Auckland Lantern Festival 2015

Hello hellooo.

So last Sunday marked the end of the Auckland Lantern Festival. I know it's a bit late (blame uni :p) but my friend said that technically the correct date of the Lantern Festival's today, so yeah :)

When we arrived, we saw this lion dance team just about to start. Ahh, the nostalgia brings me back to the days in Indonesia where amateur lion dancers would move around performing in front of restaurant windows then a representative would go inside distributing empty red packets on the tables for customers to put their donation in.

I love watching lion dance, or any form of acrobatics/contortion in general. Their agility and coordination never ceases to amaze me.

Princes St, just beside our university campus, was lined up with countless food stalls selling delicacies from all over the world. Two bummer words to say, however: NO EFTPOS.

Also, people everywhere. I had never expected that Auckland could be so crowded. You literally couldn't move on your own - you had to depend on the movement of others to shift you around the place or ya ain't going anywhere. xD

From now onwards, I shall let the photos do the talking :)

UoA & Huia Residence O-Week

Hello!

I arrived back in Auckland to start my BCom degree at the University of Auckland. Classes start tomorrow and I am nervous as.

Things will be pretty hectic from now on (it's already crazy enough now) but I will try my best to upload on YouTube as regularly as possible, so please subscribe!! Thank you so much <3 I upload videos on beauty, life, and talks about random things. I am planning to upload travel vlogs as well when I get the travel opportunity :) Your support will be greatly appreciated.

Alicia J's YouTube Channel
Okay, so orientation week has just ended for Semester One 2015, and we will have Clubs Expo next week where we start admiring the presence of the many clubs offered at the UoA.

UoA O-Week Impession:

It was different from what they show you in the promotional videos, I'll give you that. Don't expect too much - my expectations had already been calmed down by word of mouth of my friends who had attended their faculty's orientations earlier, and it was obvious that it was not as "fun-filled" as was advertised. Nevertheless the O-week for the Business School was quite well-organized and informative, so the orientation day kind of did its job anyway. Some of the lecturers had particularly interesting lectures.

The UniGuides (senior students who volunteer to help out for O-Week) were friendly and helpful, and I definitely appreciate their effort and time to guide us around campus. However, I would have liked to get my free lunch for the day as I had every right to. I understand that it was for the interest of time that we had to avoid the crowded Quad, but still... -_-

Overall, it wasn't bad but a long day, definitely. I opted to skip the Toga Party for the more calming lantern festival, which I will most likely do a separate post about.

Huia Residence O-Week Impression:

I was far from disappointed - I have made so many wonderful new friends and meet so many people from diverse backgrounds in this home of 321ish students. Love love love being here so far. <3

My Huia experience for the first week so far has been absolutely amazing. The hall had the week packed with events such as The Amazing Race (which happened before I arrived), A Night in Paris Speed Dating, Big Night In (free pancakes), Sponge Wars, Classic Kiwi Barbecque, and the oh-so-fun Halls Day Out today, complete with inflatables, live DJ music, and more barbecque!! :D

I realised how unfit I was. :-/

The week ended with a fireworks display that also marked the end of the Auckland Lantern Festival. What an amazing view, right from my window :')

That's a wrap for O-Week! Uni starts tomorrow. Godspeed for all of us.
I look forward to what the future brings! Thank you so much everyone who has been a precious part of my orientation week :)

I am planning to do a separate post about the Huia Residence, so stay tuned! ;)

アリシア

Back from Macau and Hong Kong!

Merry belated Christmas to you all! I hope that you have all spent a joyful Christmas with your loved ones! I know I certainly have :)

I just came back from a short yet very memorable trip with my extended family (a humble size of 8) to Macau and Hong Kong! We spent 3 nights at the lovely Venetian hotel in Macau, and two nights enjoying the (insane) crowds and bustling cityscape of Hong Kong <3

Needless to say, I absolutely enjoyed every single day in both cities. I had some of the best egg tarts, generous confectionery samples, humongous mall/hotel-hopping, free-shuttle-hogging, most desperate free-WiFi-hunting, and agitating "ohmigod-I wish-I-spoke-Cantonese" moments in my life, and many more that I'm looking forward to share with you. Also there were plenty a hilarious family moments xD

How did you all spend your Christmas? Have you ever travelled in Macau and Hong Kong? If so, I would love to know how your experience was! 

See you in the next post!

アリシア

Now listening: 無題 (夜想曲) - 渡邉武尊

ACG NZIC Culture Week 2014

On Thursday we wrapped up our school's three-day Culture Week event. We had daily quizzes (I won the second day's quiz about Asia and got a free drink voucher xD) and LOTS of fun and food! I volunteered for the fashion show (Wednesday last period) and the International Food Day, joining the Malaysian group. It was an amazing week and I experienced cultures that I never imagined I would be able to :') Be forewarned: This is a photo-heavy post. Photos were harvested by myself, from friends and school teachers. Enjoy! :D

That OCD-prone-people-unfriendly "w" though. Mr Meur printed and tried out four different fonts and sizes, only to return to the original one as nothing worked hahaha

The first day of the Culture Week, we had a Maori dance show (due to certain circumstances I ended up watching it twice; sitting in front row seat twice haha) performed by the Kahurangi Dance Group of Hastings. During their dance performance, called Taonga (meaning 'treasure'), they displayed a heartfelt, highly amusing, exciting show. I was in awe as the depicted the Maori culture in front of my eyes. It was hilarious seeing my friends and teachers attempt some moves as well xD

The next day we had storytelling, Japanese students teaching origami, Middle Eastern students doing henna tattoos (I got one with my name in Arabic xD), beautiful Arabic calligraphy, and song challenge. That day, on period 6, we had our international fashion show, and to our surprise -  a LOT more people came than we expected, because it was in period 6, so we'd expected that those who didn't have class would have just gone home, but I wouldn't have had it any other way :') This was one of the most amazing days of my time in ACG so far! I even got to try on a hijab for the first time!

Putra getting into character with his hijab xD

My friend Omayma at the Arabic calligraphy booth. She conjured up beautiful calligraphy of our Arabic names :')

My name in Arabic! On canvas (by Shahd), and on paper (by Omayma). Thita also wrote my name in upside-down Thai 555. Another Middle Eastern student did the henna on my arm - I still have it now, it's gotten darker - love it sooo much xx

The fashion show was especially fun to work in! We had students and teachers modelling for Fiji, Samoa, Malaysia, Indonesia (me lol), Korea, Oman, India, China (me again :P), Japan, Vietnam, Britain and of course, New Zealand! We even had someone walk in a kiwi bird suit! Haha xD

Keep scrolling for more photos of fashion and food! :)

Representing Indonesia with my friend Sela :)

 

 With my beautiful Omani and Fijian friends <3

University of Auckland Roadshow (ACG Day)

Hello! ( ´ ▽ ` )ノ♪

With my laptop gone brain dead (entering its third week of hibernation), trying to post anything with photos on this blog has been utterly irritating to say the least. Will talk more about that at the end of this post. Apologies in advance for the crappy and messed up layout :(

Yesterday, me and my fellow ACG NZIC students from February foundation and April Fast Track were given the opportunity to attend a Course Information Day (a.k.a. The Roadshow), where we attend two faculty presentations of our choice and have some morning tea in between with some UoA freebies! :D The Roadshow is exclusively held for ACG NZIC students, so we're definitely a more privileged bunch of prospective students :')

Courses and Careers Day, the University of Auckland Open Day, was just held last week. I attended but was very late and had unfortunately missed a lot of the events and lectures :( I really regret having come so late, but I got to attend one lecture and see two of the halls of residences that I wanted to see most, so that was a very rare and fascinating experience. But this Roadshow was not a substitute of Open Day, so my message to all prospective students: ATTEND OPEN DAY EARLY AND PLAN YOUR ACTIVITIES BEFOREHAND. Don't leave behind regrets like me.

Freebies: Ingenio et Labore cloth bag (one I failed to get during Courses and Careers Day last week), UoA wristband, UoA pen, and UoA highlighter. Orange juice from morning tea.

The beautiful and modern Owen G Glenn Building, home to the Business School (my future faculty?!) *fingers crossed*

So I chose to attend the Business School and Faculty of Arts presentation. All the presentations happened at the Owen G Glenn Building. I was very, very pleased with the Business School presentation - the lecturer was engaging, easy to understand, very smiley and approachable, and she stayed back to help a horde of students full of questions, particularly those who were too shy to ask out loud during the presentation, like me :P I was able to have all my questions answered (and all these answers I liked, hehe). Plus, my friends and I agreed that the senior student who volunteered during the presentation was a wonderful eye candy :3 All this and more made me stick to my first choice of pursuing a BCom, a far detour from middle-school-to-last-year-me's initial choice of BA. I plan to talk more about how this came to happen in another post.

Then we had morning tea, where they left out plates of small pastries and crumbly cakes and cartons of Just Juice (I have yet to drink mine up to this day - still saving it for that Juice Needed moment xD). During this time, 8 of the 200 clubs at UoA set up stands around the refreshment tables, and I 

was surprised to see that a club for Indonesian students in Auckland had set up a stand! The three guys manning the stand exclaimed in joy when I said I was from Indonesia, and they all immediately stood up to introduce themselves. I promptly called in my fellow Indonesian ACG minion Adeline, and she also was surprised to see an Indonesian club. They told us that this is the first club we should join as soon as we come to Uni, haha :')

The second presentation I attended was the Faculty of Arts. Unfortunately, this presentation came behind my high expectations - mainly because of the rushed, condescending manner the lecturer talked in. It wasn't just me - my friends also agreed. That definitely put me off, because Arts is a diverse and exciting faculty that has so much to offer, but she made it seem tedious, monotonous and about as exciting as watching paint dry on a rainy day. She didn't even stay back to answer questions to students whose questions were too detailed and plentiful to ask during the session (yours truly), so my questions are left unanswered. I know it sounds harsh, but I was just really disappointed. Had this been done by a more friendly and helpful person who didn't seem like she didn't want to be there (the whole time she smiled just once, and even that was a sarcastic one), my day would have been perfect.

Rotorua-Wellington Family Trip Winter 2014

Hi all!

It's been two weeks since I came back to school for my second term. I've been so stumped up with schoolwork (the struggles of being in fast-track) that I haven't been able to post here for the past two months :(

My family came to visit nearing the beginning of my winter break. They spent two weeks here while I was still in school, and got to spend one out of three weeks of winter break with me. In that one week, we went to Rotorua and Wellington (to extend my passport but was promptly declined because it was too early to do so :P)

Mt Ruapehu! We didn't go skiing there this time due to lack of time :P

 

The Luge ride at Rotorua! Absolutely loved it! As they said, once is NEVER enough. My brother and I got to get on it twice, first time in the beginner's track, and second in the intermediate track (it started raining then!). The second ride, coupled with the rain, was definitely the more exhilarating experience! <3

Going up after the second ride!

Hobbiton! We got really lucky that it didn't rain during our tour. It started raining after we returned to the starting point. We got to know some tricks they used in the movies, and got some drinks at the Green Dragon Inn.

Skies of Auckland

I've been in Auckland for about four weeks now. Moving towards Week 5 at school, we've had out first two common tests at school - expecting three more next week. The Queen's birthday's on Monday, so we're expected to spend our long weekend studying for the tests O:)

Today at sixth period we had a school-arranged quiz event for under-18-year-olds (whee! :D). We got divided into groups according to our birth months, the dean asked us questions related to movies and New Zealand. My team, Girls on Fire, got third place. The prize for us was a box of assorted Cadbury chocolates ;)  My friend's team, who won first place, got movie tickets! They also had A TON of snacks and drinks laid out for us to munch upon, and later smuggle home. Our not-under-18 friends came along after last class of the day ended (quiz participants weren't considered absent because it's a school-arranged event) and helped us clean out the snacks. Another friend of mine happily bagged all the chips and dips in plastic bags from who-knows-where, and with a half-full bottle of three-litre tropical juice in one hand, walked happily home in jandals.

All in all, life's been just awesome here, although I always find myself falling into the temptations of food like churros and cookies. Things are bloody expensive here, and apparently Kiwis think so too. 

Well let's leave it there for now. Here are some random pictures I took over the weeks since I came here :)

 Sky Tower

 Future university's clock tower

Aotea Square

 

 Town Hall

Singapore Once More!

Hi! How's everyone doing?

My family and I flew to Singapore to attend my cousin's wedding last week :) To say the least, it was an exciting four nights and four days for me, which included meeting up twice with one of my best friends studying there, roaming around a bright bustling city, indulging in amazing food - once at sinful hours, and so much more.

First off I'll start with some pictures of the infinity pool on the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands, where I stayed for the first two nights. The hotel was crowded with tourists as it is all-year round, a big percentage coming from countries like China, Japan, and Korea.

Night view

The first night I was there, I decided to bring my phone with me to the pool after seeing other people do the same (i.e. risking their fancy iPhones' fragile little lives). Silly idea, but yolo, I thought.

I didn't know the pool was shallow enough for me to just walk across it, so I swam my way to the edge of the pool, holding my phone above my head with one hand, the other submerged under water to paddle. I didn't want to soil the leather-like casing either. I got some pics, but due to the darkness none of the pictures came out presentable. In the end I splashed some water inside the cable port, but thank goodness my phone was still alive :X

To top it off, they kicked me out literally right after I made my way to the edge of the pool because it was closing time. No regrets though.

The next day, I decided to bring my phone into the pool once more, clutching it high above my head with two hands as I walked carefully across the pool. Having figured out this critical information from experience the other night proved to be of contribution to my rather silly yet rewarding decision. I still ended up dropping one of my hands in the water though, so it was another one-handed picture-taking sesh. Yet this time I produced much better results - accredited to sufficient daylight ↓


Spoiler/destroyer of visual illusions and fantasies: The infinity pool actually has an edge D:

Here are some photos I took from the Skypark! Lesson learned, btw: Always wear pants under your skirt in Singapore. The winds will show no mercy! Apparently it's bad enough on sea level (as I found out while walking along Orchard Road), but the wind did not spare me the trouble of having to repeatedly pull my skirt down whilst attempting to walk around at 57 storeys above ground level.

Also I managed to meet up with one of my best buds, Lala, now a JC student in Singapore. We had a lot of fun just walking around, loitering in arcades, eating, and talking about school, life, and other nonsense.

We'd come across a food fair at Tampines Mall during our first meet-up, and among one of the stalls that were there, one was advertising brownies. We tasted the samples and they tasted great! Maybe a little too sweet for my taste, but still delicious anyway. The attendant proceeded to tell us that their main branch offers message writing services on brownies, that could be done in minutes depending on size. That's when the lady said to stop by for our next birthdays, so she literally spoke an idea to my head. LL's birthday's coming up (it's in two days!), so our visiting that stall was like fate xD

So the next day we were to meet, I made my way to the branch at Dhoby Ghaut and later surprised her with a personalized "Happy Birthday" brownie. It turned out much lovelier than I'd expected :D

 Birthday celebration in advance <3

Then I moved on to Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa for the last two nights, where the wedding took place. The resort was beautiful! They had monkeys and peacocks roaming around as well. I never actually saw any monkeys, but my aunt had heard their chattering one morning. I did see two peahens, though. One had chicks trailing behind her :3