- 1,997 cc 2 liters 4 in-line front engine with 87 mm bore, 84 mm stroke, 11 compression ratio, double overhead cam, variable valve timing/camshaft and four valves per cylinder - Premium unleaded fuel - Fuel economy EPA highway (l/100km): 9 - Multi-point injection fuel system - Main 50 liter premium unleaded fuel tank - Power: SAE and 179 kW , 240 HP @ 8,300 rpm; 153 ft lb , 207 Nm @ 7,500 rpm
2002 Honda S2000 Handling
- ABS - Four disc brakes including two ventilated discs - Immobilizer - Limited slip differential - Spacesaver steel rim internal spare wheel - Wishbone front and rear suspension with stabilizer bar independent with coil springs
The day before Malaysia National Day is my friend Wei Siong's birthday. We celebrated his birthday last Sunday at Sura Korean/Japanese restaurant on Cashel street Christchurch...
28th of August, my fellow house mate's birthday. A birthday makan party was held at our house, with about 10 people joining the party. Congratulation Isaac, you're finally an adult, can enter Malaysia casino, hehe.. Actually before the party, three of us had an "instant noodles buffet" for our lunch and watched Ip Man.. Curry chicken, chicken bak kut teh, fried sambal vege and sweet and sour pork.. and our favourite Heineken beer were prepared. Isaac's new car, Honda S2000, was finally revealed to the "public" and this is the biggest birthday present he had ever received, but not from us.. I bought him a microwave sensor as a birthday present, hopefully he'll like it, I know he'll.. CS and I were busy cooking and didn't take any photos on the party but I managed to snap some pictures when the party was over.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ISAAC...
Party table full of Heineken beer bottles and some mechanical drawings.
Many Thanks to Kimberly for helping us cleaning up the mess..Thanks for scrubbing the black stuff on the bottom of the cooking pan..
Homemade salmon with teriyaki sauce and olive oil..
Frozen Pandan Leaves and Lemon Grass together with a bag of bean sprout sold in NZ. They cost me about 2 dollars each..
This is my favourite energy drink, called "Mother", a weird name but it contains about 32mg of caffeine per 100ml, it's a lot! "A mother of a Taurine, caffeine and Guarana hit; If you need a MOTHER of an energy hit, you need MOTHER. It delivers double the hit, in a big black can. So now when a mate turns up with a wussy-sized can, you can raise your MOTHER up and proudly say 'did yours come with a man bag'"
A steamboat dinner held last month when our fellow aussie friends visited us. The steamboat cooking style might be a bit weird as we were using rice cooker to cook soup..
A special homemade prawn me (Hokkien Mee) by cs and me..The taste of the prawn mee really depends a lot on the chili paste and the prawn soup combination.
A man with a good windscreen wiping skill..Video shown below was taken by me early this morning at the junction of Shands Rd and Main South Rd. A guy was working hard to wipe some of the windscreens while the traffic lights turned red. He was indeed working hard to earn money and choon seng and I believe he might earn more money than working at the petrol stations even if only half of the number of drivers pay him for his hardwork under the hot sun..
A wonderful trip during winter break...From the first of July till ninth of July JOURNEY ROUTES Routes highlighted in yellow
The above map is taken from MapSource retrieved as the trip history from Garmin Nuvi 265W GPS which has been accompanying us throughout the whole journey. It's a fantastic GPS with great features and user friendly..
Day 1 - Hokitika
Zhi Bin, Han Chow, Isaac, Kia Xin, Choon Seng and I woke up early in the morning of the first of July and got ourselves prepared for 9 days journey. I woke up the earliest to pick up our rented car Toyota Estima 8 seater. I was the main driver for the journey and many thanks to Choon Seng and Isaac for helping me driving for the last 2 days.
Arthur's Pass is our first via point heading to Hokitika. From 164 Waimairi Road, we entered Yaldhurst Road and entered West Coast Road. This is the longest road I've ever drove on. We passed by 3 small towns, Darfield, Sheffield and Castle Hill before reaching Arthur's Pass. There was not much interesting scenery along the way to Castle Hill. I think Castle Hill is only a small village. As we were passing by that village, ice and snow could be seen covering the road side and thick fog enveloped us. The only way to continue our journey was by looking at GPS, the scenery tuned from greenery to snowy. We stopped by and snapped some photos. The scenery would be even better if the fog was not so thick and the snow cap mountain ranges along the road could be seen clearly. We took some photos with some cows as background and we were wondering what the cows were doing standing in the middle of ice instead of green grasses? Eating? It was indeed a wonderful experience. Passed through Waimakairiri River, we arrived at Arthur's Pass. Before that, we was told that Arthur's Pass is a nice place to visit with fascinating scenery. However, it was not so true that Arthur's Pass has great scenery, it is the journey heading there that has the nicest scenery. Lush green forest and small township of Arthur's Pass didn't attract us a lot. Therefore, we didn't stop at all, instead, we went straight away to Hokitika using Otira Highway. We didn't stop and after about 3 and a half hours of driving, we reached Kumara Junction. This junction was a remarkable one! Why? That was the place we got the chance to view the West Coast, Tasman Sea came into our sight. Yeah!! We've reached the West Coast of New Zealand South Island. Another half an hour driving on Kumara Junction Highway led us to our backpackers (Birdsong Backpackers) in Hokitika. The backpackers was just situated along the highway, beside the Tasman Sea. We went to buy some food and headed to the beaches. Watching Sunset at the West Coast is a must as you can see the whole sun setting at the horizon. Really a great experience. Besides, we went to see Glow Worms at Glow Worms Dell near our backpackers. The path leading to the site was so dark and it was a pain for us to find the blinking worms hanging all over the trees... Our dinner was just Bi Hun and some marinated chicken bought from nearby New World Supermarket. Looking forward to our next destination : Franz Josef..
Day 2 - Franz Josef
It was Choon Seng who drove us to Franz Josef.. It took us one and a half to reach there. There was not much stuff to see along the way there. Franz Josef is famous for its glacier. Glacier is a large mass of ice moving slowly down a valley. It was formed from the accumulation of snow in areas in mountain tops where the amount of snow that falls exceeds the amount that melts. Interesting enough? That was why we visited that place. Early in the morning, we drove into Ruatapu Road, crossing the Hokitika River. After driving on this straight road, we turned into Ruatapu-Ross road which then led us to a small town called Ross. After a long drive on HariHari Highway, crossing several rivers and lakes, we arrived at Hari Hari town, this town has the widest road and it is the traffic police favourite spot, speeding in this area will definitely get you in trouble, 50km/h in town. Can you imagine how low the speed limit is and we had to decrease our speed from 100km/h to 50km/h immediately. Following the Whataroa Highway, which is long and winding, we finally reached Franz Josef town. Our backpackers, Chateau Franz, was the nicest backpackers ever in which we can have a motel style of staying. Our room was fully equipped with tv and video player and we've got our own kitchen. not wasting any time, after filling up petrol, we went to have a look at the mighty Franz Josef glacier. Driving along Condon Street, entering State Highway 6 and crossing the river sourced from the glacier led us to the glacier walk. There were about 13 tracks to have different angles of viewing the glacier, we chose the one which could lead us to the nearest possible viewing location. That was A.Glacier Valley Walk. We walked along the large Waiho riverbed. We had to walk across lots of rocky uneven terrain which led us to the glacier terminal. Upon reaching there, there was a sudden ice avalanche but we didn't manage to capture that. Along the way, we saw lots of big ice cubes resting just beside the river. It was a tiring walk, about 2 hours I think but the view there was indeed magnificent.
After that tiring sight seeing, we went to buy some chickens at Four Square Supermarket to cook for our dinner. We managed to watch The Ring and Lord of the Rings and chilled out in this comfortable backpackers. The next day would be our first time ever climbing up the glacier at Fox Glacier..
Day 3 - Fox Glacier
A 20mins drive on the Fox Glacier Highway led us to the Fox Glacier town. This town is a lot smaller than Franz Josef and it is situated on top of a hill. We headed to the Ivory Tower Backpackers and this is a small backpackers with good service. We'd booked a glacier walking guide for 89 dollars per person. After registration, each of us was provided a water proof jacket, a proper boot, metal spikes and a walking(alpine stick).
Every glacier is classified according to its terrain and difficulty of the climb. We chose the 4-hour return glacier walk. Below is a short video clip of our journey and it was the toughest and most dangerous climbing I've ever had. Walking on the edge of a cliff was the most significant one and we need to grip tightly the chain while walking. Also, walking on the ice (glacier) was not that easy as we need to trample on the ice while walking.
Ok, after so much energy being consumed during the walk, it was time for us to have a rest and continue our journey to Queenstown... Day 4 - Queenstown
Before heading to Queestown, we went to explore a beautiful lake called Matheson Lake. It was not nice when we went there as there was a road construction and we had to walk on muddy pathway which led us to the lake. As we didn't have enough time to explore further, we just managed to snap some photos of the lake, instead we bought some post cards of the lake..
Queenstown, our next destination, this would be one of the longest routes and it took us about 4 and a half hours to reach there. Wanaka was our via point. We started our journey driving on Haast highway. Along this highway, we passed by Karangarua and again reached the West Coast. The scenery of one of the beaches along the way was so captivating with thick fog floating above the Tasman Sea..Besides that, we arrived at a place called Knights Point where we got the chance to see an awesome cliff with craggy coastlines. Another beach we visited was Ship Creek. What special about this beach other than the scenery? Ship Creek crosses the northern end of a remarkable coastal plain, formed during the last 14000 years since the last ice age. The rock bluffs which dominate the coast north of there give way to a gently-curving sandy beach that extend 50km to Jackson bay, and a complex dune and wetland landscape which spreads up to 7km inland. We then passed by a small town called Haast and Yea, the coming route leading to Wanaka Lake was the most fascinating part of the whole trip driving. It had been snowing before we drove on the Makaroa-Lake Hawea Road, the whole road was covered with snow and tyre chain was needed for safety purpose. However, we didn't have any chain in the car. Luckily, the snow-clearing guy gave me some advice on driving on the slippery road. "Do not apply break and please apply very low gear when driving on slippery slopes".. We managed to get through the whole journey to Wanaka safely and enjoyed the great and attractive calm lake with snow cap mountains as back drop..
After snapping some photos, we passed by Albert Town and winding roads and finally reached Queenstown. We stayed at Resort Lodge Backpackers for 2 nights in Queenstown. No doubt, the part of road from Haast to Queenstown was the most difficult one and we gained lots of experience and we like it!!! Guess what was our dinner there? fast Food? KFC.. We had KFC for 2 nights actually. We'd been starving and craving for nice food since we came from Christchurch as the towns we visited had very limited food and cafes. Here, in queenstown, was like a paradise to us. There are casinos, gondolas, extremely beautiful lake (Lake Wakatipu) and scenic shooting locations of LOTR. Lots of tourists visiting there and we really enjoyed that place.
Day 5 - Queenstown (Visit to Lord of the Rings film locations)
It was a very packed day. Our target destinations were LOTR shooting locations. Due to limited time, we found a place where we could really experience the environment of LOTR movie. It was Deer Park Heights. We drove there and paid 20 dollars of entry fee. It was very very cold up the hill with strong winds blowing at us. We got to see lots of deers, llamas and some other animals. The scenery up there was so fantastic that it looked "fake". There was a "Korean Prison" situated up on top of the hill and it was purposely built for a shooting location for a movie, The Rescue (1988). Next, we went to Sunshine Bay and headed North to Glenorchy to have a different viewing angle of the big lake.
Day 6 - Milford Sound
Milford Sound, if you had visited New Zealand before, this place would be familiar to you. The most peaceful and calm place with great scenery. From Queenstown, we drove all the way surrounding Lake Wakatipu and reached Kawarau Falls. We didn't get the chance visiting the waterfalls as the connecting road was under construction. Driving on Kingston Road, we passed by Jacks Point. The whole Kingston Road was along Lake Wakatipu lakeside. We continued our journey on Kingston-Garston Highway and passed by Fairlight and Garston. Then, we drove on Garston-Athol Highway , entering Mossburn Five Rivers Road. We continued our journey to Te Anau (via point) on Te Anau- Mossburn Highway. The entire highway was covered with thick fog in the morning and not much scenery could be viewed along the way. After about 2 hours of driving, we reached Te Anau town and we need to fill up our car with full petrol as there was no petrol station at all at Milford Sound. We'd our lunch at Subway in Te Anau before continuing our journey. We drove on Te Anau-Milford Highway and passed by the biggest lake in SOuth Island (Lake Te Anau). We stopped by at some interesting places like Te Anau Downs and Lake Mirrors. Lake Mirrors was the nicer one as we could see the reflection of snow-cap mountains on a small pond. We'd heard a lot prior to our journey that the road from Te Anau to Milford Sound was quite dangerous. It was indeed dangerous when it came to a tunnel crossing a high snow covered mountain. That was a hot spot of snow avalanche and luckily we didnit spot any warning sign boards before entering the tunnel. After going through that tunnel, we finally reached Milford Sound.. Our backpackers was surrounded by snow cap mountains and it was indeed a nice place to stay.. Just after reaching there, we went for the Milford Sound Cruise where we got the chance to enjoy the river reflections, dolphins chasing the cruise, sea lions laying on the rocks and a beautiful river mouth leading to Tasman Sea...
Te Anau was our next destination. We'd passed by this place when we headed to Milford Sound. The next day, we were going to explore that small town..
Day 7 - Te Anau
On the way back to Te Anau, we went to explore some interesting places like The Chasm, Homer Alpine Nature Walk and lake Marian. At The Chasm, we got the chance to stand very near on top of a waterfall and some other small waterfalls. Homer Alpine Nature Walk was situated just after the tunnel and lucky enough, it was safe for us that morning to walk on thick snow and enjoy the cold morning. Lake Marian was a bit further down and we just got to a viewing gantry of a very nice waterfall..
We reached Te Anau in late afternoon and enjoyed the view of lake Te Anau. A bit further down, we went to enjoy the lakefront scenery of Lake Manapouri.
The journey next day was the longest one. It'd take us 5 hours to reach Lake Tekapo according to the GPS.
Day 8 - Lake Tekapo
Using the same route back to queenstown, we passed by a bungy site. It was called "Kawarau Bridge AJ Hackett Bungy". This is the first bungy site in the world. We just had a visit there and Kawarau River was really a very nice river. Prior to jumping down, one could enjoy the amazing scenery just in front of you, so nice... Not so high, the height is about 43m if I'm not mistaken. Next, we headed to a town called Omarama and reached Twizel. Twizel was another shooting location in LOTR movie. This place was indeed very cold as it was totally surrounded by ice. Several salmon farms could be seen along the way there. All I can say about the scenery along the way to Lake Tekapo is "unbelievable". The background and the river were so "fake" and every photo taken looked as if it was taken in studio. I couldn't manage to describe the beauty of the scenery. Lake Ohao and Lake Pukaki were the 2 lakes we passed by before arriving at Lake Tekapo. I think the scenery around the lakes is the best during winter. A white landscape and blinking snow under the sun light made the place so beautiful and attractive. We reached Lake Tekapo in the evening and we took some night views of the lake. The whole backpackers was surrounded by snow and we managed to build 3 snow men.. The backpackers was situated within the Lake Tekapo Motels and Holidays Park.. This was our last stop before going back to Christchurch..
The next morning, we went to a church called Church of the Good Shepherd. This famous church has captured the hearts of couples from all over the world and is a quaint and unassuming but enormously romantic venue for any wedding ceremony. It has large panoramic window behind the altar which is deliberately clear to allow an uninterrupted view of Lake Tekapo and the spectacular Southern Alps mountain range beyond..Before going back home, we passed by another town on East Coast - Timaru. We'd our lunch there and headed back home in the afternoon. It only took us about 2 hours from Lake Tekapo to Christchurch. Metro buses could be seen plying the street and we knew, we'd reached the East Coast and Canterbury Plains...
"Original or Spicy?" This is a common question the cashier in KFC, especially in Malaysia, will ask you when you order any meal containing chicken..Though it is common, it is unusual in New Zealand. Only original recipe is available here.
After so many years of waiting, finally, hot and spicy chicken recipe is available in KFC New Zealand. CS and I went to try the Hot and spicy chicken. The taste is indeed similar to the one in Malaysia. However, the spicy topping of the chicken here is not enough, not spicy and hot enough. But, at least we can enjoy our favourite spicy chicken in New Zealand..
Getting bored baking cake, now trying to do something new, after a few days of research, sushi is my next attempt.. No wonder sushi is so expensive, it really takes me lots of time just to prepare the ingredients before rolling them into sushi..I tried to make Ebi Sushi and Salmon sushi as well and it was really fun preparing the shrimps and the sushi rice..Below are some photos of my sushi:
It’s been one and a half years since I left INTEC, lots of stuff came across my mind these few days, academic, relationship, engineering practical work stuff, really chocked my brain.. Thinking back the days we might have forgotten, the days where we were still a little junior, struggling hard to achieve what we desire… SPM had once been our most burdening public exam I reckon. Many people told me that SPM or AUSMAT would be the last fully packed courses we need to take before entering university, being an undergraduate overseas seems to be easy as there’ll be no more weird and lame courses like moral, sejarah, any ethics courses or even can ignore cocurriculum activities to graduate. However, after one year of study, it doesn’t look as simple as I’ve thought.. Maybe it’s engineering course which has it’s own ‘professional’ approach of solving problems in the real world. It’s indeed difficult. Attending lectures, doing assignments, writing reports, attending workshops, practical work, writing programming codes and dealing with hard Maths are the typical stuff carried out by an undergraduate, cant get away from them.. Every field of study or engineering type has its own difficulties.. Chemical engineers have to cope with such a lot of reports, almost 3 reports every week and all the reports are long and manipulations and writing out the reports would take so much time. Mechanical engineers have to cope with heaps of assignments and projects and drawings as well, being a ‘copy cat’ I think is a norm among them, but I might be wrong and it’s indeed too much to handle. As an electrical and electronics engineer, I do think that it’s indeed far less stuff to do compared to them, as all of the subjects are whole year papers, the percentage of mark allocated for each test or assignment wouldn’t cost me much but the material takes much time to learn and understand and lots of exercises and practical ‘hands-on’ experiments are needed to fully understand the material taught..
Let’s put the academic stuff aside, here I wanna share with you guys some songs which are pretty familiar to you guys..These are the songs which might be considered as ‘hot songs’ during the life at INTEC. They are my favourites as well..
1) Because I’m a girl – Kiss This song has been a popular song for quite a long time and it was played almost anywhere in Cendana College.. KISS is a team of Korean singers which consists of Mini, Jini and Umji.. The song was so touching and the video clip of the song was so amazing as well. This song has been dubbed into different versions, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, English, Hokkien and so on..Below is the video clip as well as the lyric of the songs (Translated):
I just cant understand the hearts of men they tell you they want you and then they leave you this is the first time, you're special I believed those words and I was so happy You should have told me you didn't like me any more but I couldn't see that and you just rushed me although I will curse you I'll still miss you Because I am a girl, to whom love is everything i heard that if you give up things too easily to a man, he will get bored with you i don't think this is wrong a girl says that she will never be fooled again but she will fall in love again you should have told me you didn't like me any more but I couldn't see that and you just rushed me although I will curse you I'll still miss you Because I am a girl, to whom love is everything [narration] Hey babe the pain it's not enough to describe how i feel we were so happy together but I know now I've been blind you told me that you'd never let me down whenever I needed you you'd always be here I can forgive but I cant forget even though you hurt me I still love you I still love you Don't take advantage of a girl's willingness to do anything for love and her caring instinct U didn't know that to be born as a girl and to be loved was so hard Although i will curse you i'll still miss you Because I am a girl, to whom love is everything although i will curse you i'll still miss you Because I am a girl, to whom love is everything [the guy said] there is a girl whom I love. Now I can`t stay with her, but I still love her.
2) Don’t Matter - Akon This song was the first Akon song I listened to. Since then I love this song not because of the lyric, it’s just the music which seems relaxing and it was in the album Konvicted which was released in 2006 if I’m not mistaken.
3) Kenangan Terindah – Samsons This song was given by Calvin. I’ve been listening to this song played by most of my Malay housemates in Cendana College. This song was once a popular romantic song by an indon Male group called Samsons.. Quite a good song and it has nice lyric. The music is incredibly powerful yet soothing but when it comes to the chorus part, it’s too ‘noisy’, I prefer it to be a song with simple music without too much add-ons..
Aku yang lemah tanpamu Aku yang rentan karena cinta yang tlah hilang darimu yang mampu menyanjungku
Selama mata terbuka Sampai jantung tak berdetak selama itu pun aku mampu tuk mengenangmu
Bila yang tertulis untukku Adalah yang terbaik untukmu Kan kujadikan kau kenangan Yang terindah dalam hidupku Namun takkan mudah bagiku Meninggalkan jejak hidupku Yang telah terukir abadi Sebagai kenangan yang terindah
4) I Believe - Shin Seung Hoon This song I think all my friends from my batch here will definitely know this unless they didn’t attend the Grand Dinner of AUSMAT.. A song presented by my friend, my ex-housemate to be specific, Kien Seng during that event. To be honest, I’ve been listening to him practicing singing that song with a guitar every day and the song is pretty nice.
5) Heaven Knows Another fantastic and melodious song I would recommend. This song however, was released I think 16 years before by Rick Price I think:
she's always on my mind, from the time i wake up 'till i close my eyes she's everywhere i go she's all i know
though she's so far away it's just keeps getting stronger every day and even now she's gone i'm still holding on
so tell me where do i start 'cause it's breaking my heart don't wanna let her go
chorus: maybe my love will come back some day only heaven knows and maybe our hearts will find their way only heaven knows and all i can do is hope and pray 'cause heaven knows
my friends keep telling me that if you really love her you've gotta set her free and if she returns in kind i'll know she's mine
so tell me where do i start 'cause it's breaking my heart don't wanna let her go
chorus
why i live in despair 'cause wide awake or dreaming i know she's never there and all these time i act so brave i'm shaking inside why does it hurt me so...
chorus
heaven knows
6) I think I Love You -Byul Have you guys watched Full House before? I Think I is one of the songs for the drama. I didn’t watch it, quite a waste as I’ve been told that it was a nice drama, a light hearted drama and it’ll definitely cheer your days up..Correct me if I’m wrong..
7) Where’d you go - Fort Minor ; 8) Truly deeply madly - Savage Garden; 9) Buttons - PCD ft. Snoop Dogg
How does it look like? Look nice right..This steamed fish was cooked in Cantonese style I reckon. The ingredients of the sauce consisted of ginger, soy sauce, rice wine and sugar and the topping was just spring onions. But, do you know, this fish was bought from a hypermarket 3 weeks ago and cooked yesterday and the expiry date is 2 weeks ago.. Can you imagine how it smells? It did smell good with the help of the sauce but it's still an expired fish..Hopefully we wont get food poisoning because of this..
An interesting part I like about EEE(Electrical and Electronics Engineering) is its variety..There're lots of stuff I can learn from by taking this course. C programming, design and management process, machine labs, electronics, engineering mathematics... and lots of fun stuff.. The electrical and computer department organised a presentation on MiEV in the machine lab on Monday and I got the chance to see the future of sustainable energy by the innivation of highly efficient electric car.. MiEV stands for Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle.. This car will be introduced into NZ sustainable transportation options by Meridian and Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand..
MiEV
According to the presntation given by a tecnical engineer,Hayden Scott-Dye, from Electrical Vehicle Programme, Meridian Energy, this MiEV employs a highly energy efficient electric motor powered by recycled lithium-ion batteries and hence, producing no emission, making it one of the most sustainable transportation options. Besides, this car substantially creates less vibration and noise than the petrol powered car. Battery-powered vehicle was proven to have far greater torque and yields stronger acceleration..
Below are photos of the MiEV car exhibition in front of the Electrical and COmputer Engineering Machine Lab:
Food..Yea..Since I'm staying out of campus, food would be the main problem I might face ..However, with the help of my fellow housemates, cs and isaac, we've been cooking and eating Chinese meals (Malaysian style) since I came here.. Lots of cooking techniques I've learned throughout these few weeks.. Since all of us here are busy with our academic stuff, the ingredients of the food are really simple and it's quite easy to prepare..Below are some of the photos of the meals we cooked: