Derek

To Mars and Beyond

12/07/2001 Thursday 2346hrs

Today i skipped b/f completely.. Finally got to sleep late
into the morning b4 meeting YL to go up to campus for
collection of our Student ID cards

Before that, Patrick bursted into our room, exclaiming that
he's passed his module finally!!??? apparantly his
professor rang him up and told him that there's an error in
his final exam grade..a mistake due to his illness while
marking...hmmmm...so Patrick was euphoric, he got a B-
instead of a D grade..

We collected our Student ID cards finally. It looks quite nice, but
still abit plain... went back to Weir House for lunch and bumped into
ther rest again.. After lunch, we decided to go downtown to Cuba
Street, taking the StageCoach, which cost $2!! . Cuba Street is a
very interesting shopping street in Wellington. It has mainly
novelty shops... more alternative shopping than the mainstream
upmarket Lambton Quay...Cuba' very colorful..with a busker and his
giant amplifier , belting out songs after songs..u have pple singing
along wit him on the street and this werid man who does not wear a
shirt..but painted his body red...and paraded round the street..

We also bumped into Sandy at deka's, the local discount store..
apparantly she is finally moving out of the horrendous backpacker's
lodge... a hellish place as described by her to a house 10mins away
from sch.. We then walked around the street , made a few purchases
and checked out Vivian Street, the red-light district of
Wellington... Live peepshows, stripclubs, XXX-video stores, u name
it..it's all on Vivian Street.. and the School of Architecture is
right on that street in a bright red building...heheh...

We then got hungry and headed for MacDonaled's where i ate a giantic
KiwiBurger...nay, it's not the meat of a kiwibird : P but juz a
giantic beef burger filled wit beetroot, tomotoes...etc...

Got dark soon (day's realli short here) and we made our way back by
walking up an extremely long flight of stairs at Allenby Street where
the Massey university school of business is located. Huffin and
puffin, we finally made it to the top...damm shacked....

Dinner was so-so , we met up wit 'Uan and gang and we decided to go
to the planetarium up the Kelburn Hill. So after dinner, we took the
cable car up to the botanic gardens..it was very dark there...luckily
YL nbrought a torch to shine thw way... heheh..it was like a scence
from Blair Witch Project...

Finally we found the place...veriei ulu but cosy and small inside....
we entered the building and was greeted by an elderly man... he told
us that the sky was too cloudy tonite for star gazing...dammm..it was
clear juz a few moments ago... so he let us in free juz to peer thru
the telescope...

The telescope was giantic... the guy opend the dome for us to view
the sky...tried our best to peer thru it..and we actualli caught
glimpses of MArs!! it's this tiny yellow planet in the sky... We then
proceeded to the planetarium for a show...it's like the Omnimax
theatre back home...but way smaller as it can onli house about 20
pple at one go...We havta strain our necks to view the show up on the
dome screen...realli beatiful artificial stars projected up there..
the show was titled "Martian Chronicles" and the narrator was boomin
his voice over us...very tacky..heheh.... however the 2nd part of the
show was more interesting... the old man explained and showed us the
various stars' position and constellation...thru the projtectd
stars....realli interesitng...i can finally identify a few
constellations in the sky... Se Yan and her b/f Kevin oso joined us
on the trip.. The visit to the observatory was realli enjoyable for
us aas we got the see the night view of Wellington city high up on
the hills too... realli enchanting....

Back to Weir House soon after,..and to my room... More banter wit
DJ...another Shanghai guy was there... bringin his laptop for Dr Dai
to fix..heheh...

okie... a few more updates pretty soon...then i'll be right on track..

ciao
Derek