We really just wanted the photo opportunity haha!

So when we arrived in Westport we went jetboating. Cost $69 for an hour and you can take your camera on with you..while it costs over $100 for 20 minutes in Queenstown..and you have to buy the photos after! So that's one reason why we stop at Westport, for the same things but cheaper!

We found it quite amusing at the start..the boat went through fields to get to the water.. So there we were,getting towed by a tractor through fields. On a boat. Normal!

But that's exactly what Westport is like. A small country town, where everybody knows everybody.

The jetboating itself was seriously cool. We cruised at a normal pace up the river, then on the way back was full of twists and spins and almost falling out the boat! So much fun. The guys in the front row actually did almost fall out when the back of the boat went into the air at one stage on a sharp spin. Hilarious!

Just a couple of other photos I thought were cool that we found a long the way. I thought this sign post was awesome. Similar to the photo of one in my side bar! >>>>

I can safely say that Kiwi bus is like the best experience ever. You meet soo many cool people, do so many new and cool things. Love it!!!

KE- Nelson

After the ferry journey I mentioned in my last post, we headed to a place called Nelson. It's a pretty cool place, we arrived at a homely hostel where the barman was an Irishman from Dublin. It's always nice to meet people from places near you when you're travelling!

What Nelson is really famous for is that in it is the geographical centre of New Zealand! It's a bit of a steep trek up a winding track leading you higher and higher. While we were all breaking a sweat, there were some clearly fit people power walking / jogging past us up such a high gradient...put us to shame!!

So we eventually made it, just in time to watch the beautiful sunset over the town of Nelson.

Myself, Tom & Charlie

The centre :)

That evening at the hostel we had a free beer tasting offered to us. I don't actually like beer very much, and neither does Charlie, so Tom ended up getting most of ours! It was fun though, a good reason for all of us to get together.

Afterwards we played some card games. Sounds dull perhaps but when we're all tired and not for going out, it can be a real laugh. We ended up playing a few games of President until the bar closed (early!) at 9pm..when we decided to watch a movie..but we all ended up going to bed early anyway after the big long day of travelling,and the super early start!

Next update - hopefully soon! x