The Unbalanced Libra..

I spent 30 minutes writing my blog yesterday night, then the stupid web page refreshed itself for no reason, without saving my blog entry. So now, i have to write it all over again, only this time, i will try to be much more brief.

Yesterday, K and I had a very "energetic" day in Taupo. First we went to see a spectacular and extremely powerful waterfall (hydro energy), then we went to a volcanic / geo thermal park and surrounded ourselves with bubbling mud pools and bursting geysers (volcanic energy).

We woke up super early and left the house around 7plus after a quick breakfast, and just after the sun came out. When we reached the car park, we saw our entire car had been frosted up overnight when the temperature had dropped to -2 degrees. When i open my car door, the ice cracked and it sounded like the whole door was gonna fall apart.. haha.. It took us a few minutes to get the car under the sun and watch the ice melt before we started our 2 hour drive to Taupo.

The drive was a really nice one. We drove past lots of beautiful nature, saw the cows and sheeps (been a long time since i saw them!) and even some slow capped mountains in the distance. The roads were also pretty frosted with ice, and it was the first time we saw snow / ice since we came to New Zealand. At one point, our car skidded a bit even though K was driving very slowly. I fell asleep not long after, cause K was listening to his audio book, and i got bored.

We arrived in Taupo around 11 plus, and headed first to the tourist info center to get some brochures and maps. Then we had Japanese for lunch at a small little cafe. It was quite bad. Firstly, there wasn't a single Japanese in the cafe. The chef was a caucasian, the 2 ladies on the floor was a local kiwi and a Chinese. K and I ordered teriyaki chicken don , and prawn tempura udon soup. The chicken don had no teriyaki sauce on it, and they did not give tempura sauce. When we asked for the 2 sauces, the Chinese lady came back with 3 sauces, all of which were not teriyaki and tempura sauce at all. Sigh.. nonetheless, the food was still edible lah..

After lunch, we headed to our first destination, the famous Huka Falls, supposedly the largest waterfall in Taupo, supplying 20 million litres of water a day to the river linking to Lake Taupo. We saw Lake Taupo on the way here, and i don't feel like it's 3 times bigger than Singapore leh.. looks pretty much like a normal lake to me, except that i cannot see the other end.. = )

Here's a You Tube video clip on Huka Falls. At first i thought this was just another normal waterfall, but i was very fascinated by it when i saw it. It's really quite spectacular and very very powerful!! It felt so therapeutic just standing there, watching and listening to the water rushing down..

After the Huka Falls, we went to the Orakei Korako Cave & Thermal Park, also known as the "Hidden Valley", We paid $31 each for a one page map, a 2-way ferry ride to the valley, and a 1 hour self guided tour. So expensive right!! But it was quite an eye opener cause its the first time i've been to a volcanic / geo thermal park. We were literally surrounded by hot steam and stinky sulphur smell the moment we stepped on the valley / island. At first, K and I did wonder if all the sulphur smell would harm the baby, but still went ahead nonetheless. And it was fun. We also got a lot of exercise walking up and down the steps during the one hour tour of the place.

Here's a short video of what we saw when we arrived at the valley. All photos are on my Facebook.

We left Taupo and drove back to Napier around 330pm. By the time we reached Napier, it was slightly past 5, so we didn't have time for dinner before the lecture. So we headed straight to the Eastern Institute of Technology for the free 1hour public lecture on "Personality". We were surprised to see that the lecture theatre was full house when we arrived. The lecture was quite interesting i must say, and i enjoyed myself. At least it's something different, something intelligent.. haven't really been using my head alot these days! = ) Sitting in the lecture theatre made me feel young again, and i really miss my JC and University days!! The speaker also shared a lot of reseach studies and results on Psychology and Personality, and that brought back memories of my Honours year when i had to do all these research for my thesis. = )

The lecture ended around 7pm, and K and I headed to the supermarket after that to get some groceries, before heading home to cook dinner. By then i was already super hungry, so i just made some mee sua soup and settled my dinner. We went to bed not long after that. What a day!