Wednesday 30 July 2014

Ki Ora!

The land of the long white cloud - Part 1 - Airport & Take off

Ahhh... and, our much-awaited trip to New Zealand has come to an end. As you all probably know, I flew back home to New Zealand with my family last Thursday.

Auckland

If you know me already, then you’d also know how much my family & I love New Zealand!  After living there for just under 10 years and having left two and a half years ago, we thought it was time we made a quick visit! Although our trip wasn’t very long due to college and what not, we managed to have a lot of fun within those couple of days!

Kick start to our trip

Our trip started with our bus ride to Sydney airport at 12pm, it was a long boring bus ride but luckily, I had music & data on my phone which kept me well occupied.  


Unfortunately, I got no sleep throughout the journey but I’m not complaining cause I managed to click a few photos!  


There was hardly any traffic except for when we got closer to city but otherwise it was calm and we managed to get to the airport couple of minutes earlier than expected.

We arrived at the airport, got all our luggage and head off inside. With all this enthusiasm to finally get our trip started, I marched in through the doors only to find out our flight had been delayed. I guess I wasn’t too upset when I heard the news, let’s be honest, I was stuck at an airport surrounded by hundreds of shops with free Wi-Fi – I mean should I’ve been complaining?!


The best part was - each of us got a $15 food voucher – LOL, my life was now complete! 
Soon, we found out our flight was now six hours delayed, so then, there was the four of us walking around trying to stay calm.. HAHAHA 

Around 1pm we decided to grab lunch - and honestly, it was a tough decision choosing what to eat! After five solid minutes I decided to get Hungry Jacks & I soon realized that my love for cheese burgers has not changed over the years! LOL


" ATTENTION PLEASE. ATTENTION PLEASE. PASSENGER MATHEW LEE. PASSENGER MATHEW LEE. PLEASE REPORT TO GATE NUMBER TWO "   - Airport announcements continued as we ate, covering through the background music. 


After nearly three hours of being in the airport - walking around, talking, listening to music and taking photos – Mum & I decided to walk around and do some shopping. 

Victoria's Secret
It was now raining outside – it was 9pm and we were still waiting for our flight to Auckland. It had been 5 hours since we’d arrived at the airport – my head was spinning, and my patience was running thin. At that very moment, my brother informed us that an Algerian flight had crashed – OKAY, I don’t know about you but at that very moment I was 90% sure I wouldn’t live to see another day. 


Okay, I was now scared for my life! LOL, oh and what I forgot to mention before was - the reason our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland was delayed was due to technical issues. I tried to stay calm but no, it really wasn’t working... Thoughts of our flight going missing, crash landing or blowing up were the only things on my mind.  - Sounds pathetic, I know but it was hard to stop my mind from having irrational thoughts! 


However, before I started losing my mind, I got a call from my chellam - Dhanushka! A phone call from her was just what I needed, we had quite a few topics to cover and we didn’t realize as time flew! Although half of the things we talked about were completely pointless and irrelevant, we managed to get tons of laughs out of it.   

After a long conversation with Dhanushka, I decided to grab dinner before we boarded our flight. It was around 10pm and we were on our way to get Maccas.


I ate so much that day...I cannot express how full I was by the time I finished that burger! And oh, lets no forget dessert - cookies & cream Ice cream!! Diabetes here I come! LOL 


I struggled getting off my seat after eating all that! Haha, thank god for a fast metabolism!

And finally, after waiting for just over six hours our flight arrived! It had been a very long, tiring day - now, all I wanted was some proper sleep! We grabbed our luggage and lined up to board our flight. 


We settled down into our seats after placing our luggage into the compartments above us, our flight was jam packed; I'd never felt so crammed on a flight before!  



                           .....At last, after an eventful day our flight FINALLY took off.....



“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”  James A. Michener


And, well, that's how my first day of travel went, Part 2 of our trip to New Zealand shall soon be updated! The rest of our fun filled trip with many more experiences, photos & stories is soon to be posted. But for now, good night & sweet dreams my lovelies!!