Monday, May 9, 2011

First Trip to Rotorua

It is Godzilla’s birthday and we went to Rotorua as a treat^^ She’s eager to go so we decided to comply with our birthday girl^^ We made lots of calls for all the packages and things we can do there asking for prices and duration and stuff.


Turn out, we can’t really afford most of their popular activities such as Zorb, White Water Rafting, Geyser pool and so on. All of these are quite expensive especially to people that does not have regular job and income.


In order not to disappoint her, we decided to go still, but kinda more of a window trip. That is, we will go to all the places that are free for sightseeing in order to stretch our moolah hehehehe^^


Rotorua is famous for their geyser but we have not got the opportunity to see one yet. Instead, we visited the geothermal spot in Kuirau Park. The whole park is practically splattered with steams coming out from the mud pools or cracks on the earth. The boiling mud “lake” is really a sight to behold.


Rotorua is really not some town that you will forget easily. The whole town smells of sulphur (geyser, remember?) The wind carries the rotten egg smells everywhere. The time that we went it was rainy day so it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Perhaps the rain somehow reduces the smell I think.


Lake Rotorua is also a beautiful scenic place to visit. A good spot for camwhoring I would say :p Then there’s a famous jade carving shop named Mountain Jade, It’s actually a shop selling all kinds of jade accessories and you can see the carving master doing their magic at the room behind the shop. It has glass windows for everyone to see. I think you can also go in and have a closer look if you ask the shopkeeper nicely J


Let’s see what else we’ve done there… Erm we tried their 3D Maze at somewhere outskirt of Rotorua. It cost us each NZD9 and truth to be told, it’s quite lame. It’s just a maze where you need to find your way to reach the four post at four corner and come out back to the same entrance that you entered earlier. Since it rained the day before, the maze is wet and puddle of water pools everywhere. Despite it being lame, it’s still some activity to kill time with. Seriously, not recommended. Don’t waste your time and money for it. Go for other activities, man.


We had our lunch at a buffet restaurant named Valentine’s. They had a special promotion where you don’t have to pay if it’s your birthday. The condition is that the minimum pax is four. Just nice since there’s four of us^^ The selections aren’t as extensive as some I’ve tried back in Malaysia, but the price is definitely quite affordable.


As for dinner, we had McD’s Dinner Set. (time limit is til 8:00pm) It cost about NZD29.90 and it comes with 2 cheeseburger, 1 Mighty Angus, 1 Grand Angus and four fries and drinks. The drinks is refillable. Yup, all are beef burgers but it really tasted very good. In fact, we all agreed that Mighty Angus is the best. It’s the champion of all^^


McD here don’t just serve burgers like back home. It also serves cakes and some pastries. We got Godzilla some chocolate cake as birthday cake. It taste really good and we finished it up despite being super full. A real satisfying meal I would say.


If you’ll like to know, it’s about 2 hours drive from Opotiki to Rotorua. Along the way, it’s pretty uneventful and the scene is just about the same as everywhere else. You see mountains, hills, orchards, small towns, cows, sheeps, yeah the usual.


We didn’t get to explore Rotorua to our heart content yet therefore you bet we will return again. We will definitely make another trip to Rotorua before we head to south. You can count on it^^

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