New Zealand - Day 1

Alamak citer dah basi.. cmner ni? hahaha OK, so I’ll try to keep it simple cuz let’s face it, I don’t think anyone really wants to hear about my family vacation.. probably just want to see the pics only hehehe so here goes.. ever since we went to Perth last year, we thought of having a yearly family vacation.. so naturally, we would pick for a place to go, and that place just so happen to be New Zealand.. why NZ? I think mostly cuz the Hobbit just came out, and ever since we watched LOTR, we wanted to see the place itself.. it’s worth to note that thankfully, our family have the same mind set of a vacation.. We go to other places mainly for the scenery and just have a good time in each others company.. We’re not really the ones to go out shopping except for souvenirs.

So we decided to go there for about 2 weeks (18 Apr – 4 May to be exact) and since there was limited flight, we’d thought that we’d take the morning flight, so we’ll arrive there early in the morning.. that way we can start our day early instead of another option of flying there at night and reaching about 1 pm.. so after the worst part of a vacation i.e. packing, we left for the airport that morning thanks to our beloved usu (our flight was at 8:40 am).. there was 6 of us total, including Fiq, so pak usu didn’t manage to tag along.. we were worried that our luggage couldn’t fit the car but thankfully ngam2 je heheh so after checking in, we had light breakfast at the airport..my first time taking the train kt KLIA, jakun jap hahaha the flight was about 9 hours plus.. I brought a book with me cuz naturally, I would want to read.. but they had movies on the flight (jakun lagi) and I spent the whole time just watching movies..

Intro panjang2, and no one really cares kan hehehe so we reached Auckland around 12 am, give or take.. good thing nothing was confiscated, naturally, we brought some food with us off course.. with that done, we went to get our rental car.. we didn’t stick to the itinerary that much (sorry izad but thanks a lot hehehe) we were supposed to stay at the airport for a while, maybe go grocery for a bit, but papa thought perhaps we could try to book for another night at our motel.. so we could get some rest.. so off we go from Auckland Airport to Matamata.. 

This is our car for the whole journey (although we switched at some point, it was still the same car).. it’s an 8 seated car a Hyundai Imax.. very comfortable for the 6 of us traveling, except perhaps for the 2 at the back.. the leg area was a bit small but still comfortable.. the bags all fit well.. 

Papa drove first, then after a while he felt a bit dizzy, so I took over.. a colleague lent her GPS to me so we used that to navigate.. we reached the motel around 3:15 am and the office was closed.. we decided to just rest in the car till the office open.. it was quite an ‘adventure’ for us (adventure isn’t really the right word) mama wanted to go to the toilet so we searched for a public toilet.. we found one but it was locked, so we tried a petrol station.. then we drove a bit and found another petrol station with more lights and decided to park there instead.. we told papa that instead of getting a room, perhaps we can just continue to sleep in the car cuz we planned to leave for Hobbitton in the morning.. papa agreed and so we slept in the car.. quite comfortable especially when I slept at 2am the night before, woke up at 4++am, then didn’t sleep in the plane, and it was about 12 am local time..

The sun rise and we prepared to leave.. got some coffee at the station and dgn xmandi nye lg (hehehe) left for Hobbitton.. OK, finally time for pics.. ready??

great minds think alike.. our theme that day is blue heheheh

 

  

 this tree is actually fake..

 

Off course, the infamous house of Bilbo / Frodo Baggins.. it’s amazing how much thought was put into getting the details right.. up to the foot path for the laundry, as well as the aging of the gates.. apparently Hobbits have lived for hundreds of years thus their gates couldn’t possibly be brand new.. and the trees they have there, some are fake but look completely real.. it drizzled a bit so it was a bit muddy here and there.. when we’re done, we drove around a bit at Hamilton City.. our main mission now is to find Firdaus Halal Meat hehehe papa saw an article about the store last year, and it stuck with him (good thing too).. izad did some research and manage to find the address, and with the help of Google map, we found the store.. too bad we were moving around quite a lot during our stay there, otherwise we would’ve bought a lot of frozen food.. we did manage to get some meat though such as, frankfurter, sausages, beef strips and chicken.. we bought other things as well but sadly, kicap manis habis.. only the masin one was left..

we then drove back to our motel which was Matamata Central Motel unpacked a bit and the four of us (except mama n yaya) went to New World Supermarket just opposite the motel.. we got vegetables and some fruits and other edible food.. we had early dinner / late lunch.. the last meal we ate was on the plane, and we skipped breakfast and lunch after arriving in NZ at 12 am, so naturally we were hungry.. so around 4pm, after showering, we cook and ate.. I was super tired that day, and although we initially planned to go to Hamilton City again for their night market, I slept through.. I remember waking up at 8pm when izad came in the room and was like “hahh? Baru 8pm? So kne tido balik la” hehehe yup I continued sleeping and only woke up the next day to continue our vacation..