Catching up with the Old

Today I went to Westcity and for the first time in at least four years I met Hussein at Countdown who was waiting with his friend for the lady at the sample stand to cook some food! (Typical Hussein!) He's definitely more muscly than the last time I saw him, and he's slightly taller than me now (after all those years at primary school when I had the height advantage over him!) but he's still got curly hair. I'm really glad he's still fit and healthy and doing well at school! Hopefully I'll see more of him at university next year!

Aonghas caught up with his old primary school friend Mars who has now caught up to Aonghas's height as well! I caught up with Joanne too, so today was a great day for catching up with good old Henderson Primary mates!

Our Taiwanese friends who used to live in New Zealand sent a DVD to us containing some video footage from 1993-1995, when my brothers and I were really little and used to play with them when they were little too. It was sooo good seeing what I was like back when I was four years old! I can't really remember much but from what I saw in the video I had a high-pitched voice, liked to make toys kiss each other and asked heaps of questions!

Harbour Festival Photos

A bit of a mishmash of photos from the Auckland Harbour Festival

Harbour Festival Fun

I went to the Auckland Harbour Festival yesterday to check out the free Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra performance at the Viaduct Basin. My mum, Aonghas and I travelled into the city by train, the first time I've ever been on a train in New Zealand! (I've been on one in Hong Kong but surprisingly not in New Zealand!) WOW it was fun though! Going under tunnels was pretty cool, especially arriving at the Britomart Transport Centre!

 

We arrived at the Viaduct Basin a few minutes after the concert was meant to have started. Not much activity was going on yet though so fortunately we weren't that late! Most of the music played are well known orchestral pieces like Trumpet Voluntary, and Water Music. The concert lasted for three hours with the audience made up mainly of older people and Asians! The concert was great! The only downside was that there was no shelter for us and so I got a bit sunburnt!

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon watching street buskers who came from various overseas places such as Australia and England. They were really entertaining. Some of the acts included riding a unicycle with one foot while flinging a rubber fish with the other foot into a fishbowl on top of the head, balancing a glass of water on the head while juggling three batons on top of a unicycle, and juggling a sword, a flaming baton and a tomato while standing on top of a bicycle upon an approx. 3m high pole.

 

I really enjoyed the Auckland Harbour Festival and I sure hope it becomes a permanent fixture! Apparently the fireworks on Sunday night were the biggest ever seen in New Zealand. Too bad I missed them!

Celebrating Second New Year in a Year

To celebrate the year of the dog we started off by attending a church service that ended with a Lunar New Year Feast which was like a huge shared lunch. I like it when we have lunch like that at church! I always come away with a full stomach!

In the evening we went over to the neighbours house for a barbeque. It started off with the three of us Anderson brothers just sitting there by ourselves. I was texting friends to pass the time away. For some reason Szelin and Zippo our neighbours haven't really talked to us much recently during these holidays and they continued in that way during the barbeque. It soon became clear though that Zippo had some of her own friends over...one of them being the girl I tried kissing a couple years ago so I understand why they wouldn't talk to me that much! Anyway fortunately our other friends Esther and her sister Julia came over a little later and we hung around with them for a bit. We ended the night by watching Kung-Fu Hustle. Even though it was the second time I had watched it I still found it pretty good!

Bring on the new Chinese year!

Happy Chinese New Year!

新年快乐！！恭喜发财！！

 

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone!!

 

I wish you all the best for the new Chinese year!

 

Despite being a couple days late I also want to wish everyone a belated HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY! not that anyone in New Zealand really cares about that!

 

I'm not really celebrating Chinese New Year except for having a shared lunch at church and maybe a barbeque later in the day with some friends. In the past few days we've just been repainting the house giving it a second coating of paint. So far we've done two walls, and they look a lot better than the others with one coating which are starting to peel off!