New Zealand | Part 3 : Day trip to Wanaka

click here if you wanna read about part 2

before i proceed, may i warn you that this post will be heavily loaded with pictures.

on the second day of our stay in South Island NZ, we decided to go for a daytrip to wanaka. fyi, wanaka is about two hours drive from queenstown. but trust me, the journey was totally worth it cause the views maaan. the views is insanely stunning!!

initially, my one and only reason for including wanaka in our itinerary was to find the instagram famous 'that wanaka tree'. sebab tu je. hahah sangat takde kerja. i've been following countless instas of digital travel nomad in new zealand since three/four years ago and you know what, almost all of them featured this perfect scenic picture of 'that wanaka tree' in their feed. so when i finally got the chance to explore this country of course i made a mission to find it. 

the question is... do i managed to find it?

dun dun dun

i'll get back to this later ya?

that morning after having our breakfast, we set for wanaka. about an hour drive from queenstown we stopped at lake county council lookout. how picturesque is this..? ni pun the photo doesn't do justice to the view. luckily i was not driving at that time. cause if i were, silap haribulan kereta boleh melencong sebab asyik tengok tepi je. heheh. oh before i forgot, nak tahu tak, sebab terlalu overexcited dan terkesima with the view, me being a clumsy person jatuh dua/tiga kali sebab mata asyik tengok benda lain je, ahahah

this is the first time when i almost fall backwards. kononnya, nak ambil gambar duduk atas palang ni. sekali haaa almost nak tergolek kebelakang. ahahah

since safety is first. kita berdiri je lah. ahahah

we then continued our journey to wanaka via the crown range road. the drive was incredibly wonderful since we get to see different landscapes along the way. at first i didn't expect to see snow in the mountains cause we came here during late winter time. but hey surprise suprise, ada rezeki nak tengok real snow even kat tepi jalan. 

casually freezing my bum off sebab jakun first time jumpa snow

after driving for about two hours, we finally arrived at our destination, Wanaka. btw, do you guys remember bout my 'that wanaka tree' plan? you know what? i totally forgot about that after seeing this...

MasyaAllah, look at the magnificent vista..

upon arriving we headed towards lake wanaka front. we didn't plan any adventurous activities ke apa. just free and easy 'lepak' session in front the lake while enjoying fresh local fruits. i could happily sit here and stare at this magnificent view for hours while contemplating about life. i lived for this kind of pleasure. hehe

i am so so thankful that i manage to explore and see Wanaka in person. the post that i usually see in my instagram feed did not do justice for this place. MasyaAllah, Wanaka is so amazing and the view is insanely gorgeous. By the way, the tourist crowd is not too huge so you can simply enjoy the view all to yourself. I enjoyed every single moment here in Wanaka. it kinds of make you feel calm and at ease and forget about all the crap happening in your life. hahah. i did not want to leave this place. seriously. it kinda feels like homeee. although technically my actual home is in Chenor.

there was this sinking feeling i had when leaving Wanaka,  because i'll never know when will i return again. half of my heart was left in this place. *cries a river* even after a year, i can still remember the feeling and vibe of this place every time i close my eyes. let's just hope and pray that i'll be able to visit Wanaka in the future insyaAllah. 

so these are my sincere thoughts and review after exploring Wanaka.  See you all i the next post

Zafirah xx

New Zealand | Part 2 : Million dollar cruise in Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown

okay, here we go

first things first, you cannot go to south island without visiting queenstown cause this place is amazing. it is surrounded by majestic snow capped mountains, sapphire blue lake and pure amazingness everywhere. (i'm repeating amazing way too much now but what to do, that word literally describes this place;) queenstown is famous for being the world's adventure capital. if you're an adrenaline junkie, this is the place for you mate! it got everything that you could've ever dream of doing, skydiving, bungee jumping, white water rafting, highspeed boat, parasailing, snowboarding etc you name it they got it. 

please bear in mind that all those adrenaline stuffs mentioned above is quite expensive. you need to allocate huge amount of money if you wanna do it. the nevis bungee jump can cost you about 100-200 NZD. but worry not, there are tons of other free and affordable activities that you can do. for a start you can always 'lepak' in front of lake wakatipu and walk through queenstown garden. you can also take the gondola ride which offers you a spectacular view of city and the lake. 

during our last trip we decided to do the Million Dollar Cruise in lake wakatipu which cost about 35 NZD per person. it was incredibly breathtaking cause you got amazing views everywhere thanks to the perfect bright and sunny winter weather.

  

the cruise was about two hours long, we got to see stunning view surrounding lake wakatipu and learn some historical background of queenstown.  the ship's the captain was so friendly and makes lots of dad jokes while explaining all the stuffs. ahahah. this area is basically where the rich and posh people in queenstown lived. how stunning is it?! they have snow capped mountain at the back and sapphire blue lake in front of their houses. this place is so cantiks, they got houses kat celah pokok pokok!! imagine waking up to this view every single day. waktu pagi boleh jog kat tepi tasik hirup udara segar. boleh hilang sekejap semua masalah duniawi... 

nak duduk kat sini pleasee. kalau dapat stay setahun kat sini pun dah cukup. 

if i'm not mistaken this is the queenstown hilton resort. kalau ada duit extra boleh lah kat situ stay satu dua or tiga malam. ahahahah

at the end of this cruise, my love for this place intensifies! ahahah. betul... i always knew that i would love queenstown even before going here. this cruise, it reaffirms my love for this place. the view is so stunning that it literally took my breath away. boleh termenung lama-lama tengok the view cause it's soooo majestic, subhanAllah!

okay, my NZ blogpost will be continued soon...?

byeee

*you can read my previous NZ blogpost here

New Zealand | Part 1 : My journey has begun

hello people!!

how are you?

this space has been abandoned for while i guess. sorry for that. ahaha

so i just returned from a two weeks of travelling to the land of middle earth aka New Zealand!! yup, i FREAKING TRAVEL TO NEW ZEALAND!! FINALLY!! sometime i still cannot comprehend that i finally travel to the one country that has been in bucket list since forever. tbh, i didn't expect this trip to happen in the near future, but then again i got lucky. as in rezeki was on my side and i finally managed to visit and experience the land of middle earth. 

all the preparations etc were made three weeks prior to this trip. agak ad hoc jugaklah for someone who rarely do travel jauh. this was my first time being in charge planning the itinerary and whatnot. so yeah it was challenging as there were too many places/things i wanted to go/do but got limited time. yep. two weeks is not enough for this NZ die hard fan. nonetheless i gotta make use of the time given. ye lah kan, travelling NZ can be quite expensive so nak kutip duit kat celah mana untuk tampung all those accommodation, transport and food kalau nak jalan lama-lama ahahah. after many considerations i decided to spent 9 days in south island and 5 days in north island. 

we as in me, makcu and tok teh flew to NZ on the 15th and return back on the 29th. it was a long eleven hours of direct flight from KL to Auckland. upon arriving in auckland we then took another two hours flight to queenstown via air new zealand. the flight to queenstown was so awesome as the plane tak terbang tinggi sangat therefore we can catch the first glimpse of the snow capped mountains in NZ. and at that particular time i already knew i that i had fallen in love with NZ. cehhh. belum pijak the kiwi soil lagi dah fall in love bagai kau...

macam painting je bila tengok keluar tingkap. the pastel sky is so freaking stunning. we were so lucky sebab boleh tengok sunset dari dalam plane. at 8-ish we arrived in queenstown airport. since it was still in winter season, malam dia cepat. dalam pukul 6 dah gelap. lepas dapat rental car kononnya nak pergi dinner dulu before check in. but unfortunately we couldn't find the gps. so sepatutnya ada gps included dalam kereta but the company did not provide it. maybe terlupa nak letak ke apa idk. dah buang masa sebab konon nak cari gps dalam kereta rupanya memang takde. at last, we asked the people at the information counter for the direction to our accomodation and the supermarket.

fyi, our accommodation was situated in a small town named kingston which took about 40 minutes drive from queenstown. some of you may wonder "apa jadah la duduk jauh dari bandar?" the thing is, we booked the accommodation two weeks before the trip therefore most of the accommodation within our budget is fully booked. yang harga rm600 ++ banyaklah. so we decided to stay a bit further from the city. cuak jugaklah nak drive kat NZ waktu malam. but we got no choice. with the aid of HERE maps app and physical map yang orang kat info counter tu provide we olls redah je la. thankfully  the maps lead us the right direction and we arrive at our accommodation at 10 ish.

cont...

A Day in Singapore : Part 2

before that, click on A Day in Singapore:Part 1 if you haven't read the first one

okay, so where were we...

give me a moment to recall

oh ya, in the mrt heading to kampung glam. 

it was late in the afternoon when we arrived here. all of us were famished and tired from all the non stop walking. lol. nampak sangat tak berapa nak fit sesorang. ahahah. we had lunch at singapore zam zam restaurant and ate their famous nasi beriyani and murtabak. we devoured our lunch like hungry hyenas. (pfffffffft, just joking). sumpah rasa macam sedap gilos maka sebab tengah lapar and letih time tu. 

after lunch we went to the sultan mosque to perform prayers and catch a break. we stayed there for an hour(or maybe two, cause i cannot remember. sheeesh) to refresh ourselves. gosh, time ni kan, rasa macam taknak dah gerak ke tempat seterusya sebab penat. pikul backpack takde la berat mana pun sebenarnya, tapi hakak tak katang(wtf ahahah)

after we freshen ourselves, we went to kampung glam and haji lane. sadly, we didn't manage to explore two places thoroughly since we were lacking of time. 

we headed for merlion park after visiting kampung glam and haji lane. we took the mrt to raffles place station. the merlion park is about 15 mimutes walk from the raffles station. well, honestly it depends on your pace. kalau jalan laju-laju cepatlah sampai.

catching feelings on my way to merlion park. whooops!

you can see the marina bay sands from afar. maaaaaan, the view is insanely satisfying and amazing if you're into modern building architure and etc. okay, this is my humble opinion la. kudos to the people who were involved in developing all these bad boys!! you made a great job! *thumbs up

managed to snap this while walking towards merlion park. whooooooo, the place is flooded with tourist. duhhhh, it's a must-visit place in singapore. you cannot say you're done exploring singapore if you haven't "say hi" to the iconic merlion!

tadaaaaaa *excuse my tired face por favor

late in the noon, we headed for joo chiat, the peranakan area. but sadly, time and exhaustion was catching up on us. we couldn't manage to find the place though we had asked many locals many many times on our way there. the map that we had didn't much help. my feet were aching and i felt that i couldn't barely walk.(hey peeps, please make sure that you wear super duper comfortable footwear to avoid this incident) we ended pusing tempat yang sama. lastly, all of us decided to skip joo chiat and went to the next destination. i was quite disappointed but fret not, i'll go there in my future trip. after that we took mrt to bayfront station and headed for gardens by the bay. 

we reached gardens by the bay at almost 7 p.m. just in time for the super tree to light up .

at about 7.45 p.m there is a light and sound show known as OCBC garden rhapsody. in case if you're wondering about the admission fee to super tree grove, it's free yaw! at the super tree grove you'll find a walkway known as the OCBC skyway. it allowed visitors to walk amongst the super tree. if you're interested in walking on the skyway you need to buy tickets. it cost SDG5 (per person) for adult and SGD3(per person) for children. we ascended to the walkway by a lift.  ohh, if your're acrophobiac or afraid of height, walking on the skywalk is not a very good idea. the OCBC garden rhapsody started while we went on the skywalk. we managed to watch the garden rhapsody show from above. personally for me, the view from below is much more better cause you get to see the whole thing in all it's glory but it depends on your own perspective. the show lasted for about 15-20 minutes if i am not mistaken. 

check out super duper tree during the rhapsody, the light is so cool isn't it? a little too over excited here right zafirah. heeeeee

my legs were literally shaking when izyan snap this picture. (pffffft siapa suruh tengok bawah zafirahhh)

ohh apart from that you get a birds' eye view on the gardens by the bay and marina bay area. the picture below is quite blurry. excuse my shaky hands guys pleasee

we left gardens by the bay at about 9 p.m and went straight to  woodlands train station. our journey back to kuala lumpur took about 8 hours. we arrived at kl sentral around 7.00 a.m. indeed, the whole trip was damn tiring but i felt utterly satisfied since we went to a lot of places in a short period of time. ohhh ya, this was also my first attempt in backpacking while travelling. (ada orang tu nak jadi backpackers tegar satu hari nanti ,lols). what else.... i do hope that i'll be able to explore this country again since there's a lot more places and activities to be done.

pardon my late update on this entry. at first i thought that i might be able to write this entry shortly after the part 1. but sadly, i got caught up with other things. and sorry for the lack of information in this entry. to be honest, i lost my original draft which was kept in my journal, hence there may be some things that i completely forgot to include in this post. 

that is all, ciao

zafirah xx