NZ: Hokitika in South Island

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Ask anyone, they would all say, if you could, skip Greymouth. A.S has to agree on this. "It's exactly like the name given to this town. You'll feel like you're entering a grey town as dark clouds loom over you,." shared a Danish traveller at the hostel in Arthur's Pass. "Stop at Hokitika, instead," she added. Having said that, A.S was invited for a special meeting in Greymouth when she hitched a ride. A local Toastmasters meeting for both Greymouth and Hokitka. What a rare chance!

Let these pictures do the talking for Hokitika.

Local kiwi jades

So, you don't find jades only in China.

White jades, really?

Stony beach and these stones sure look precious, no?

A.S is a millionaire, wahahahhah!

The moment when you knew you've chosen the right place for the night.

Upon learning that there's a dairy plant in town.

Finally, it's not another Fonterra's milk tanker.

                                             For a better feel of Hokitika.

*A.S's current location*

Day/ Date: Sat/ Apr 27th, 2013

-A.S has been back in KL, Malaysia since Aug 16th, 2012 from a total of 3 months in Spain and then, Austria. Burdened with lots of thoughts, plans and to-dos, she'll still try her very best to keep this blog alive. Thank you so much for keeping up with her delays.

A.S appreciates you as an audience to her blog. It keeps her contented knowing she's not writing for herself. She welcomes you to drop in more often, share your thoughts and interact with her here at cyberspace. The posts may be a little behind but she promises to close the gap as much as she can, as she gets limited internet access and the time to update.

Be a fan today to get instant updates the soonest the next post is published!

It's EASY. At the right-most column of this page, you may either choose to:-

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4. If you are a fellow blogger, link to her blog with the HTML code provided.

Thank you very much and A.S hopes you enjoy your stay here. ;)

NZ: Kea Birds at Arthur's Pass

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Facts time, mate. If you have not known about Kea Birds, have fun reading up. By looking up these articles, A.S did some reading herself too just a little bit earlier than you.

(click on image to magnify)

Short clip captured in A.S's camera. They're adorable but at the same time disastrous. Look at how stubborn they are pecking the rubber liners on the car. They even appeared and pecked the precious backpacks of some hikers depriving them the peace of enjoying the spectacular view after a tough  4 hours' ascent.

"LISTEN, they're nearby!!"




Video courtesy of ninja2kernow capturing Keas in REAL ACTION!

*A.S's current location*

Day/ Date: Sat/ Apr 6th, 2013

-A.S has been back in KL, Malaysia since Aug 16th, 2012 from a total of 3 months in Spain and then, Austria. Burdened with lots of thoughts, plans and to-dos, she'll still try her very best to keep this blog alive. Thank you so much for keeping up with her delays.

A.S appreciates you as an audience to her blog. It keeps her contented knowing she's not writing for herself. She welcomes you to drop in more often, share your thoughts and interact with her here at cyberspace. The posts may be a little behind but she promises to close the gap as much as she can, as she gets limited internet access and the time to update.

Be a fan today to get instant updates the soonest the next post is published!

It's EASY. At the right-most column of this page, you may either choose to:-

1. Receive blog updates by mail

2. Read her up-to-date posts at your MyYahoo, Google, etc. homepage by subscribing thru the links.

3. Read her up-to-date posts on your Facebook wall by 'Like'-ing the fan page A.S created specially for this blog (Scroll down page to search right-most column)

4. If you are a fellow blogger, link to her blog with the HTML code provided.

Thank you very much and A.S hopes you enjoy your stay here. ;)

NZ: Arthur's Pass in South Island

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The 2 hours' journey to Arthur's Pass from Dunsandel (30 mins drive west from Christchurch) was gladly quite smooth. This is a popular stop for travellers travelling from Christchurch in the East Coast to Greymouth in the West Coast of South Island. A.S managed to get a ride amidst having to wait for some time. She was grateful the ride brought her alllll.. the way to Arthur's Pass.

Arriving there, she was not welcomed by the best weather. It was like entering a region which immediately the sun hid behind thick dark clouds. The wind was so strong that the window panes of the hostel rattled and gave a howling sound. Outside the rain did not fall on a straight path, and the trees were swaying from side to side. Nevertheless, the hostel was gladly so cosy, as A.S made herself a hot coffee, put on an acoustic CD to play, as she read 'Wilderness' at the lounge. Not long after, a Danish girl appeared and they had a good chat. She learnt that it had been raining for the past few days there in Arthur's Pass and she could not do much as well.

Thank goodness, A.S stumbled upon a notice as she explored outside a little when the rain got lighter.

She thought why not. She could stretch her stay here in Arthur's Pass, get to know people,  get first hand tips on exploring the place and ultimately hike up Avalanche Peak. Many thanks to Geoff and Renee for making it possible. Their generosity on making my stay comfortable, the awesome pizzas, lending me their raincoat and a tent, and making sure that I was safe during my hikes on my own. Without them, my stay in Arthur's Pass would not be as memorable and as accomplished!

Arthur's Pass is a great place to go hiking the many tracks.

The most popular track is the 8 hours' Avalanche Peak. 

Follow the link to A.S's Flickr's page for pics' captions.

*A.S's current location*

Day/ Date: Sat/ Feb 23rd, 2013

-A.S has been back in KL, Malaysia since Aug 16th, 2012 from a total of 3 months in Spain and then, Austria. Burdened with lots of thoughts, plans and to-dos, she'll still try her very best to keep this blog alive. Thank you so much for keeping up with her delays.

A.S appreciates you as an audience to her blog. It keeps her contented knowing she's not writing for herself. She welcomes you to drop in more often, share your thoughts and interact with her here at cyberspace. The posts may be a little behind but she promises to close the gap as much as she can, as she gets limited internet access and the time to update.

Be a fan today to get instant updates the soonest the next post is published!

It's EASY. At the right-most column of this page, you may either choose to:-

1. Receive blog updates by mail

2. Read her up-to-date posts at your MyYahoo, Google, etc. homepage by subscribing thru the links.

3. Read her up-to-date posts on your Facebook wall by 'Like'-ing the fan page A.S created specially for this blog (Scroll down page to search right-most column)

4. If you are a fellow blogger, link to her blog with the HTML code provided.

Thank you very much and A.S hopes you enjoy your stay here. ;)

NZ: Top Must-Do Thing In Kaikoura

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The top must-do thing will have to be ‘Swimming With The Dolphins’. Unfortunately, as AkiraSabine (A.S) had a misadventure on the first day of the New Year, she settled for an alternative, 'The Orcas Encounter'.

Nothing could describe how excited she was except this video clip. Watching it now from the comfort of her home brings her back to this awesome moment. It reminds her of the cold wet breeze, the drizzle, the mad rush towards the Orcas, the voices of excitement, the rough sea, the smell of the exhaust and the nausea.

Orcas sighting sounded so much fun but it’s really no simple task. A.S needed the assistance of 3 buckets. Well, not that she filled them all but yes, 3 buckets to fix her nausea. What a shame!

All in all, it was a superb day, great outing and great encounter!

Most importantly, awesome memories!

Check out the video clip below:-

*A.S's current location*

Day/ Date: Thu/ Jan 24th, 2013

-A.S has been back in KL, Malaysia since Aug 16th, 2012 from a total of 3 months in Spain and then, Austria. Burdened with lots of thoughts, plans and to-dos, she'll still try her very best to keep this blog alive. Thank you so much for keeping up with her delays.

A.S appreciates you as an audience to her blog. It keeps her contented knowing she's not writing for herself. She welcomes you to drop in more often, share your thoughts and interact with her here at cyberspace. The posts may be a little behind but she promises to close the gap as much as she can, as she gets limited internet access and the time to update.

Be a fan today to get instant updates the soonest the next post is published!

It's EASY. At the right-most column of this page, you may either choose to:-

1. Receive blog updates by mail

2. Read her up-to-date posts at your MyYahoo, Google, etc. homepage by subscribing thru the links.

3. Read her up-to-date posts on your Facebook wall by 'Like'-ing the fan page A.S created specially for this blog (Scroll down page to search right-most column)

4. If you are a fellow blogger, link to her blog with the HTML code provided.

Thank you very much and A.S hopes you enjoy your stay here. ;)

Prepare For The Worst

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2 weeks back, AkiraSabine(A.S) decided to work on the video she promised to share with all of you. If you haven’t known which that is, read on here.

So, she hooked her external hard disk to her netbook and started assessing.

“The drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?”

Huh?

She unhooked and tried hooking it back.

“The drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?”

 “What crap?” she thought.  “What have I done? “

               

It has been more than 2 stressful weekends and weekday nights too, after work that she tried every resources she could to salvage her data. It was more than 300 GB of data in the 500GB hard disk drive.

Yes, OMG, right?

She knows. You’re right. She should have had her precious files backed up right? She doesn’t mind losing the movie files, e-book files but NO, she can’t afford losing her pictures, videos and foreign music from her wanders of the last 2 years. Dang!!

The so-called computer service shops are no good at doing what they’re supposed to do. A.S doesn’t know how much effort he put in into salvaging her data but he said he found nothing. Or it may be the software he used was not doing the job but why couldn’t he try others she recommended. Didn’t have the license? Or didn’t want to entertain is more like it. As the external HDD is still under warranty, he offered to change into a new one.

“The data part, sorry, I’ve tried my best. If the data is so important that you need to see data recovery service, you may have to think twice. It will cost by thousands of Ringgit to recover a 500GB hard disk.

Anyways, upon own research together with advice from some techie friends and many hours of running nearly every software available, she bought a Data Rescue PC 3 but how on earth can Avira trace a TR Dropper in the installer file. She’s so going to return that product. Then, she found one which works reasonably well as it shows preview of her dear pictures and videos. Recover My Files, you’re a gem.  Finally, something that works!

At the point of typing, A.S is still spending her time recovering and transferring her files to a storage in another PC. What a time consuming job when you haven’t got enough hard disk space in the netbook and another 500GB handy.

Sorry that you have to listen to her rant in this post. This entire thing has been sucking a lot of her time and effort to the point that sometimes, she thought, is it worth crying over spilt milk or just let it be and be happy. This is really tiring and mind boggling especially when you’ve the computer running overnight to find out the next morning that those softwares are not retrieving anything and you got even more worried if it even damage the files further.

Enough of ranting. Happy to have settled upon something that works! Happy to pay for a software that works. She shall get another hard disk to back up all these files even though she’s not done editing and deleting bad pictures or videos.  This is a complete nightmare A.S does not want repeating. 

*A.S's current location*

Day/ Date: Sun/ Dec 9th, 2012

-A.S has been back in KL, Malaysia since Aug 16th, 2012 from a total of 3 months in Spain and then, Austria. Burdened with lots of thoughts, plans and to-dos, she'll still try her very best to keep this blog alive. Thank you so much for keeping up with her delays.

A.S appreciates you as an audience to her blog. It keeps her contented knowing she's not writing for herself. She welcomes you to drop in more often, share your thoughts and interact with her here at cyberspace. The posts may be a little behind but she promises to close the gap as much as she can, as she gets limited internet access and the time to update.

Be a fan today to get instant updates the soonest the next post is published!

It's EASY. At the right-most column of this page, you may either choose to:-

1. Receive blog updates by mail

2. Read her up-to-date posts at your MyYahoo, Google, etc. homepage by subscribing thru the links.

3. Read her up-to-date posts on your Facebook wall by 'Like'-ing the fan page A.S created specially for this blog (Scroll down page to search right-most column)

4. If you are a fellow blogger, link to her blog with the HTML code provided.

Thank you very much and A.S hopes you enjoy your stay here. ;)