By Dina, on August 24th, 2010  New Zealand is not only full of natural beauty, but it’s also home to some of the biggest carrots and gumboots in the world. Or, at least that’s what they claim. It seems that Kiwis (and Aussies too) love to create gigantic statues of things to serve as a landmark of their city. It’s fun to check out the object they selected to represent their city – maybe it tells you something about the image they want their town to project. Or maybe they just picked something wacky. So, here are two of my favourite ones: The largest carrot in the world, Ohakune, and Gumboot capital of the world, Taihape. [read more...]
By Dina, on July 23rd, 2010 
When I think about a mother kangaroo and her baby joey, I always think of a cute head poking out neatly out from the mommy’s pouch. But as I’ve learned, the truth is not always as pretty as that. This one seems to have stuffed itself in headfirst, and decided that it was cozy enough that way, with the head inside and feet and tail poking out. And this is pretty common among the kangaroos and wallabies we’ve seen.
We were wondering whether the joey was going to stay upside down or somehow flip itself over but it [read more...]
By Dina, on July 8th, 2010  New Zealand’s South Island is full of some of the most spectacular scenery on earth. As we planned our road trip, we struggled with the question: How are we going to fit it all into two weeks? It’s really impossible to do it all, as the South Island of New Zealand has so many amazing places, you would need months or years to really explore it fully. But you still can try to see as much as possible if, like us, two weeks is all you have. During our trip we experienced some of New Zealand’s worst weather in [read more...]
By Dina, on June 4th, 2010  Driving around in the suburbs of Queenstown, New Zealand we spotted this very unique row of interesting mailboxes of various sizes and designs! Rows of mailboxes of various designs are not rare in this area and many other spots in the South Island of New Zealand, however this one is the longest one that we’ve seen. Here are more than 60 mailboxes in this row. These folks are quite creative in making their custom mailboxes. We saw a beer keg complete with the pipe and tap, an old DVD player, an espresso machine, a caterpillar house, a shoe [read more...]
By Ryan, on May 28th, 2010  We’re driving around the South Island of New Zealand by campervan. Over the past few days there have been severe rainstorms, especially around the Otago region we’re currently exploring. We arrived in town late at night and drove around looking for a place to camp. It seemed like the water was getting high in places so we were extra careful to pass on some dodgy looking spots and eventually camped on a raised, well drained parking lot off a main road. It’s a good thing, too, as the next morning we found that many low lying roads had [read more...]
By Dina, on May 5th, 2010 
Gorgeous sunset at the Lake Taupo with Ryan playing skipping stones
This picture shows you one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve ever watched. Let me tell you about it. We were driving across the North Island of New Zealand. The stretch of the giant Lake Taupo was in our west, when it was near the time of sun to rest. The sky was clear, and from the road we could see nice black sand running along the lake with a grassy area to park our car. I guess many of you, given the same situation, will choose [read more...]
By Dina, on April 28th, 2010  When I’m in a big city, sometimes I get overwhelmed by the city’s skyscrapers, activity and routine. When those moments come, I need an escape. For me, my escape is the beauty of nature, and city gardens are usually do it for me. In Sydney, that place is the city’s botanical garden. Beyond the obvious beauty of any botanical garden in the world, these are some special reasons why I love this place: It’s a cockatoo paradise The first time I heard from Sydneysiders that cockatoos fly free in the suburbs around Sydney, I was astonished. I was invited [read more...]
By Dina, on April 22nd, 2010  New Zealand is picked by many people, including me, as one of the most beautiful place on earth. In February 2010, we had a great opportunity to do a week road trip in the North Island of New Zealand, from Wellington to Auckland. In the North Island, you could drive for an hour or two, the scenery could change quite drastically, and they are all gorgeous! I saw so much natural beauty that I have never seen in other places before. It was a tough task to cut down the list of places to visit to fit one week [read more...]
By Dina, on April 16th, 2010  As we strolled down the Wellington (NZ) waterfront area around the Frank Kitts park after we had a dinner with a couple of friends, we saw these two performers practicing torch dancing or “fire spinner”. They were moving fluidly, no movement was sharp. It was dark all around, you barely able to see themselves, but the torch’s fire was so yellow and bright. I was enchanted by the beauty of this whirling fire in the dark. This long-exposure picture captures my memory of that beautiful night. I’m easily enchanted by brightness in the dark night sky. From the [read more...]
By Dina, on April 15th, 2010  How do you celebrate Easter? When I was small, I went to Easter egg hunting events for kids. The eggs were real-but-bright-red hard boiled eggs. The same kind of eggs with the ones I saw in kids’ birthday parties. That was back when I still lived in Java. Later on after I moved to Canada, these Easter eggs were not bright red hard boiled anymore, but they transformed into chocolate eggs with various different fillings, wrapped in colorful packages. But this year in Sydney, we went to an Easter celebration that is not themed around eggs. The event size [read more...]
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I helped  people get clean water
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