I was touched by an angel
In a sunny afternoon

The innocence in her eyes
It touches my heart
So pure, so full of hope.

I wish to grasp the moment
Hold it close to my heart
Still, it starts to diminish, as time goes by

Though, I’ll never forget that beautiful encounter
The sunny rays from an angel

希冀

在妳眼中閃爍的希冀
有一種純真的感動

我想把它緊緊地抓住
放進口袋裡

但那些真摯的年歲
終究還是  漸行漸遠

Post from: Quaint Melody

• A quaint encounter
• Feeling
• Morning delight
• Window of innocence
• Hold

Where has she gone, you wonder.
To the grandeur of an adventure or in the mist of mysterious waves;
To the depth of hidden treks or the exotic land?
Where, where has she been to?
To the grand central of the world stage or that neverland where dreams are made of?

It’s grand, it’s dense, it’s a jubilant of magnificent.
All great things are worth a little wait.
Don’t you agree?

Oh the things you’ll see when she’s back,
The great tales she’ll tell.
She promises it won’t be long, just a little while longer.
Here, she bids you good night, for the first time in this new beginning of visual explosions.
‘I’ll be back’, her voice echoes over and yet again.

Post from: Quaint Melody

• Where I was
• Little things in life
• Dream holiday
• Tagged: One Word
• Moonlight rendezvous

What is that little delight that brightens up cold days like this? This of course, my little winter comfort food. Yes, it’s kiwi season again! No, not that bird! The fruit! The green sourly fruit that makes our mouth water. Winter is the best time to savour this sour sweet fruit. The season normally starts in late May, early June. (I know, I know, I was meaning to write about this in June, terrible procrastinator that I am!)

Golden fruits of heaven! click photo to enlarge.

The kiwifruit is originally named Chinese Gooseberry that is native to Shaanxi, China. New Zealand popularised and renamed it the kiwifruit after its national icon, the kiwi bird, for export marketing purposes. The green kiwi fruit is the more common one, but the gold variation is widely available too. The gold kiwifruits are sweeter and hairless, it is also my favourite, so delectable! During kiwi season, prices can go as low as 99 cents per kilo. That’s about 6-8 fruits, nice huh?!

This is how the glutton devour her kiwis. click photo to enlarge.

This is how I enjoy my kiwifruits. I use a teaspoon to scope half at a time and have a mouth full. Very satisfying and refreshing to have that sourly sweet taste in one big bite (ok, now you know I’m a glutton with a big mouth who likes to procrastinate, heh!). It’s heavenly! Now, tell me, how do you have your kiwifruits?

*****

Here are some photos taken with my good old Sony Cybershot T30 point-and-shoot when we went down to Kiwi360 way back in 2005 (See what I meant? Incurable procrastinator strikes again!). It is a kiwifruit orchard that opens for public. They operate tours that bring you around the orchard in cute karts to explain the whole production. It’s great fun and a very educational experience!

click photo to enlarge.

Kiwi360 is located at Te Puke in the Bay of Plenty. It is about 3 hours drive from Auckland. A great detour from Rotorua if you’re in the area, it’s about 35 minutes drive from there. The place is extremely easy to spot, just look for the giant 4-storey high, giant Kiwifruit slice by the roadside! We certainly had lots of fun taking silly shots with it. Other tourists around must have thought we were a bunch of crazy people who had escaped from the psycho ward. LOL. This is certainly a nice place to visit if you’re planning a trip to North Island, New Zealand. It comes with cc’s seal of approval! (but please don’t come chasing me down with a stick if it didn’t turn out to be as nice as I described. )

Post from: Quaint Melody

• Colours of autumn.
• Land of the long white cloud
• Let’s talk about weather
• The night that was
• There she goes again…

The iconic Esplanade Hotel on the waterfront. It was built in 1903.

The breathtaking view of Auckland city and harbour bridge from Mt Victoria.

Clock tower on waterfront.

A fish boat docked at the pier.

View of Auckland city from the pier.

Many people would come here to fish on a summer day. I wonder what type of fishes they get here.

Post from: Quaint Melody

• Orakei Marina, Auckland
• How’s life in NZ?
• Random photo of a summer afternoon.
• City of apartments.
• Let’s talk about weather

Before I travel, I like to do some research on my destination and get to know more about it, like some background, local attractions, restaurants and entertainment etc. It can be troublesome to look for all these information at times, but I found them all in SiteStep, a one stop search engine for all your travel needs. They provide comprehensive information of everything you need before traveling to a city, like hotel reservations, various Cheap Airlines to get there, and even vacation packages. It�s a very convenient site to help plan your holiday. With its user friendly interface and functions, now even vacation planning can be easy and fun.

Post from: Quaint Melody

• City of apartments.
• Singapore trip – Pan Pacific Hotel.
• The silent killer – Inflammatory Breast Cancer
• A charming old maritime village
• Dream holiday

Haha, lame joke attempt. Of course we didn’t. By then the owner of the cafe noticed the few strange Asians crowding in front of the toilet and came to check. He was really embarrassed when he found out his trap of a toilet is holding a hostage inside. He too, attempted to help by giving the same instruction, but how many ways can one turn a toilet knob? It is either turning clock wise or anti-clock wise. So he went and took out his tool box and attempted to do some serious damage take out the lock. Still the toilet decided it is longing for company and decided to hold the hostage longer. By now, we were all in hysterical laughters, with someone holding the camera frantically making the moment a piece of trivia material. All while MR K was sweating it out inside in total darkness, also in hysterical laughter. Why in total darkness? Because the toilet apparently had a time sensitive light switch to reserve electricity, so it went off after a few minutes. Haha.

Finally, the cafe assistance came to the rescue and tried to safe the day by flinging his body against the door to force it open. You’d think the door will just bang open, but no! Kicking at it didn’t help either. That was one tough door I tell you! At the end, it was the combination of banging, hammering and prying with screwdriver that finally did the trick. MR K was finally free!! It was certainly the ‘highlight‘ of our trip. Now every time we talked about the trip, someone will inevitably say ‘remember the time when MR K was locked in the toilet?’ then burst out laughing. Wait, that’s not all, there’s a video clip to saviour the previous memory over and over again, in years to come. Heh! *queued evil laughters*

toilet incident funny incident

Post from: Quaint Melody

• Going home
• Seek for the perfect chair
• Water in the lung.
• Epiphany toilet.
• The booby trap.

Here are some photos taken back in November 2003. I toured South Island for the second time that summer, with my parents. So much great memories from that trip.

Post from: Quaint Melody

• Long time no see
• Wedded bliss – Part 2
• Ice-cream in cold autumn day.
• A charming old maritime village
• Happy Chinese New Year?

Post from: Quaint Melody

• Tag marathon – 8 random facts and habits
• Random morning scribbles
• Random photo of a summer afternoon.
• Queue and a fool.
• Man and nagging wife