Honeymoon in New Zealand!

Bobby and I just returned from our (belated) honeymoon. We actually started our journey back in Malaysia - to spend Christmas with my dad and also to attend the Lee family reunion. The reunion was very successful. I was asked to say a few words, which I struggled with in my mother tongue. Bobby was then introduced by my dad to the crowd and also had to say a few words, in Chinese too! Oh, I also found out, after 33 years that I had been writing my Chinese name the wrong way. How can this be???? Anyhow, the rest of the the trip was spent eating (lots of noodles... YUM!), taking naps in the afternoons (especially for Bobby coping with the heat and humidity), and meeting up with some old high school friends. We were also able to play a round of golf with dad which was a lot of fun!

After a quick 5 days in Malaysia, we were off to New Zealand for 12 days. It was AMAZING! New Zealand is beautiful in so many ways. We picked NZ as our honeymoon destination mainly because of two things - both my mom and dad went to the University of Otago in Dunedin where they met and got married. And the other reason was for golf. We watched this golf tournament last year on TV called the Kiwi Challenge and it was held at a golf course called Cape Kidnappers, on the east coast of the North Island in NZ. It looked beautiful on TV and sure enough, it was beautiful in person!
Our 12-day adventure started out in Auckland. We rented a car and made our way down towards the South Island of NZ. On the way there, we educated ourselves with the Maori culture including the Haka which was made popular by the NZ rugby All Blacks team. I may have to start implementing the Haka into my pre-round golf/tournament routine so I can intimidate my opponents. You can't actually see it in the video, but the dancers actually stick their tongues out and widen their eyes during the dance!

We also saw some geysers (stinky ones!), visited the amazingly blue Huka waterfall, and played golf on New Year's day at Cape Kidnappers before we finally got on a ferry to get to the South Island - from Wellington to Picton. Thankfully it was a big ferry because it was over a 3-hour journey and the sea was rough, although marked "moderate" by Kiwi standards :-s
Bobby and I enjoyed the South Island so much more. The drives were scenic with farms of cattle, deer and of course, sheep! The roads were also amazingly curvy and steep! Our stops in the towns/cities had plenty of good food and fresh vegetables and fruits. In Blenheim, we stayed with my dad's friend that ran a local motel. On our continued drive south, we saw rock formations called Pancake Rocks.
In Franz Josef Glacier, we were able to get right to the bottom of a glacier! It was amazing! And thankfully it wasn't too cold since it is their summer season now.
We were not able to see Mt. Cook on the drive southward as the clouds were not cooperative. We spent our 3rd wedding anniversary by Lake Wanaka, probably one of my favorite places during the entire trip. By the way, I gave Bobby socks for our anniversary since that was exactly what he asked for! I, on the other hand, was given a budget to shop at a souvenir store up at Bob's peak in Queenstown (yup, it's really called Bob's peak!) - where I ended up with a pair of jade butterfly earrings :-) I would have never known that jade was an important/popular stone in NZ.
We decided to skip the bungee jump and the luge at Bob's peak and took the gondola back down instead. Our next stop was Dunedin, but on the way there we decided to look for the orchard that my dad worked at when he was a college student. After a few extra turns, we did find Teviot Orchard in Roxburg! We met the Bennetts family that ran the orchard and ate some FRESH yummy cherries! Funny,... they are still hiring Malaysian students from University of Otago to help pick and sort cherries every summer.
In Dunedin, we visited the University of Otago. We were not impressed with the newer buildings but the architecture of the older section of the university was really pretty.
Dunedin was the farthest south of our trip so we proceded to head back north towards Christchurch. But not before going out to the Penguin reserve! Unfortunately, we didn't see too many yellow-eyed penguins, but nonetheless we did spot a few furry baby penguins in their nest and some seals lazing on the beach. By the way, never stand in the direction of the wind when a seal yawns. It STINKS!!!
Finally, on January 9th, it was time to leave to New Zealand. We had a quick flight from Christchurch back to Auckland and then from there, an 11-hour flight on Air New Zealand back to Los Angeles. I really started to miss NZ when I had to go through immigration and customs at LAX airport. We decided to stay overnight in LA and when we touched down and arrived at home in Tulsa, we were greeted with leftover snow on the ground! Thankfully our neighbor was nice enough to clean up our driveway and walkway during our time away.
For the past 2 nights now since being back in the US, I have been dreaming about our "extended" vacation/honeymoon. Bobby, on the other hand is still struggling with the windshield wiper/indicator mix-up and having to think twice about which side of the road he is on.
New Zealand is now definitely on our list of highly recommended places to visit. I miss it so!!!