Music or language?
Or, more specifically, given the choice of knowing how to play every single musical instrument out there, or being fluent in all languages, which will you choose? For me, there's never a doubt in my mind- language. If I were to have any sort of magic, any sort of "superhero" power, it would be to master every single language and dialect out there in the world. A close second will be teleportation, but rather than being able to teleport, wouldn't time warp make much more sense? Then you can freeze time, go to another location, unfreeze time- that's the same effect as teleportation really.
I digress. Back to languages... One of the components of my job is to aid communication through music, for those who do not or cannot speak or use words. To be able to play every single musical instrument out there and make them sing is a fantastic skill to have- one that I would love to possess, but for someone who can speak, being able to communicate fluently with anyone in the world must be one of the handiest skill to have. What can one do in a place that is completely foreign with no common language at all? I hardly think playing a piece of music on the violin will be able to communicate the question of "where is the closest restroom" to another person... To me, stepping out of my comfort zone is to go to a place where the language is foreign. That's something to do in the future...
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| From NZ 2014 |
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| From NZ 2014 |
Poached eggs were overdone though. As we were leaving the town to head towards Coronet Peak, we saw the ice tipped mountains at a distance with wispy clouds hanging low. Such a picturesque scene~
Fast forward... the day went alright. Went for a 101 lesson on how to snowboard and actually didn't learn that much from the lesson itself. When left to my own accord, it was all about figuring things out by trying. Day 1: I didn't know how to stop or slow down, so by going super fast, managed to do some pretty cool tricks, like going backwards (which I later discovered was by leaning forward on the toes, but really, I was just off balance), or gliding on the edge of the board (felt so much like ice skating!), but speed picked up really quickly and the only way to stop was to either a) collide into someone else, or b) crash land by doing some spectacular flips and flops. The falls look so horrific that strangers constantly asked if I was alright.
I have newfound respect for whoever invented ski gears, like the snowpants, jackets, gloves and boots. Despite all my tragic mishaps, I was more or less intact with no sever injuries, and most importantly, dry and so warm... to the point of being hot in that jacket and pants.
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| From NZ 2014 |
Night fell and we headed to town for Ferg burger. Anyone who has been to Queenstown will know of this place, and if you don't, follow the crowd. It's a little burger joint with a massive wait of 50 minutes for your order to be ready. Since we were on holiday with no time constraints, we decided to go ahead with it. I ordered a "Chief Wiggum", which came with slabs of slow roasted pork belly, hash brown and salad with a mustard and aioli dressing. Worth the wait? Ohhh yeah.
If I ever go back, the Bambi burger (deer) and lamb one are probably worth checking out.
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| From NZ 2014 |
Powering onwards to day 3 in Queenstown. Morning meal at this cute cafe that collects spoons. I had a hard time trying to find out what this cafe was called... but here it is- Vudu!
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| From NZ 2014 |
Poached eggs came out a little better than yesterday's. My eggs' benedict with bacon wasn't too bad, but I don't remember it to be that special either. I'll admit, this trip seemed so long ago to me now that I don't really remember much of anything.
Day 2 of snowboarding: I finally learnt how to slow down. It requires a lot of energy to dig either your heels or your toes in. I tried it for a bit and then decided it's more fun going fast. Figured out how to "leaf", which meant I could avoid people now and didn't have to bowl them over. Significantly less collisions and the ability to stop. Oh, and mastered the art of getting off that damn chairlift gracefully (read: without falling in a heap).
Those who know what I'm talking about will agree, that ain't no easy feat right there, that chairlift thing.
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| From NZ 2014 |
Nighttime came and it was the end of snowboarding. We returned the gears back and opted for a night in to finish off some snacks and food which we had in our hotel room. Bought a couple of pizzas from Hell Pizza in town and gambled the night away with playing cards.
In truth, we spent it on girly games.
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| From NZ 2014 |
Before we flew back that afternoon, we had time for breakfast. World Cup was still happening (the appalling Brazil match happened the day before), with Argentina versus Netherlands in the semis, so we managed to catch that at Brazz while having breakfast.
Finally! A good poached egg appears! Gotta admit I was too busy watching to notice the food, and I wasn't particularly hungry that morning...
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| From NZ 2014 |
We also had the chance to quickly visit Lake Wyne Hayes before boarding the flight back to Sydney.
New Zealand is definitely a beautiful place and really worth visiting, even if it's not just for the snows. I would have loved to do some of the trails,walks, the glacier hikes... perhaps there will be chance in the future.
Thanks, MBP (MacBook Pro??) for the wonderful company!
2 comments:
Let's go again :) still so many places we haven't seen.
My colleague says she's going to go around the south island in like a caravan - drive alll around!
sitting in a car isn't nearly as fun as walking/hiking.
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