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!

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

and my list:

1. I spend alot of time dancing, classes on monday and tuesday nights, social dancing from thursday till sunday. My dance styles include LA style Salsa, Bachata and a little Zouk. My latest interest is West Coast Swing inspired by Jordon and Tatiana.
2. Im not embarrased about people knowing that I have watched all 6 seasons of Sex and the City or even all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls. In fact, Rory(Alexis Bledel) is my favourite actress cause she is cute although I feel she can only play 1 type of character…Rory Gilmore.
3. I played Ice Hockey for a total of 4 years in a tropical country(Malaysia) which only has 2 seasons, summer and rainy seasons.
4. I am the black sheep of the family, I was sent to government Malay primary school(Kampung Tunku) whereas my younger brother and sister was sent to chinese primary school.
5. On that same note, I am also the only person on my mother’s family(cousins and rellies) side who does IT and have little creative ability. Everyone else in the family are either accountants or musicians.
6. 
7. One of my biggest worries when I started photography was that I would look like an Asian tourist or be labelled as a perv.
8. I have never been “ching chong chao”d or “ni hao”d(the most common words a drunk person would say to you if you were chinese) before while carrying my camera.
9. I am 20% deaf on my right side. I have always been labelled as deaf and now I have an excuse.
10. I am embarrased to admit that I play World of Warcraft and have setup parental controls on myself in fears that I will not be able to control myself again.
11. When World of Warcraft first came out, I would spend 8 hours a day playing the game(I was at uni and had the time) and accrued a total 60 days playing time, that means I played a total 1440hours and decided to quit and that lasted for 2 years before I started again, Im playing way less now and more on a casual basis now(with the help of parental control(I control my own parental control))
12. I currently have a full time job in a software company called CareerHub and run a web design/photography freelance business on the side.
13. I aim to be financial free and full time job free to focus on my business/s.
14. I love singing although Im horrible at it and resort to whistling while Im at work much to my colleagues demise.
15. I would live with my parents if I had the choice. Its cheaper and it enables me to be financially free sooner than later.
16. My biggest expenditure is food.
17. Ive been referred to by many names since young, Chan(my surname) during primary school, Min Wye during high school. During pre-university, my programming teacher gave me the name “Nathan” which i continued to use when I came to Australia, I introduced myself as Nathan because Min Wye was hard to remember and since then, I converted back to Min Wye for a short while and up till now, Min.
18. I will respond to all the names above, Min Wye, Nathan, Min, Chan.
19. My name is pronounced “Ming Wai”, there is an invisible ‘g’ and in most cases, people who know me by name pronounce my name as such “Min Wei”.
21. One day, I would like to have a family with 2 kids, a boy and girl.
22. My father passed away when I was 9 years old. My fondest memory of him was of him sitting in my brother and my room accompanying us to sleep. Although it was to make sure we go to sleep rather than stay up and play, the quiet time of him sitting against the wall while waiting for us to fall sleep is precious to me.
23. You could attribute my liking for dance, gilmore girls, sex and the city amongst other things to the fact that I grew up with my cousins who were all girls and raised by my Mom.
24. Even due to no23, I am very much straight and have never needed to question my sexuality. 
25. If you didnt notice or wondering, I skipped 20 on purpose so I only needed to think of 23 facts about me. Im sneaky like that.

Im also sneaky that if you are read through all 25, you are tagged to write 25 things about yourself. My justification is, if you took the time and effort to read all 25 things about me, I will want to read about you too.

Post the link in my comments or trackback to my site if you have done it. I would like to read it and possibly get to know my readers better =)

Does a big ego mean you rave non-stop about myself and place yourself above all others? Does it mean you put everyone into their own class in terms of skill and only dance with the people at the same level or better? Personally, I think having a ego means I dont even try to enjoy a dance with anyone I ask or who asks me.

After dancing for about a year, I started getting compliments about my dancing, mainly about how fast I have improved over the past couple of months. This feeling of satisfaction is great but unfortunately, it gets to my head. Is this the root of an ego?

Sometimes, I feel like I am on the journey to being “big-headed”, so please feel free to bonk me on my head to knock me back into shape if I get to that stage(also an indication that youve been reading my blog)

ps: not too hard ok?