I spent most of my first day with Ronald getting suited up for his big day as one of his groomsmen.

Cafe Mossimo Cappuccino

The man of the week, Ron:

Ronald the groom

and did a couple shots of their rings for fun:

Ring in a flower

Mt Ruapehu

See that red circle on the photo? I skied down from there(top of the mountain) Pretty proud of myself for succesfully clearing a couple “black diamond” runs on my first try skiing.

*The ski track difficulty is broken down by(from easiest to hardest):-
Green>Blue>Black>Double Black

All I can think about now is skiing, Im already pondering on 2010 trip. Any ideas?

Over the next 2 weeks, my blog will be running on autopilot with the occasional checkup from moi with a total blackout for this week.

Photos from the airport after several attempts of trying and a great landscape photo of our plane.

Enjoy life while we rock out the mountains!

I will be accompanied by Ben and we will be spending 12 days there, 7 out of which will be spent up at Mount Ruapehu skiing! Itll be my first time skiing too so Im pretty stoked. Our “tour guide” will be none other than one of my best friends, Ronald whos wedding Im attending in January(see my previous post about being a groomsmen) and will meet his fiance for the first time over the week.

Back to skiing, Ive been watching the weather reports eagerly hoping the weather works out for us and learnt from Haemogee how to read an ISOBAR map and forecasted the week Im there to start off abit wet but eventually turning to clear skies for the rest of the week!

When we are back down from the mountains, we have a couple of things loosely planned over the 3-4 days with Celeste, another one of my childhood friends!

Heres our list:-
-Waitamo Caves:  we havent decided which adventure we will take, any suggestions?
-Underwater World: We will check this place out when we are back in Auckland, there were some really good reviews about it. *cross fingers* and hope I can bring my camera in there(probably no flash photography)
-Sky City:  Drinks at the swanky Sky City absorbing the magnificent views.
-Kingslander: As a Salsa dancer, how can I go to a city and not go dancing! We will be meeting up with Hamish, a temporary Brisbanite who lives in New Zealand to dance.

Those are the main big attractions that we are aiming for. Now, I have a dillema, I believe we have 2 free days that have nothing planned for them and we want to visit some wineries and maybe some other tourist spots, maybe a coastal area of sorts. I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it if you could share your Auckland, New Zealand experiences  with famous wineries and maybe, the hidden treasures of Auckland.

ps – Oh, I forgot to mention, I will bring you back a surprise gift of sorts from New Zealand for your thoughts on interesting spots around Auckland =D

pps – Im not kidding about the gift, I will personally mail it to you if youre not located in Brisbane!

Also, I just finished going through the doudoule latin dance camp photos. You can check it out here:

Doudoule Latin Dance Camp Photos

Anyway, gonna board my typically delayed flight!

Max in July

This is Max 3 months ago in July before going for the Malaysian Salsa Festival.  9 months old.

Curious Max

3 months later, I went over to Sydney to do a photography shoot for the LDA Ball but thats a story for another day. I stayed with Max’s parents, my cousin Angela and Justin(who i was shooting for) whom were nice enough to let me bunk with Max.

Results of waking up at 6am

 I spent the weekend sleeping with Max who has a daily routine of waking up around 6am for a feed which forced me to wake up to feed him because his tantrums kept me up I duely took responsibility of since I was bunking with him.

Aunty Liz and Max

Little did I know that it was also Max’s 1st birthday! We went to a park in a nearby suburb for a bbq picnic and were joined by Justin’s family, Angela’s parents, close friends and Liz(also my cousin). I leave you with a couple of pictures of happy Max and family:

Karen, Arathy and Max falling asleep

"Yay, I have a booger up my nose! I mean Im 1 year old =D"

1 year old, 12 more years to mischief =)

Family photo: Angela, Max and Justin

I was initially heading over to do a photography gig for the LDA Ball on Saturday night. Later did I find out that my nephew, Max is celebrating his ONE year old birthday! Max is my cousin’s son, whom i spent alot of time with while I was in Kuala Lumpur a couple months back and I miss him dearly. Here a pic of me with him during the Malaysia Salsa Festival, feisty curious fellow that one…

Max and I

Will post up more pics soonish and the story of my whereabouts(or more like my missing in action-ness)

Anyway, since im already posting, here are some pics that i thought were really nice from my weekend away at Byron Bay with my family.

Most Easterly Point in Australia

Byron Bay is in New South Wales, 2 1/2 hours drive from Brisbane and is best known for the Most Easterly Point in Australia.

Byron Bay Lighthouse

I must have taken a good 200+ photos while I was there and I cut down the list to maybe 10 ok photos. Gotta improve my ok ratio shots. The weather on the first day was quite fantastic, with blue sky and sprinkle of clouds that really gave alot of depth to my photos.

A couple watching the sunrise

This was taken at around 6.25am, when the sun actually started to come out. The clouds that morning(and day) were not in my favour, which just gives me another reason to come down here again!

seafood feast...

And of course, as we Asians love our food, what better way to end with a feast =)