New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Glacier village

November 11, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

Day 6, 11 November 2004, Thursday

Woke up at 5:45am before the wake up call at 6:00am. Ate the sandwiches I bought last night, which were pretty tasteless. Decided to check out early. Paragliding and jetboating, NZ255.00 translating to about $300.00 Singapore dollars. And the uh blinds “damage” I wrecked (nothing was deducted for it. Whew.)

Checked out, boarded the coach and yes, got a left window seat (prospects of viewing the Tasman Sea on the left). Left Queenstown at 7:40am, and made a brief 10 minute stop near Cromwell (Jone’s Fruit Stall). Nothing much to see, so didn’t bother climbing out of the coach.

Grape fields
Grapes, for making wine.

Sheep blocking road

Sheep blocking road
Coach-stopping sheep.

Somewhere on the ride, the coach slowed. What happened? Sheep happened! This herd of sheep wandered onto the road and rendered the strip of asphalt impassable. I don’t know if there were farmers or shepherds around, but the sheep dog was doing okay.

Puzzling World
Puzzling World.

Passed Luggate and Wanaka airport. Passed Puzzling World near Wanaka town, where one can see water running uphill.

Lake Wanaka
Lake Wanaka

Vincent at Lake Wanaka

Met a Mexican couple who helped take a picture of me at Lake Wanaka. Then we moved on and had another 10 minute break by Lake Hawea at 9:37am.

Ship crossing lake
Ship crossing Lake Wanaka. Or Lake Hawea. Can’t remember…

Makarora Country Cafe
Makarora Country Cafe.

Passed Albert town, and then saw Lake Hawea from afar. Stopped at Makarora for 20 minutes (10:34am). No money to buy anything. Oh yeah, stomach’s growling now…

Mountain, river, flat land

Haast Pass sign

Thunder Creek falls

Thunder Creek falls sign

Passed Makarora River while crossing bridge near Haast Pass. Stopped at Thunder Creek Falls at 11:30am (10 minutes) for more pictures.

Haast town outskirt
Rest stop at outskirts of Haast town. Took hot chocolate break on the other side of the building (right of picture).

Passed Haast town, then stopped at outskirts of the town (12:20pm-12:50pm). Finally got a hot chocolate for NZ3.00 and shared table (all other seats taken) with the Mexican couple from Lake Wanaka. They’re here for a honeymoon (two weeks in New Zealand, one week in Melbourne). They’re going to Franz-Josef Glacier, then taking TranzAlpine Express, then fly to Melbourne.

Around Tasman Sea shore

Around Tasman Sea shore

Around Tasman Sea shore

Around Tasman Sea shore
Tasman Sea and surroundings.

Coach continued journey and stopped for a scenic break (Tasman Sea!) from 1:10pm to 1:25pm. We moved again and passed Wakopohi River, then Lake Moeraki (means sleeping by day. Could be only 2 metres deep in some places).

Salmon farm
Salmon farm.

Crossed the Paringa River and stopped (again!) at Salmon Farm (2:13pm to 2:34pm). The nice Mexican couple actually offered me food! Uh, I sort of mentioned I was flat broke during my hot chocolate respite with them… I turned down the offer (a bit embarrassed). They just got married on 30 October. They’re good people. *sniff sniff*

Passed by small town of Bruce Bay, Parakeri Creek and Jacobs Rivers School. Alpine Fault extends 600 kilometres all the way to Milford Sound. We are now at the western side of Southern Alps. Annual snowfall at Fox and Franz-Josef glaciers: 45 metres. The two glaciers actually reach all the way to the rainforest region. The only other glacier doing this is in South America, Patagonia.

Passed several strips of water next: Mai Mai Creek, Dusty Miller Creek, Karangarua River, Black Creek (water’s really black!), Ohinatamatea River, Cook River (Waheka) and Fox River. Somewhere during the succession of creeks and rivers, we picked up someone in like the middle of nowhere. She came up, couldn’t find an empty seat, and plopped down beside me. She put on her head phones immediately.

Things were a little quiet until we reached the Fox Glacier village. During the time between letting off the first batch of tourists and the second (my stop), I found out the young woman beside me had been hiking up Mount Tasman. 17 kilometres up and 17 kilometres down! Wow. She’s going back to her hostel at Franz-Josef village.

Rainforest Motel room
Behind the counter is a small fridge where I kept the muesli bars and biscuits. That sink was where I ate my breakfast/dinner muesli bars and biscuits…

Shower
A pure shower! I’m sick of two-in-one shower/bathtubs…

Beds
The open nature of the room.

Rainforest Motel sign
Rainforest Motel. Love this place!

Fox Glacier town map
Fox Glacier town map.

Reached my stop, said goodbye to her, passed the Mexican couple (they’re asleep) and checked into Rainforest Motel at 3:30pm. It was drizzling. I got room number 1, and it’s the most unusual place I have ever stayed at. Spacious and transparent (the entire room is visible if you don’t draw the curtains). I rested for a while since it was raining anyway, and my legs and feet haven’t quite recovered from the Dunedin walkathon and Queenstown gondola trek.

Rain stopped. I went to Alpine Guides to place a reservation for the glacier walk tomorrow. It’s fully booked!! Argh! Oh no! The lady at the counter can put me on a waiting list (Amazing Race déjà vu here) on the 9:30am and 10:30am walks. I was the third on hold for both full day (6 hour) walks. Seeing my disappointment, she said she could also put me on the 1:45pm half day walk, which I can be confirmed for. I agreed and thanked her. With a heavy heart and equally heavy feet, I went in search of dinner.

Fox Glacier Visitor Centre
Fox Glacier Visitor Centre. Not a lot of people this time of year.

Walked around town first, though the main purpose is to check out the dinner prices. I’m broke, remember? Everything’s expensive. I resigned to my fate and chose The Plateau. Sat at the restaurant from 4:35pm to 5:00pm (dinner’s served at five). Read through some of the problems in my Amazing Logic Puzzles book. 5:00pm came, and I ordered a smoked salmon (NZ15.50), and when she asked what I’d like to drink, I said orange juice. What was I thinking!! NZ4.00 gone. I only realised what I did five minutes after I ordered…

Finished dinner and went to local general store. Bought 8 Mother Earth muesli bars (NZ4.05, apricot and yoghurt) and 12 peanut-chocolate biscuits (NZ3.60). Went back to Alpine Guides to ask if being a Thrifty Tours (my tour package) customer gave me a discount for the glacier walk (it’s written on my itinerary. Any discount’s good at this point.). She said yes (NZ5.00 off the NZ85.00 price), and asked if I wanted to pay then. I said I’m actually on the waiting list. She checked, and told me I’m now in! I’m on the 10:30am walk! Yay! I paid the NZ80.00 with a lighter state of being (the glacier walk was the highlight of my trip).

Football field

Cows

Fox Glacier-Weheka school

Local residents

Horse and rider

Walked back to motel, and decided to walk a little further to see what’s up. And the fact that it’s still early, and I’m still kinda depressed about my current financial quagmire. Took some pictures of local school children at outdoors games lesson, cows, and a horseback rider. Then I went back to the motel.

I took out everything I’ve got. NZ33.85. Well NZ33.75 and … an American quarter. I guess the general store lady either couldn’t tell the difference (the NZ0.10 has similar size and colour as the quarter), or they’re of equal value. Or she’s conning me.

I gathered my receipts and notes, and added all my expenses. They pretty much add up. So tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch and dinner are gonna be a mixture of Snickers bars, muesli bars and biscuits. Took out one muesli bar and 4 biscuits to eat. Gonna have to eat like this till I reach Christchurch two days later…

I don’t have to wake up early tomorrow. Nothing to do, nothing to see. I was told a bus can take me to Lake Matheson and back. But it costs NZ10.00. No option there. So I’ll sleep in a little, and rest my weary body.

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Please ConvertToEnglish() – Subtracting zero

November 10, 2008 By

Here’s something I encountered while going through some legacy C code.

year =  (p_dt_tm[0]-'0')*1000 + (p_dt_tm[1]-'0')*100 +
        (p_dt_tm[2]-'0')*10   +  p_dt_tm[3]-'0';
mon  =  (p_dt_tm[4]-'0')*10   +  p_dt_tm[5]-'0';
day  =  (p_dt_tm[6]-'0')*10   +  p_dt_tm[7]-'0';
hour =  (p_dt_tm[8]-'0')*10   +  p_dt_tm[9]-'0';
min =  (p_dt_tm[10]-'0')*10   +  p_dt_tm[11]-'0';
sec =  (p_dt_tm[12]-'0')*10   +  p_dt_tm[13]-'0';

Can you figure out and explain what it’s supposed to do?

For bonus points, give an example of what the variable p_dt_tm can contain.

Observation:
If you can view the code in fixed width font, then you’ll also notice the extent some programmers go to align their code nicely. See how all the plus signs line up vertically? And when the indices go to 2 digits, the programmer deliberately removed some spaces to realign.

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New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Queenstown

November 10, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

Day 5, 10 November 2004, Wednesday

Decided to wake up a little late this morning at 7:00am. Had two Snickers bars for breakfast (I’m left with 5), did the usual morning stuff and went to reception counter at 8:00am. Told receptionist about broken blind twister thingy, but she said it’s fine. She said few guests tell them these things anyway.

Original plan: Gondola in the morning, paragliding in the early afternoon, and jetboating in the late afternoon. Plan failed. The receptionist (Alison) called the paragliding company for me and got a 9:30am departure time (from hotel). It’s a two hour event, so it’ll end at about 11:30am, inclusive of driving up to Coronet Peak, paraglide (just about 15 to 20 minutes) and drive back down to town.

No biggie. Made rough calculation and probably a two hour rest after that is enough. So jetboating at 1:30pm? Alison called, and the company Kawarau Jet operate every hour, on the hour. So I said 1pm. All this setted, I now have about one hour and 10 minutes before the 9:30am appointment. Thanked Alison, and went out to solve my digital camera memory problem.

Big Bear

I found a PC store (The Big Bear), but it’s closed (opens at 9:00am on Wednesdays. It’s now about a quarter to 9. They don’t say 8:45am here…). Luckily, a man (I think he’s the manager or something) came up and asked me if he could help I said I wanted camera memory and he opened the door, and showed me his goods. NZ129.95 for 128MB! I bought my 128MB in Singapore for $59.00… I said I needed a few seconds to think about it… And he probably took it literally, because he didn’t move. Well I gave him his few seconds and said yes. *sigh* Buuut, Camera-Vince is back!

Queenstown library
The Queenstown library. I’m fascinated by books, don’t you know? Didn’t go in though. No time, no time…

Gondola hill
The gondola. Can’t believe I actually climbed to that later on…

Giant kiwi statue
Didn’t get a real kiwi. Might as well get a fake one.

Cloudy sky
I’ll never get bored seeing clouds shadowing mountains.

Ship and gulls
Gull in flight! Waited for minutes for this shot.

Squawking gulls
The situation’s like this. One gull squawked. The other squawked in reply. They kept squawking back and forth, and I thought it’s funny. Several passersby thought so too :)

Kawarau Jet
The jetboat I’ll be taking later.

William Gilbert Rees statue

William Gilbert Rees information
William Gilbert Rees.

Cloudy sky
Another cloud-shadow-mountain picture. Spot the duck swimming in the freezing water.

Queenstown memorial

A-Line Hotel
A-Line Hotel, where I stayed.

Slope from A-Line Hotel
And the climb I took to reach it.

I took a few more shots on the first memory card and went back to the hotel. 9:15am. Changed the memory card to the new one and tested it. Working perfectly. I now have another 381 1600×1200 fine quality pictures to take. Tried switching to super fine mode, but the number of available pictures halved. Needless to say, I switched back to fine quality.

The van came to pick me up at 9:30am sharp, with a couple and a lady already as passengers. We drove around to pickup two more passengers and four pilots. There’s a fifth one, but he will drive to Coronet Peak himself. Five pilots, five passengers (the woman in the original couple passenger is just an observer. One of the pilots asked the couple who’s the hare-brainer who wants to fly. The woman pointed to her husband.). Anyway, we drove up halfway to Coronet Peak to pick up the pilots’ equipment. They lashed the equipment to the top of the van, and we set off again.

We’ll be gliding from about 3700-3800 metres above sea level, and land at about 2300 metres above sea level. We reached the take off point, and the fifth pilot who came first was already strapped and ready to go. “Who wants to go first?”, he asked.

View from Coronet Peak
View from my paragliding launch.

I just got new memory, and I’m standing way high up, so the natural thing to do is: take pictures! I snapped 2 or 3 pictures and went looking for a pilot. His name’s Rob. “Are you flying with me?”, he asked. I said yes. Then he asked “Why choose me?”. Uh… I just smiled, and we laughed.

Vincent at Coronet Peak
The adventurer, before liftoff.

Rob asked if I wanted pictures of my flight taken, 12 pictures for NZ30.00. I thought hard, and said yes (*sigh* don’t do this very often, so can only keep pictures.). He showed me the safety precautions and what to do before, during and after the flight. Then it’s my turn (I’m the fourth to go). “1, 2, 3!” and I ran to help the lift off, and I’m off the ground. I was kind of lucky, as I had a lot of warm currents, so I stayed aloft longer than the others I think. Incidentally, one of the passengers was named Rob as well, so during the ride up, the other pilots kept calling for the pilot Rob, but the passenger Rob responded instead.

Vincent paragliding
The classic pose the paragliding company uses in their advertisement pamphlets.

Vincent paragliding
I’m flying this thing!

During paragliding
Aerial view.

Found out that Rob had flown for 15 years. On average, he flies 2 passengers a day. Peak period, about 5. He will fly down, pack up, drive up and fly down again. It’s a hard life.

He gave me gloves (didn’t bring mine), and it’s still freezing. We did the whirly thing, where the parachute stays in the centre of a circle while we’re flung around like a centrifuge. I learnt to control the parachute from Rob (took over for a few seconds). Rob took shots of us flying from above, the side and front. I was wondering where he stowed the camera, and he told me it’s dangled on his belt. Just before landing, I got another current, and got about 20 seconds longer. :)

Back on terra firma
Back on terra firma.

Landed without much mishap. I had mucus running down my nose (it’s cold and I couldn’t feel my nose…). Hope Rob didn’t notice it. He probably did, and was polite enough to leave it at that.

Fellow paragliders
Other fellow paragliders.

Head oozy, arms rubbery and legs trembling, I watched him pack the parachute and I helped with carrying my safety harness. Joined the other passegers, and found one from Utah (passenger Rob), United States, the couple from Melbourne, Australia. These two were married, with pregnant wives. There’s the other lady passenger from UK, I don’t know about the last passenger. Paid NZ31.00 for the photos because Rob didn’t have a dollar change for my NZ20.00 + NZ 5.00 + 3xNZ2.00 = NZ31.00. I let him keep the change, for the information he gave while flying if nothing else.

Arrived back in town, had lunch (finally found McDonald’s in the mall.), and went to the pier for my jetboat ride at 12:50pm. Not many passengers for the 1:00pm ride (probably lunch hour). 1 Dutch, 2 Germans and I think 2 Americans. And 1 Singaporean. :) Pilot explained the Hamilton spin, where the entire jetboat spins 360 degrees (more like 270, but never mind).

Jetboat ride souvenir shot
My only tangible souvenir from the jetboat ride.

I got splashed by Lake Wakatipu, splattered by Kawarau River and sprayed by Shotover River. There were 3 ducks in the way of the jetboat (on separate occasions), and when the jetboat got close, they uh, ducked out of the way. Saw Remarkables (mountain range), sand cliffs, Coronet Peak and a mountain range used in the movie “Lord of The Rings”. Jetboats require only waters of depth of 10 centimetres to run. Lots of sudden turns and spins and slip-and-slides. Returned to the pier… and bought my jetboat pictures for NZ25.00. Urgh! *sigh*

Gulls and ducks

More gulls and ducks

Ducks
Gulls, ducks and is that a goose?

School children playing in field

Children crossing the road
School children.

People playing frisbee in field
Frisbee in rugby field. Look for the tiny red disc in the centre…

Queenstown Skyline gondola
The Skyline gondola.

Returned to hotel (steep climb) to store my jetboat pictures (scared of crumpling them in my bag). Then I went looking for the school I saw when returning from the paragliding trip. Found school (children playing pass the ball), and went for the gondola. NZ18.00 for a trip up and down again. Then 3 ladies arrived, one of them suggested they climb to the top of gondola, and another one said “You must be joking!”. My next decision was propelled by: A show of masculinity, a love for tramping, a touch of recklessness and a surge of leftover adrenaline.

I climbed up the gondola trail.

Up the gondola track

Up the gondola track
Bramble, fallen trunks, dangerous cliffs, rocks. Gotta love this. Don’t know whether to be scared or excited. No one’s climbing up you know…

Split in dense trees
View from a split in the tree crowns. Magnificent.

Sign at halfway up gondola track
I thought I’m close now. I was wrong. This was just halfway…

Started climb at 3:40pm. First part was really steep. Had 7 encounters with people walking down the track. Huffing and puffing and breathing through the mouth about halfway up because my nose wasn’t processing oxygen quickly enough anymore.

Luge
The Luge.

Bungee jumper

Bungee jumper
Bungee jumper!

View from gondola top
Pier in centre’s the jetboat start point.

View from gondola top
View from gondola top is fantastic.

Going into gondola
Thank goodness they have a going down ticket…

View from inside gondola

Bungee jumper
Oh yeah, another jumper.

Sheep on gondola hill
Sheep! They’re everywhere, I tell ya.

Reaching bottom gondola station
The gondola station at the bottom.

Finally, hot and a bit sweaty, hands and face close to ice-forming temperatures, I reached the gondola at the top at 4:31pm. Bought orange juice (NZ3.50), and wished fervently they have going-down tickets (please don’t make me backtrack…). Yes! NZ9.00. They had the luge and bungee jumping, but I’m not interested. Got on gondola and reached the bottom at 4:57pm.

And I met Mie from the Milford Sound cruise! She’s surprised (so did the gondola attendant) that I climbed up the gondola track. She’s tired just climbing up to the gondola station.

Queenstown mall
The very posh and expensive street.

Earnslaw ship
Ship from pier. Didn’t get the name. Earnslaw I think.

Pizza Hut
Finally found Pizza Hut! Too late now… broke already…

We parted, and I went looking for dinner. With my budget now, I can’t eat at Pizza Hut anymore, so I decided on KFC. Exact same order and exact same seat as yesterday. Then went to 24-hour-open Night’n Day (the Singapore 7-11 equivalent) to get sandwiches (NZ3.50) for tomorrow’s breakfast (need to ration my Snickers bars). Went back early to hotel at 6:40pm to rest. I’m gonna have to starve one or two lunches…

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New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Milford Sound

November 9, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

Day 4, 09 November 2004, Tuesday

Rose at 6:05am, intent on getting pictures of Lake Te Anau. Gobbled down the last quarter of the leftover pizza from last night’s dinner, and set off at 7:00am. Strolled along the side of the lake and got to the end of one side of it.

Lake Te Anau in the morning

Milford Track founder, Quintin Mackinnon.
Milford Track founder, Quintin Mackinnon.

Took a photo of a statue of the man who found the Milford Track. Then the drizzle that had been present started to get heavier. I prudently decided to explore Te Anau a little closer to my hotel at that point. Met Shuli and her husband. They were leaving already. The rain gradually became a downpour. I started running back the way I came, but the rain became so heavy that I had to hide under a tree for a while. 7:30am. Didn’t even get to walk more than half an hour.

Lone ship again

Rainbow in the corner
Felt like tilting the camera. So I did. Caught a rainbow too.

The rain lightened up, and I took the chance to race towards the town centre. Took shelter at the local bakery, and since I’m there, might as well order an original Earl Grey with milk (I was freezing) for NZ3.00. I milled around my sheltered side of the road and then decided to walk back towards the lake. Hey, it’s about the only attraction here, and besides, the sky seemed to be clearing. At least the rain drops weren’t the size of mothballs anymore.

I reached the edge of the lake and took shelter at the tourist shop there. This was 8:10am. I decided I had to be back at the hotel to finish packing at 9:00am, to be ready for the 9:45am coach to Milford Sound. Droves of tourists arrived then. There’s Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and foreigners. I don’t mean to be rude, because I can’t really tell if a blondish-brownish haired foreigner is an American, Australian, European and what have you. Sorry.

Luxmore hotel
Luxmore hotel, where I stayed the night before.

Finally waited for the sky to clear at about 8:20am. Took more pictures and since I’ve pretty much done what I wanted, I said goodbye to the lake and went back earlier to the hotel. I checked my luggage, and it was at this point that it hit me; I’m running out of batteries. And camera memory.

I have a Milford Sound cruise coming up, Queenstown the next, Fox Glacier after that, and finally a train passing through some interesting terrain while speeding to Christchurch. And I’m left with half of my batteries. This, is bad.

I solved the battery problem by rushing to the hotel tourist store and buying 8 Kodak batteries (NZ15.80). I’ll think about the memory problem later. Last night, I’ve already cleaned out some obviously bad shots. Bought 3 postcards for NZ1.50 in case I don’t get nice shots during the cruise.

I checked out, and waited for the transfer transportation. Two vans turned up and one the lady drivers told me to hop on. My ticket says a coach but I’m confused at that point so I just obeyed her. The van travelled for like 20 metres, turned left and stopped. The coach station was right beside my hotel! Why make me haul the luggage onto the van then? I could’ve rolled it to the station myself… Waited for the coach, which actually came from Queenstown. At this point, my fascination with drivers’ names waned. Can’t remember his name this time round.

En route to the Milford Sound cruise, I met a Japanese 22 year old female, and her name’s Mie (mee-eh). Finally, my university basic Japanese class put to practical use. “Nihonjin deska?”, I asked if she’s a Japanese (obviously, but it pays to verify…), my first voluntary attempt at conversation on this ride.

Everything flowed from that point onwards. She’s in the middle of a one and a half year vacation. Yes, you read that right. One and a half year. She lived in Perth, and took a vacation to New Zealand. She started at Christchurch, went to Mount Cook (oh I don’t get to do that…), then to Queenstown, and now to the cruise. She has a boyfriend from Hong Kong, so she asked if I knew Cantonese. I said yes, and we exchanged a few phrases (her accent’s atrocious, but my Japanese isn’t that good anyway…). She mentioned Singlish (heard about it from her Singaporean friends), and asked if I’m really Singaporean, because I spoke what she termed as normal English (I’m flattered).

Mountain and sky reflection

Giant tree by roadside

Misty mountainside

Churning stream

Tumbling waters

Didn’t manage to get a good shot of Homer Tunnel (really long and narrow and dark tunnel). Well, I reached Milford Sound, after a few scenic stops (read camera memory depleting stops). Learned from driver’s commentary that the difference between a sound and a fiord is that a sound is carved by water, whereas a fiord is carved by glaciers. On the cruise, there was some buffet food, but I didn’t know if I could take some (without having to pay extra). Didn’t bother to find out, so no lunch. 1:30pm now.

Milford Sound waterfall
My first waterfall.

Vincent clutching handrail
Clutching handrail for dear life. Yes the smile was partially forced. That ship can rock!

Milford Sound mountainside

Waterfall closeup

Waterfall source

Double waterfalls

Cloudy sky

Tasman Sea
The endless sea. Tasman Sea if I’m correct.

Seals
Seals!

Dolphin
Dolphins! Didn’t get them beaching… :(

Waterfall point of impact
Aw man, the spray… look at the beautiful concentric circles…

Invisible penguin
There’s supposed to be a penguin here. Can’t for the life of me find it. I finally glimpsed it, but didn’t catch the bird in digital…

I went all out on the cruise. The waterfalls are GORGEOUS! At the end of the cruise, I checked my camera and found I only have 65 shots left. Oh dear… 3 alternatives:

  • Clean memory and take less pictures.
  • Get new memory card.
  • Download pictures into CD, so I can reuse the card (suggested by Mie).

I’m actually more inclined towards option 2.

Cruise finished at 3:30pm. The coach backtracked to Te Anau first for a break, where I went to the pharmacy because I heard an old lady buying a memory card there yesterday. Queue too long, so gave up. Bought a chocolate milkshake because I didn’t think it’s healthy for my stomach to go so long without food, though my stomach’s not complaining too much. The coach then started its long journey to Queenstown.

The journey to Queenstown was similar to the coach rides I had before. At least the first part. Rolling hills and plains. More sheep. More trees. Then suddenly, a large body of water (Lake Wakatipu) appeared on the left side of the coach and steep cliffs on the right. Sometimes, the road hugged close to the left edge, where a watery demise awaited. Or unrelenting rocks on the right threatened to smash the coach.

After the nerve-wrecking journey, I finally arrived at Queenstown at 8:00pm. Said sayonara to Mie and went to check in at the hotel. Room 428. One word. Bad. It’s at the corner. There’s a separating door just outside of the room that keeps opening and closing because of human traffic. I kept thinking my room’s been entered. Also, the room’s beside the main road, and far away from the reception.

Freshened up a little and went to ask the receptionist about the “extreme” activities. I was interested in paragliding and jetboating. Well, it’s 8:30pm, the activities centres are closed (I thought as much), so the receptionist told me they could make appointments for me, which will take place at 8:00am the next day. That’s fine, so I thanked her, and went looking for food. Seems like my basic task upon arrival in a new place.

Family of ducks

Queenstown evening

Walked around town, tried to check out the place Mie suggested for the picture downloading (failed. Couldn’t find it.). And got lost. Again. Yeah, big surprise. Looked for something familiar. Wanted Pizza Hut but couldn’t find the place. Distinctly remembered seeing the signs of Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald’s. Well, I couldn’t find Pizza Hut, McDonald’s doesn’t seem accessible (found only the sign, but no sign of the restaurant itself), so I’m left with KFC. Plus I’ve gone without solid food for about 13-14 hours, so no time to think. I had Colonel burger (not bad), fries (could build salt castles with the sodium chloride they put) and Sun Crush (an orange flavoured fizzy drink) for NZ7.20.

The sky was dark, and there were these four formidable-looking men sitting beside me who made me a tad bit uncomfortable. I munched as quickly yet confidently (don’t let them think I’m easy prey) as I could, and left for the hotel. Didn’t want to grab my Lonely Planet guide (I’m lost, remember?), but found a familiar road construction sign (Queenstown currently undergoing heavy road construction) I passed earlier.

I found my way back to the hotel (there’s a steep climb up). Fiddled with the room like the days before to make it, uh, as burglar-proof as possible. And uh, while fiddling with the window blinds, uh, broke it. *sigh* In my defense, the blinds were probably weak in the first place. Will tell receptionist tomorrow anyway. This room is by far the largest, and I’ve eaten dinner the latest so far (9:00pm), and as of this writing, it is now 11:59pm. Good night.

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New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Walkathon disaster

November 8, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

Day 3, 08 November 2004, Monday

Woke up bright and early. Well, early anyway at 5:00am. But still tired, then dozed off until 6:00am. Argh! Supposed to move out at 6:45am. Yadda, yadda, blah blah blah, got ready by 7:00am. Looked for university students but not much activity. Guess 7:00am in the morning’s still too early?

So I went looking for Lonely Planet recommended cafe: Percolater. Not open. Looked for Potpourri. Couldn’t find it. Wandered around aimlessly until my stomach decided to take charge, and moved my legs to McCafe of McDonald’s. Bought a strawberry and peach croissant and English breakfast tea (total NZ4.60).

The Octagon clock tower
The Octagon clock tower.

Dunedin field edge

Dunedin field edge statue

Dunedin field memorial information

Dunedin field
The field that later spelled my Dunedin walkathon disaster.

Speight's brewery
Speight’s brewery. See further down for some wacky quotes!

Church on steep slope
Church on steep slope. I’ll show the slope a few pics later…

View from top of slope
View from top of slope.

Steep slope construction worker
Construction worker working around the steep slope church.

Steep slope
Ahh… THE slope. Do I get thanks for climbing it? *huff huff*

Molten lava road
The road was covered in molten lava once.

Molten lava road information

Robert Burns statue
Wonder what’s the green bottle doing in his hand?

Fortune art theatre
The local art theatre, Fortune.

Walked around town some more, took pictures and returned to hotel by 10:00am. Check out time. Left my luggage at the hotel for storage as the transport for me to the coach station is at 12:45pm. So went walking some more.

Yesterday, I explored one half of Dunedin. Today, I’m gonna do the other half. Today’s half appears to be more residential in nature, with students living in some of the houses as well. But it also involved a lot of climbing. These homes are built on slopes.

I climbed up and down until my legs complained, then I walked to the southern end of Dunedin, and decided to walk around a huge field there (see pics above). Had two Snickers bars for lunch. I walked to the other side and found more interesting places. Now, it’s around 11:00am now. I should really be returning to the hotel. But nooooo, I chose to walk some more.

Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints.

Well, I’m certainly gonna try. Some more shops here and I finally sort of reached the point of no return. Must go back to the hotel already. I didn’t really know how to take their public transport, so that leaves just the reliable but slow mode of transport provided by the lower appendages of the human body.

I walked past an automobile section of that part of town before returning to the field mentioned before. Amazingly, I even remembered seeing a car (Toyota, I think) being sold at NZ1000. It is now 12:15pm. Now it’s a race against time. The Amazing Race music should have been playing in my head, but I’m too worried about missing my hotel transfer to the coach station. Plus my legs were ready to give.

I finally reached the main central part of the town (The Octagon). But it’s worse now. People blocked me (it’s lunch time, remember?), undulating streets stressed my legs further and traffic lights defied me by turning red just when I reach them…

After much sweat and effort, with my legs practically stiff from the lactic acid build up, I reached the hotel at 12:48pm, 3 minutes after the appointed time, with the taxi driver waiting for me at the reception. Whew! The driver took me to the coach station, and it turns out that I was right when the hotel receptionist gave me their 12:45pm appointment. The coach LEAVES at 1:40pm, so I’m like 45 minutes early. So much for the rush. The coach was late as a matter of fact. *sigh* It arrived at the station at 2:00pm.

Here’s some random stuff I’ve seen in Dunedin:

An advertisement on the back of a bus:
“Fares so small you have to watch out for them when reversing”

Advertisements for Speight’s, a seemingly popular ale in New Zealand. It features a young man (YM) and an old veteran (OV), both in cowboy outfits.
YM: “Have you been abroad?”
OV: “Never much of a cross dresser.”

(Broad is a slang term for a woman)

YM: “Reckon this Asian cuisine lacks something.”
OV: “A fork, boy.”

River
Yeah, river!

Ice cream at Peggydale
Ice cream at Peggydale’s.

Blue vegetation at Peggydale
Peggydale and the blue vegetation I found around it.

Anyway, finally left Dunedin at 2:17pm, coach driven by Doug (I think). We stopped briefly at a place called Peggydale. Got a NZ2.50 orange juice.

Gore police station
Past through Gore so fast I only got this shot… There’s a huge statue of a trout that I missed. Gore’s famous for brown trout fishing and (if I remember correctly) the best country music in the southern hemisphere.

So we passed Milton, Balclutha, Gore, Riversdale and Lumsden. All the while I’m clicking happily on my camera. Well almost happily. Found out I have used about half of my available memory in just my third day of the trip. Must curb my camera trigger response…

Cloudy sky and sheep
Fantastic sky, gorgeous mountains, vibrant trees and uh more sheep.

Blurry foreground vegetation
Witness the power of a 90km/h coach!

Brown clumps of plant life

Lake Te Anau
Lake Te Anau. Gorgeous.

Lone boat on Lake Te Anau

We reached Te Anau (tee ah-nao) at about 7:00pm. Rushed to the lake to take 3 pictures and went looking for dinner. Breakfast was a croissant and lunch was two chocolate bars, so a bit hungry now. Previously, I was unable to get any of the Lonely Planet listed eateries, so I was excited when I found one. La Toscana, an Italian restaurant. Ordered a soup, pizza and raspberry milkshake (NZ7.00, NZ13.50 and NZ3.50 respectively).

My friend Shuli and her husband

I also met my junior college friend, Shuli! And her husband! Like she said, small place like Singapore, we never meet, come to New Zealand then we meet. She’s on her honeymoon. She and her husband just returned from kayaking in Milford Sound. That explained why she’s tanned.

Talked with her for some time, and then decided to leave before their dessert arrived. Didn’t want to intrude too much. Went back to hotel to plan what I want to do after the Milford Sound cruise tomorrow when I reach Queenstown. And I got a chapstick from George the pharmacist for NZ7.00.

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Null is foreign concept to users

November 7, 2008 By

Is it hard to imagine … nothing? Apparently, it is for some people.

There was this report that my users view/print. For one of the items, there wasn’t any database records for it. Correspondingly, there wasn’t anything printed for that item.

One person asked, “There’s an error. Why isn’t item X shown?” Even though the report printed out records for items Y and Z, that person didn’t figure out that there wasn’t anything to print for item X, hence blank for item X.

So the takeaway lesson? Show something, even if there’s nothing to show. For example, displaying “There are no records retrieved.” is better than a blank page. Your user might still ask stupid questions, but at least you know your application is working correctly. Sort of.

Then comes the question you should ask yourself, “Why isn’t there any records to show?”

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New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Dunedin

November 7, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

Day 2, 07 November 2004, Sunday

I checked out of the hotel at 7:15am. A small van came to pick me up and 3 other passengers. One was a French young lady, named Mahena (or something like that. She said most people get it wrong.), who worked in Auckland and was here for a holiday. Didn’t get the other two people’s names. Van driver’s name’s Maurice.

Turns out I’m the only one getting off at the coach station. Then I realised nobody’s going to be with me permanently or even more than 1 day at a time. Driver’s gonna be different, companions gonna be different. This is just fine. I get to meet all sorts of people then. I didn’t think the tour company meant it literally when they said I’ll have different people travelling with me.

Reached the coach station, gave my next voucher to the lady behind the counter and got a boarding pass. Got on coach and the driver’s name is Eric. Nobody sat beside me, at least not for the first part of the journey.

We set off slightly late (15 minutes. These people really take punctuality seriously. I shudder at the wedding dinners in Singapore… I had one driver some days after this with a 5 minute delay. He kept apologising to us so much that I felt embarassed.). Really apologetic about it. I wowed at scenery for the first hour, but dozed through the better part of the second hour. Very tired.

Timaru

Timaru

Stopped at Timaru for 5 minutes. Then we set off again.

Sheep
Sheep!

Cows
And cows!

Shallow river
And rivers!

Then we stopped at Oamaru.

Oamaru

Oamaru

Got some orange juice for lunch (NZ2.00). By this time, the coach had a few more passengers (there were 2 or 3 stops along the way where people got on board).

Dense hills

More hills

The two Koreans in front of me sort of got separated when an old lady took one of their seats. So one of the Koreans joined me, and that’s how I met Jung Tea Hee. There’s a language barrier, because his English’s bad, and my Korean’s practically non-existent. I managed to know he’s 26 years old, think he’s a student. He travelled with his friend for 2 months already, and spent the last 14 days in New Zealand. He’s heading for Queenstown.

Cargills Hotel

Around Cargills Hotel

Reached Dunedin (pronounced duh-nee-duhn, and not dee-oon-din, nor doo-nuh-din. Made a fool of myself before.), said farewell to Jung (ah-nay-oh) and waited for my transfer cab to the hotel (female driver’s name’s Red). Checked in at Cargills Hotel and then went looking for food. I haven’t had lunch yet, unless you count the orange juice I had in Oamaru.

Girls marching

Girls marching

Walked around, found some school girls doing marching performances on a field with their parents and teachers. There’s even some hip music used for some of the teams. Took some pictures of that, and then found McDonald’s (the staff ain’t too attentive, nor too helpful, nor too friendly. Either me, or my race. I hope it’s just me.).

University of Otago
The University of Otago is sprawled everywhere in the town.

Cadbury confectionery

Original plan was to see the Cadbury World and the university book shop. The chocolate factory offered one-hour tours every half hour from 9:00am till 3:30pm, at NZ14. Well I’m a bit late now, and frankly speaking, not keen on it anyway. It’ll be like Willy Wonka’s factory. Plus it’s one entire hour in there. I could do so much more outside.

Countdown convenience store

Got new batteries (NZ6.29) at a local 24/7 convenience store because the camera’s eating them up, and a bottle of water (NZ2.09) for my parched throat and lips. And I even got a coupon that the supermarket cashier (operator lane 5, says so on my receipt) gave (it’s for the Duracell batteries). So the total cost was NZ7.10. It’s now 5:10pm.

Dunedin railway station

Dunedin railway station information board

Some skaters I spotted
Some skaters I spotted behind the railway station.

Dunedin railway station garden

I explored some more, went back to hotel for a NZ26.00 chicken dinner. Will explore the other half of Dunedin tomorrow. And see how life is like on a Monday. Especially with the university students (University of Otago. The university is like scattered, with faculties all over the town.).
[Edit: On hindsight, there probably won't be many students in November. Doh!]

Behind University of Otago

The weather isn’t as cold as in Christchurch, or as blustery. And eight. That’s the number of people I’ve seen walking around barefoot. 6 men, 1 women and a little girl.

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New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Christchurch

November 6, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

Day 1, 06 November 2004, Saturday

Technically speaking, today was the actual first day on my tour package itinerary. But I wasn’t really concentrating on this. The flight attendants served breakfast, and this time I took it.

We landed in Auckland after 10 hours of flying, an 8404 kilometre flight straight from Singapore. Time in New Zealand was 11:40am. And my check in time for the transfer flight to Christchurch is 12:40pm! So I only have an hour to finish whatever I need to do. One would probably think there’s enough time, but I’m not going to take chances. I said goodbye to Richard, and alighted the plane.

The check out counter was slow. Man, was it slow! When I finally managed to get my luggage, it’s already 12:30pm! I rushed to check in counter. Argh! Wrong terminal! I need to go to the domestic terminal. Amazing Race music kept playing in my head now… Dragged my luggage to the internal shuttle service station, and kept wishing the driver would move already. Finally reached the domestic terminal, checked in just in time, and took the two and a half hour flight at 1:00pm, and arrived in Christchurch airport.

Retrieved my luggage from the conveyor belt, and saw my limousine transfer driver. He’s holding up a sign reading “Mr Tan”. That’s me! His car didn’t seem like a limo to me, but at this point I didn’t really care about the fine art of identifying car types. It’s bigger and grander than most cars, but that’s about my limit of vehicle differentiation.

The driver’s name was Bryce, and he handed me the travel vouchers and explained to me how to use them. Actually, after he explained the first two vouchers, I got the idea already, but he went on. All the way to the last voucher. Well I didn’t want to offend him, so I kept quiet and listened. On the way to the hotel, we talked about stuff. I only remember the NZ1400+ for a car…

Kingsgate Autolodge Hotel
Where I stayed for the night.

Christchurch Town Hall

Christchurch Tramways

A big giant cross and statues

Front of a church

Town square

Arrived at the Kingsgate Autolodge Hotel, checked in, and after settling in, managed to move out at about 4:30pm. Walk, snap pictures, walk some more, snap pictures, got lost, don’t care, snap more pictures, got hungry, camera battery went flat, no extra batteries on me, still haven’t had dinner, took out Lonely Planet guide for help, walked back in general direction of hotel, and found DINER!!

Ate at Rosie’s, if I remember correctly. Didn’t want fast food on my first day. Will take cheaper food later on. Even if I do fly 8000 plus kilometres to eat at McDonald’s. Or Burger King. Or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Well, ordered cajun fish (NZ19.95) with hot chocolate (NZ4.00) and garlic bread (NZ4.50). Don’t know why I ordered the garlic bread. Didn’t know that cajun fish dish came with garlic bread as well.

Finished my dinner, walked some more and returned to the hotel. All the while, winds in Christchurch were howling like werewolves during full moon. Now I know what biting cold feels like… The sky here only started to darken at about 8:30pm (about 7:30pm in Singapore), but it was drizzling. And the sky was cloudy all day. *sigh* At least it didn’t pour.

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New Zealand Nov 2004 trip – Changi Airport

November 5, 2008 By

This is part of some travelling notes I wrote exactly 4 years ago for a trip to New Zealand in November 2004. Please enjoy the story.

My New Zealand vacation itinerary

05 November 2004, Friday

  • 8:25pm Singapore time, Changi airport, flight NZ82 from Singapore to Auckland (10 hour flight, 6 Nov 11:30am).

06 November 2004, Saturday

  • 1:00pm, Auckland domestic airport, flight NZ527 from Auckland to Christchurch (2:20pm).
  • 2:20pm, Christchurch airport, transport provided from airport to accomodation.
  • Stay at Kingsgate Hotel Autolodge.

07 November 2004, Sunday

  • Check out. Transport provided from accomodation to coach station.
  • 8:00am, coach drive from Christchurch to Dunedin (1:45pm).
  • 1:45pm, transport provided from Dunedin coach station to accomodation.
  • Stay at Cargills Motor Inn.
  • Free time in this afternoon and next morning.

08 November 2004, Monday

  • Check out. Transport provided from accomodation to coach station.
  • 1:55pm, coach drive from Dunedin to Te Anau (6:30pm).
  • Coach drive close to accomodation. Stay at Luxmore Hotel.

09 November 2004, Tuesday

  • 9:45am, check out. Picked up by coach.
  • 10:30am, coach drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound (1:00pm).
  • 1:30pm, Milford Sound cruise.
  • 3:15pm, coach drive back to Te Anau, and then to Queenstown (7:45pm).
  • Coach drive close to accomodation. Stay at A-line Hotel for two nights.

10 November 2004, Wednesday

  • One complete day free.

11 November 2004, Thursday

  • 7:10am, check out. Transport provided from accomodation to coach station.
  • 7:40am, coach drive from Queenstown to Fox Glacier (3:25pm).
  • Coach drive close to accomodation. Stay at Rainforest Motel for two nights.

12 November 2004, Friday

  • One complete day free.

13 November 2004, Saturday

  • 8:15am, check out. Picked up by coach. Coach drive from Fox Glacier to Greymouth (1:15pm).
  • 1:45pm, Greymouth train station, TranzAlpine Express from Greymouth to Christchurch (6:05pm).
  • 6:05pm, Christchurch train station, transport provided from train station to accomodation.
  • Stay at Cotswold Hotel.

14 November 2004, Sunday

  • 7:45am, check out. Transport provided from accomodation to airport.
  • 8:55am, Christchurch airport, flight NZ512 from Christchurch to Auckland (10:15am).
  • 1:00pm, Auckland international airport, flight NZ81 from Auckland to Singapore (10 hr 50 min, 6:50pm Singapore time).

Day 0, 05 November 2004, Friday

Standing just outside the Changi Airport check point, a well of excitement was waiting in the pit of my stomach, waiting to burst out and then I’ll embarrass myself. It’s my first time on an airplane!

I took hold of my passport and plane tickets (as constantly reminded by my dad and brother) and handed them over to the officer to check. And then I’m in. First time behind the check in line, so I went to look around all the hyped-up duty free shops at Changi Airport.

After walking a bit (not much anyway. Besides no money nor interest to buy the stuff), with a supposed 40 minutes before boarding, I glanced at the display board, and it shows my plane is on “LAST CALL”! Huh?! Hurry, hurry. Turns out, nothing much happening. What the?! The “LAST CALL” was in red, what was I to think?

In the waiting lounge, I watched people come and go, conversing with family or friends, fiddling with hand luggage, calming young children, talking on the mobile phone, and my favourite, staring into space. Finally, it’s time to go in. Got an aisle seat. Befriended the person next to me. He got the window seat (Oh…). Guess what? He’s a pilot! And he works for Air New Zealand. His name’s Richard, and he just came down from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and now Singapore. Going back to his home in Auckland.

We talked, and he told me stuff about the plane operations, like what does this whirring sound mean, or that the air conditioning is temporarily switched off to divert more power to the turbines. Oh yeah, he’s reading Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (great book), which was actually how I started the conversation with him. He came with his daughter, but couldn’t get the same flight back. His daughter got on the SIA flight instead.

The lift off was ecstatic! I could feel my internal organs swooshing in me… :) It’s my first plane ride, so I took some notes. The flight speed goes up to 931 kilometres per hour. We flew as high as 10700 metres in the air (it was night, and I was on the aisle seat, so couldn’t see when we pierce through the cloud layer). And the temperature outside the plane can be as low as -58 degree Celsius.

I didn’t take the inflight dinner, in case my stomach cannot, uh, stomach the flying. On hindsight, that was the dumbest thing I’ve done (see future diary notes). I also couldn’t get comfortable, so not much sleep. At least they’ve got inflight movies: “Bourne Supremacy” and “Spiderman 2″. Cool. My seat was just three rows behind the business class. I didn’t know what pacific class means, but apparently it’s pretty good.

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Some announcements

November 3, 2008 By

I feel a slowing down in this November of 2008. So I have some announcements to make. Yes, I’m still writing. My plan for this month just happens to include writing more on miscellaneous stuff, to take a break from the technical stuff.

Even if you aren’t interested in the American election, I’m guessing there’s still going to be a flurry of activity around the world, what with global temperatures, economy and wildlife news abound. This means even if I had a picture of a naked nubile nymph in this first post of November, it would probably get washed out in the torrent of news. (No, I don’t have that picture here. Stop looking.)

I’ll still put in some programming articles (got a couple of them lined up). They’ll just be disproportionately outnumbered by some travelling notes I took some 4 years ago. I’ll talk about that a bit more. But first …

New look

Polymath Programmer had undergone a third change of clothes. Technically, it’s more than that (I was fiddling with the WordPress themes). But it’s the 3rd time I outsourced the design. Well, technically, it’s the second successful makeover, since the first outsourcing job was a flop.

Anyway, this time, I got the Men With Pens to help out. This time, I really like the theme look. They were attentive and competent with design work. If you need help with writing in general and design work, get them to help. And don’t be cheap either.

Videos in XHTML don’t play nice with RSS

I’ve been using a WordPress plugin called XHTML Video Embed to help me with embedding videos. As far as possible, I try to emit proper XHTML tags.

This said, videos are troublesome beasts. The problem stems from the use of object tags and embed tags. XHTML doesn’t recognise embed tags as valid, but it’s the only way I can get my articles to look the same on my site and in RSS feeds (when read).

What happened was, if only object tags were used, SmartCast must be turned on in FeedBurner, and the video will appear in the RSS feed at the top of the post. No other position, only the top. And if there are images, the first image won’t appear. I’ve always wondered how other people were able to get multiple videos and images in the same post, at the intended positions, regardless if it was read on the site or from the feed.

So I’ve fiddled with the options in WordPress and FeedBurner countless times. I’ve studied the PHP and XHTML required to display videos. I’ve pinged my site and re-synchronised my feed so many times, I feared I’d be banned.

So I made a tough choice. I decided to use whatever embedding code was provided by the video host. *sigh* Since I use videos sparingly, I thought my site would be mostly XHTML compliant. That will have to do.

I want to thank SaltwaterC for adding in Capped TV as an option for the plugin. I’m really grateful. I just wish I can help more. Couldn’t find a donate button anywhere… So if you care about XHTML compliance, and not so much about whether the video appears at the intended position (or even at all) in the RSS feed, go get the plugin. You can always add in a hard link to the video in your post.

Project Polymath

Project Polymath is a new type of university, aiming to, as far as I understand it, create more generalists of greater breadth and depth of knowledge. Go check out their Facebook page.

I quote:

The current trend in society is towards hyperspecialization, and in some circles, the word polymath has even taken on a negative connotation …

… we see fewer polymaths now not because the knowledge we must obtain to make discoveries is deeper, but because of the dominance of this negative attitude towards obtaining broad knowledge.

I’m thinking of writing up a manifesto. I don’t know, it seems fashionable to do so *smile* One of my key points is, “We need more generalists!”

Trip to the past

It’s been nearly 4 years since I travelled to New Zealand. That was the very first trip on my own, and on an airplane no less. I wrote the articles and posted them on an earlier site of mine, but the site’s defunct now. So I thought it’s a good time to revive them here, with some minor editing.

I’ll be posting the day by day events on the actual date itself, disregarding the 4 year lapse. So you’ll have 1 post daily for about 10 days, starting on the 5th. Here are some highlights:

  • My fumbling at airports
  • An almost unhealthy obsession with walking around places
  • Paragliding at Queenstown and glacier walking at Fox Glacier
  • How I was starving, broke and almost couldn’t come back to Singapore

Exciting narration, coming up…

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