active volcano

Mt. Ruapehu erupted in 1996, soon after I arrived in NZ. It was quite scary for me at first because I have not experienced a live volcano before. I did not know whether I should stay on or migrate back to Sarawak or what!

Christchurch is having many after shocks since the earthquake last Sept. Don't go there! Planes cannot land there this week because of the volcanic ash from Chile, a repeat of the Iceland thinggy in early 2010 when  many travelers were stranded world wide.

Here is Mt. Eden, an extinct volcano in the heart of Auckland. Christine and I are standing at the very edge of the crater to take a photo with the Auckland skyline. In fact Auckland is surrounded by at least 50 volcanoes, apparently, not all of them are extinct!

Fortunately for us, we live in Hamilton, not Auckland or Christchurch.

Rangitoto Island was not there. It suddenly appeared out of the sea, only 600 years ago. By geological time frame, that is a very recent occurrence!

Mt Ngaruhoe has the classical  cone shape and is easy to recognize as a volcano. It is located near the Desert Road, a few km south of Turangi 

Mt. Taranaki, near New Plymouth is slightly bigger and more obvious. The Japanese tourists just love it because in winter, with some snow on it, it looks exactly like Mt Fuji, a holy place which many Japanese worship.

Do you see a volcano here? Yes, it is there. In fact it is our biggest volcano in NZ! Lake Taupo is a huge volcano crater that has been filled  by natural spring water after a gigantic eruption many years ago! This crater lake has an area of 238 square miles, only slightly smaller than the island of Singapore!

At Rotorua we can still see a very active geyser, boiling mud and other  signs of volcanic activities in New Zealand.

Close ups

Here are a few photos taken using macro mode on my digital camera. Do you see the honey bee? There is also an ant some where.

Ah Chet in Thailand

For some awesome photos of New Zealand please click here:
http://yapyapyap.multiply.com

Fairfield Bridge

Images by courtesy of Takashi Shinohara

kiwi fruit

Chinese gooseberry originated from China. In NZ it was commercialized, improved and renamed kiwi-fruit. Today it is one of our major export earner. There is a new variety with smooth skin and tastes sweeter, called Zespri. Have you tried it yet? 

A friend, Barling owns a Kiwi fruit farm in Tauranga. Click here for more photos.

Hamilton Lake

The plant on the left is a cabbage tree which is a native plant. I have taken a few photos of New Zealand scenery.

Kevin at Mt. Cook

This photo was taken during our family's second tour of the South Island in the year 2000. Our 12 days tour was just fine. I must have covered more than 3000 km. in Pearl's Toyota Cerres. We started in Christchurch, Hanmer Springs, crossed the Southern Alps to Westport, Punakaiki, Greymouth, Franz Josef Glacier, Lake Wanaga, Mt. Cook, Christchurch, Kaikoura, Picton and Malborough Sounds. 

Milford Sounds, Dunedin and Queenstown were covered during our first tour in 1995, when we first arrived in NZ to stamp our passports. It was an immigration requirement to do so, within a year of getting the approval to come here as permanent residents. 
A friend, Lisa ignored this landing requirement and allowed her residence permit to expire. Fortunately, when she applied a second time, a few years later, she was approved again! This time she moved her family to NZ without fail. Another friend, Horace, ignored an immigration PR requirement to come and stay in NZ for 6 months every year for 2 years. He lost his PR status and he met endless problems when he reapplied for PR the second time. Another friend, Simon, was the most lucky one of all. His wife was the main applicant. She never clocked the 12 months total residency requirement and yet she easily obtained her confirmation as PR when she arrived 10 years later. The NZ immigration dept periodically changed the requirements, depending on whether the country requires more new immigrants for that year and for what categories. It is getting very difficult for new applicants to keep track of the current requirements because the authorities keep on moving the goal posts. The up to date details are now available on the Immigration NZ web site.

Pearl in Greece

Eugene at Milford Sound

In 1995 we toured the South Island for the first time for a week. Five years later we toured the South Island again. This time for 12 days. A 2 week tour in a self-driven car is about right, if you want to see most of the sights on the South Island.

Haruru Falls

My favourite place for playing the bamboo flute.

London

The furthest I have been away from home (Miri) was London in 1979. The body hugging shirt and wide bell bottoms are really cool eh?

Most of my annual leave was spent in Kuantan with my in-laws.

emperor of China

It is good to be emperor of China, even for a day. You are allowed to have many concubines!

Mt. Ngauruhoe

Christine and I picnicking on the Desert Road, ulu New Zealand. In the back ground is Mt Ngauruhoe, an extinct volcano. Its neighbour Ruapehu last erupted in 1996. Close by is the famous Tongariro walk. A van takes you to the starting point early in the morning and picks you up later at the finish line, on the other side. There is no option but to complete the 7-hr walk!

Black and white photos

I have some more old photos and recent photos




This is my first post on Blogger. I started blogging on Multiply a blogging platform which does not exist any more. Hopefully, Blogger which is owned by Google, will last a little bit longer than Multiply. There is another option, Word Press; but it is not free of charge like Blogger.

These first few posts on Blogger were directly copy/paste from Multiply before it disappeared forever from the internet.