United Nations Day

TYesterdaay marked the United Nations Day and there were a gathering of about 100 nationalities at the Convention Centre in Palmerston North representing 100 different countries. Most of the participants dressed up in traditional costumes and there were lion dance performance from the Kung Fu School (and Junius is one of them) as well as drum performance by the International Pacific College.

Kathina

Yesterday, we made our day trip to Wellington and visit the Stokes Valley monastry for the kathina celebration. This is a ceremony where lay people gives robes to the monk annually. There were about a couple of hundreds of people at the monastry including Thais, Laotians, Cmbodians, SriLankans, Malaysians, Singaporeans and quite a number of Kiwis. We had a dana too where everyone bring a dish to share and you can imagine the amount of food brought into the monastry. On the way hoe, we visited one of our friend who has just moved from Tawa to Paraparaumu.

Mooncake Festival

We had a mooncake festival gathering last week at one of my Malaysian friends place. It was an excuse for a party and as usual we had a potluck. We had many anthentic food like sambal prawns, chap chai, poh piah and deserts like agar agar and fruits. The children also had a great time playing their lanterns while the adults had moon cakes with wine.

Trip to the Skifield

3 weekend ago, we decided to take a 3 days 2 nights trip to the highest mountain here in the North Island, Mt Ruapehu. We were told by friends that there will be little snow left as winter is over and the ice is beginning to melt. Being stubborn, we just decided to try our luck to see if we are still able to touch any real snow. It was a beautiful Saturday and the sky was blue. When we reached Waiouru, a desert location, we saw the majestic Mt Ruapehu just before our eyes and as we drive towards the National Park, it was a beautiful sight with the mountain just on my right as I was driving along. As we arrive at our destination at National Park, we stayed at Discovery Lodge, an accommodation in the middle of nowhere but it has a million dollar view of 3 of the North Island mountains, Mount Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngagehoa (I cannot spell it correctly). Since it was a beautiful day, the mountain peak was there for us to see. Within an hour of checking into our room, we were driving up the mountains and within 15 minutes, we are on the Whakapapa skifield. We were so happy as we can actually play real snow, make snowman and even had snowfights. We were up there for about 2 hours as it was getting late. We were up there again at 6 in the morning where we were the one of the first ones to arrive.

Later that morning we drove to the other side of the mountains, more popular with the Wellingtonians. We stayed at Powderhorn Chateau, just below the base of Turoa skifield. The journey up this time is slightly longer but this side of the mountain was quieter. Again, we built snowman, played with snowfights but this time we did some sleding. All in all, it was a great holiday and this time next year, we will be up there again definately.