Day 4 - 10/12/08

I woke up at 6:15 a.m. this morning and saw that it was already really bright... What the hell, I'm soooo not used to this...


Plan 'A' :Tried going back to sleep...


Failed miserably...


Plan 'B'!!! : Go JOGGING!!!


I jogged until the end of our street and found out that it was too cold to do shit... (In other words... Failed miserably too...)


Anyways, enough about my feeble attempts to do some exercise...


Tom surprised us, yet again by saying that we would be going to see the local cathedrals. This time, we took the bus and learnt that we (Rex and I) would be taking the bus into town sometime in the future... That was really bad news as I was lost the moment I came down from the bus we took... Luckily, Tom was with us this time and professionally led us to our first cathedral - Saint Paul.


At first glance, Saint Paul looked like a boring, white p.o.s. But when you enter the door, all thoughts of - What the hell am I doing here? Or - Shit, a boring place... - just vanished from my mind.


We were greeted by B-E-A-UTIFUL wooden architecture of the church.


Breath taking stained glass windows dominated both walls of the church, for example:

There was also something that i have never seen in a church - A GIFT SHOP.


I mean, what the hell is a gift shop doing in a church?! Is this a place of religion or a shopping mall?!

They sold jewelry, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! No pun intended :D


After take a few shots, most of them too dark to see, for example...

We were on our way to the other church - NEW Saint Paul. It seemed that the one we were in was the old one which was turned into a tourism spot.


Ahhh... That would explain the gift shop...


Anyways, apparently the 'OLD' Saint Paul got toooooo "retarded" for them and toooo small to fit the ever growing population of Christians in Wellington. So, they decided to build a more modern and way, way larger 'NEW' Saint Paul. Inside NEW Saint Paul, the main door was larger, the main mass room was larger,the stained glass windows were larger, the Christian Cross was larger...


Then.... Then... That's just it... 'NEW' Saint Paul was only just larger than 'OLD' Saint Paul. It did not have better design, nor better seat... Heck, even the stained glass windows weren't as beautiful... Besides the fact that 'NEW' Saint Paul has a really huge organ, is larger, and noticeably whiter (almost everything in it is white, by the way), everything in 'NEW' Saint Paul pales in comparison to 'OLD' Saint Paul.


Outside... It was huge... And white...



Inside, the art work was large, and white...

The really, LARGE organ... It was like... 8 meters tall... I think...

After trying to close our mouths because we were awe-struck by the size of the organ,
we had some lunch and headed to the National Bank Museum which was a stone's throw away. In there, we saw a ridiculously built machine, built to measure and calculate the economy or something like that... Sad to say that this machine, called The Moniac Machine, actually WORKS!!!


The Moniac Machine...


It had water running through it and the amount of water running in each container is suppose to represent a different aspect of the economy and indicate the amount of money going in and out...(Yea, i didn't understand what I've just said either...)


We also saw something that made us think that NZ was very rich. For example, they had $500,000 worth of ripped, yeah I said "ripped", ripped up money.


They even had a MILLION dollars in 50 dollar bills...


We soon made our way to the parliament building, where we had a tour of the whole building. It was quite sad as they didn't let us bring our cameras in. It was because they didn't wanna reveal government secretes or something like that... What the hell?! I mean, if you wanna be so secretive, Y EVEN BOTHERING HOLDING A TOUR?!


The government's funny! :D


By the way, they had a government building called the 'Beehive', which looks nothing like a beehive...

They should have called it the Glass Dome or something cooler...


So, yea, we had a tour of the it-had-lots-of-government-secretes-so-let's-not-let-them-bring-their-cameras-in-but-give-them-a-tour Parliament Buildings. And after that, we were allowed to watch a debate by the 'government people' (Again, no cameras were allowed.... Pfft... As if we wanted to take pictures of bald spots...) from a balcony overlooking the court.


Rex and I found out that NZ's debates were as childish and useless Malaysian debates. In fact, it highly resembles a debate we had in our school once. You must be thinking: it can't be that bad, he just compared the adults doing the debate to high school children... Well, sorry to burst your bubble but... Yea, it was THAT BAD.


Anyway, they were throwing arguments here and there. Mocking laughs were heard as other people were trying their best to present their facts to the Chairperson or the opposing team... And a fat, jolly guy sitting in the middle was snickering every 5 minutes for no apparent reason... All in all, it was a very funny experience. The thought of grown men acting like 10 year olds is funny, no matter the setting! :D Words such as: ' Shit, bullshit, cowcrap, stupid, silly, dumb, babi' all appeared. Super hilarious.


Feeling sleepy but highly amused, we headed home for a nap before the "Christmas Dinner" with the Karori Lions Club.


Fast forwarding to the dinner itself, the Karori Lions Club consisted mainly of the elderly, over 50 or 60 age group with nothing better to do (joking, in case there are people who are sensitive to this age thing), with the exception of Tom and Anne's daughter - Jo.


Even though they were old, they were undoubtedly a group of very lively people. They could even dance and sing. A very different thing from what I'm used to seeing in Malaysia. Usually, in Malaysia, once you're over 60, you might be lying on a bed somewhere, using all you're effort and will power just to swallow your spit... Either that or you're having trouble keeping your pee in.


There were 2 people I liked the moment I met them - an Irish woman named Alice Mac-Something (Sorry, forgot her name), who was super witty and an old, tiny man who told the funniest jokes. (Again, sorry, but his name just slipped my mind.)


We had a fantastic dinner, courtesy of the Karori Lions Club of mainly meat.


Thanks for paying for us, guys!!! We really appreciate it!!!



The best picture of the party... Cause I look hot in this one... :D JUST JOKING!!!