I'd like to tell you the time I went on a 12 day, 11 night cruise to New Zealand with 29 of my family members and cousins (including me) during Christmas. It was really good btw. I'm still very sad. Which is why I rarely ever talk about it because memories arise and I get really sad.

I get emotional about these things very easily.

We stopped 5 times in NZ at different spots: Picton, Wellington, Napier, Tauranga and Auckland, in that order from the 21st to 25th December. The rest were at sea.

This meant we stopped at Auckland on the 25th which was Christmas Day. Mind you everything was closed except for the cafes... which bored us. I like exploring and luckily 10 of my teenage cousins, including me and my 2 older sisters which are well over their teen years, liked exploring too. Especially hiking. We hiked 3 out of the 5 days we had in NZ; Picton, Tauranga and Auckland. Wellington and Napier were flat. Wellington was boring. So boring. Don't recommend lol. Napier was a very small town affected by a big earthquake and contained a lot of its historical landmarks. It had a nice black sand beach which suited the cloudy weather that day.

Picton was the first day we got off and the first time we saw land after 3 days at sea. The sea was a good view on the treadmill in the gym. Oh, I gym-ed. (gymmed looks weird) I gym-ed 10 out of the 12 days. 12th day was literally the day we got off so I might as well make it 10 out of 11 days. I felt really good. So fit. Now I feel fat. Well... just a bit loose around the edges. Anyways, the sea was beautiful... majestic. Picton, being the first time we saw land, was beautiful. Looked like the floating islands in Avatar. It was our hardest hike because it took us a couple of hours to get to the tip and it was quite hot. Picton happened to only be the sunniest day in NZ.

Wellington was spent at yumcha. Some of us felt deprived of authentic asian food so we all searched up for a good yumcha place while at a McDonalds (coz wifi, whynot.) We eventually found one and our uncle/ aunty shouted all 14 of us (including their family) because we looked after and played with their kids. I should mention, because there was 29 of us (14 youths; 4 under the age of 7; the rest between 7-26, and the rest were mum's and dad's and one grandma) we all split to go different places. The youths, being my cousins in HS and uni, all stuck together. We like adventurous stuff and it was fun anyway.

Napier was short. It was cloudy and we had to come back to the ship by 2pm anyway so we left quite a bit early like 8am and browsed around.

Tauranga was sprinkling but bearable. I bought my Kathmandu jacket there, although I already knew it was cheaper in Aus but I bought it 20$ more in NZ because why not, I'm on holiday ya. Once we got off we saw a giant mountain range and instantly thought, lets hike that. We walked around the entire island searching for the stairs and turns out the stairs was right at the beginning, so we walked all around for no reason. Actually, we walked around for the great ocean view :) Once we reached the end, almost to the beginning, we saw the steps and realized what we were going to get ourselves into. It was steep as bleep. Trust me, if you aint fit now, you won't be fit for that at all. It was a good workout. Sweaty, but good. Reached the top and that's where I took one of my instag photos :)

Lastly, Auckland. Same forecast. I planned most of our trips btw because I like occupying the day with things to do and everyone was content anyway. I also had wifi on the ship, which I paid for. Oh cruise wifi works fine. It's not super super slow like everyone made it out to be. It'll take like 15 seconds for an instag photo to load. But snapchat worked fine and twitter was all good. I don't recommend watching a youtube video though. But why would you need to youtube on a ship.

For Auckland, I found a place called Mount Eden. An actual suburb in addition to the actual mountain. Sounds pretty mystical right. It was peaceful despite it being Christmas Day. Took the train there. I looove taking public transport in foreign countries because you're learning something new. Walked a fair bit and found a long flying fox. Footage is on my gopro, which is on my mac, which is broken atm. Then climbed Mt Eden.

This is where I'm going to tell you a story that has made me superstitious since, of my sadness and badluck. Mt Eden is a dormant volcano, so basically covered in grass, rocks, just a massive pit in the centre. My cousins and I wanted to go right in the centre. Obviously we didn't think much except that it'd be really fun because it was steep and it'd make it more challenging to go down. I ended up going down and I did reach the bottom. I think I snapchatted this, if ya'll don't have me on snapchat 'teaemzy' is my username hehe. Then this lady started getting angry at us and telling us to get out, we're stupid etc. And judging from one of my cousins who didn't go down, she told us the women could have said it nicer and it actually came off abit rude and arrogant. We quickly got out and walked all around the volcano and saw a sign that said this was a sacred site, don't enter. Well shit. You could have placed the sign all around and told us that.

Ever since that happened, I've been doubting myself about the luck I've had. My macbook literally broke down on Sunday night with all and only the videos and photos of the cruise I took, my singapore and malaysia trip in 2014, my HSC drama performance, my essays and references. Literally everything. I also had my first worst ever encounter with a customer at the chemist, and he was an indian. I will not make any further comment about him. I'm breaking out like a bitch. And I say this while off my periods and being absolutely stress free. This is the worst my face has been since early 2013. I have pimples on the side of my face. ON THE SIDE. I only ever get them on my nose, forehead or moustache but I've got them on the side of my face. So yes, I am very superstitious right now. But I've been trying to stay positive. I've pushed that aside and try to think of happier things.

I'm taking my macbook tomorrow to the apple store to see what's up with it. I hope they can save it and my photos/ videos. I am extremely sad.

The cruise as a whole was a blast. I drank quite a bit. I got pissed drunk on Christmas night at the club. But I chilled at the bars and had nice chats with my cousins. Played golf, basketball, swam in the pools and relaxed in the jacuzzi. Watched a lot of theatrical shows and films in the theatre and walked a lot around the ship. I wished I had met some people and had the balls to speak to them but some things weren't meant to be. I think what I liked most about it was that it was a small community of people who were nice, loving, friendly and smiley all the time. People who had courtesy, manners, spoke to you at random times because there were just being friendly. It was just sooo nice. You didn't have to worry about getting home safely or letting your parents know where you were. And being off your phone for a long period of time was just so refreshing. Sometimes I went for days without my phone on the ship and it was still sitting on 90%. So start looking up from your phones and put that away, because it might also make your troubles go away too :)

That's my trip. Sorry if I haven't been vocal about it. It's been hard. January is almost gone, so 11 months left of the year. Pretty quick hey?

Can't wait for Chinese New Year.

See yalls later.






Saturday, January 30, 2016 10:17 PM