my holiday started on the last day of work: 22/12.

went to margies at 2am on 23/12 till 4.30am. hopped on to Jacq's car along with May and Richie for our road trip to Rotorua.

Stopped at Hamilton Garden and Waitomo Cave along the way. Had brunch at The Dam Cafe.

Reached Rotorua late in the afternoon. Checked ourselves in at the Hot Rocks Backpackers (Ain't that hot anywayz) Got a little lazy near the evening and it was drizzly. May, the ever energetic tourist from Malaysia initiated the visit to Te Puia. Being lazy 'locals' Richie and I braved the rain to accompany her to visit the place with the absence of Jacq who decided to ditch us. Reason for going out? Maybe because 'if I lay here, if i just lay here...' it might just waste the time. (the line above was taken from Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars). Since i've been to Rotorua it's not a new thing to me having come to this place at least twice. To make this particular trip interesting Richard's come up with some 'useless piece of information' to quiz the absentee Jacq. "Jacq do you know where Maoris come from? Do you know why Maoris come to New Zealand?" These were later questioned when we went back to our backpackers.

Moving on to visiting the mud pools. The visit wasn't all no fun because there were some really interesting topics to talk about. For instance May's unique opinion that wearing sandals in the rain is better than wearing cover up shoes (seriously do you think so?!); and Richie's trying hard to remember all the useless facts just to bore the shit outta Jacq. or maybe at least make her feel bad. One highlight of the visit: Richie (wearing sandals as well) slipped and fell on to the floor followed bydifferent reactions from May and me. Details? Ask any of us at the road trip.

the visit was quickly followed by chinese takeaway and while we were all taking turns for shower we had a little chat about each other's fav song. or Techno rather. My fav would have to be DJ Jean The Launch and Amok 666. humming continuously, especially me and Rich, these went on and on for the whole damn evening.

Since it was claimed that Lava Bar was apparently the most hip place in Rotorua and it's conveniently situated next to the backpackers we decided to have some drinks in our bunker before heading there. A bottle of Chivas was shared among 4 of us and before 10.30pm with countless 'see you at the bottom' shouts we were basically up for the bar. Too bad the bar wasn't up for us. Yet! It's too early!! Somehow we didn't really get to see how happening the bar could be as we were already gone by 11.30pm. .....

...
a really good sleep by the way.

Day 2:
The following morning started after 8.30am. We had leftovers from the Chinese takeaways we bought the night before. Checked out of the back packers at 10am. Lazed around in a cool cafe called Zippy. It's an awesome cafe. You should try the Soy Mocha it's the best i've ever tasted. Much better than Starbucks(Starbucks' never made any good coffees in the first place).

We were going to try the Zorb but then for that bloody 30 bucks we might as well spend it on something more exciting. My advice: Never go for Zorb. It's bloody stupid!

Thus there we were, Gondola Ride up to the hill for Luge Rides! Five luge rides! So we basically spent the rest of the day doing luge rides and making fool of ourselves.

All in all it's a pretty laid back trip. Relaxing.

Was half hesitating whether this trip will be fun since I didn't know May, Jacq long enough. And Richie! I only knew him on the day itself!

A random last minute trip but it's worth every penny. The mixture of different personalities made it a fun and surprisingly exciting opener to the holidays!

Some lines from the trip:

"If I lay here....."

DJ Jean - The Launch

Amok - 666

and some useless piece of information:

"Do you know how big is the Lake of Rotorua?" (79.5km. to be exact!)

Will add more if I can remember.....