I'm Baaaaaack...

Sorry for the lack of updating...I was in New Zealand for two weeks and internet cafes were ridiculously expensive ($3 for 15 minutes?!)

We did a whirlwind tour of both the North and South Islands in 16 days, going through Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, Twizel, Auckland, Napier, Wellington...plus a whole host of smaller towns. I can't quite explain the sheer number of sheep that whizzed past through the car rear windows, but I was quoted something along the lines of 14 million sheep happily residing in the country's rolling green hills and sunny pastures.

(Really, 'shag' was almost inevitably going to be attached to the word 'sheep' when talking about New Zealanders. They're EVERYWHERE.)

Highlights of the trip were the Shotover Jet in Queenstown, the helicopter flight around Fox Glacier, landing on aforesaid glacier, and watching the glaciers melting (which was actually rather tragic, but utterly spectacular.) I also went rolling down a hill in an 11-foot high inflatable sphere filled with water, squealing all the way...if you ever go to Rotorua, you have to go Zorbing. Admittedly, I wasn't too fond of Rotorua because the whole town smells like one big sulphur pit. To further exacerbate this, we went to see the sulphur pits at Wai-O-Topo, which hitched up the stink rating from 'sulphur pit' to 'boiling sewage' level.

I felt like retching.

Onto sweeter-smelling highlights, I also got to see this awesome rose garden in Wellington at the Botanical Gardens, and saw a Maori Haka.

On a more prosaic note, I also got immeasurable joy from the fact that almost all New Zealand supermarkets have a MUFFIN CABINET DEDICATED TO FRESH MUFFINS AND PASTRIES.

For $1.99, you could get a triple chocolate muffin smothered in chocolate with a chocolate Flake stuck in the middle. Or a lemon crumble muffin for 95 cents. Or a black forest muffin.

*drools*

Their pies really really sucked, except for the one steak pie I had at the top of the Gondola centre in Queenstown. I'll have to post up a picture of a Memphis Meltdown ice-cream, because the one that I opened had the most disturbing, phallic-looking chocolate protrusion at very top that I was forced to bite off. Even more disturbingly, it was filled with raspberry goo. But it was very tasty :P

Anyway...when I got back I was thrown into a 29-hour working week, followed by the boss asking me to go full-time until Christmas. It just meant that I got 9 more hours on top of my current roster, so I thought I'd give it a shot. So for the past week, I've been talking myself almost hoarse to customers- the pre-Christmas influx made last weekend absolutely insane, but I found myself actually enjoying it, mostly because I didn't have to go around stalking potential customers.

I know this hasn't been much of a post, but as I once said on my first blog, more Daphne-madness is pending...

P.S- Rosy, I hope you have a fantabulous time in London and thank you for your kind words on your blog. I almost apologise profusely for saying Happy Birthday in your Christmas card but I had to send it immediately because I was afraid it wouldn't get to you in time!!!