Today will be a very productive day. Organize guest room, finish website design, and maybe even post pictures from vacation.
Updates from July, 2009
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Reviewing My Pace
Aside from the obvious differences in driving in America and the rest of the world, the need to “be somewhere at a certain time” becomes most apparent. I guess what made me really think about this was seeing Mr. I’m-impatient speeding past me today on a local city street. Everyone else was going 40 mph and this guy decides he should go 50 mph. And he knows he’s speeding – we made eye contact. He weaves between the car in front of me and then switches lanes again – only to abruptly slam on the brakes at the red light. When I pulled up right next to him, I smiled.
I confess that I have pedaled the accelerator when I can sense a light might turn yellow soon. What struck me about this situation was that we arrived in the same place. I’ve often written about the idea of “pacing yourself” in my college op-ed column. Now, as a recent graduate with two months of vacation left, I feel a desperate need to consider my pace. It would be too easy to sit down and turn into a TV zombie, especially after purchasing a beautiful 42″ plasma. I am so fearful of this fact that I want to go enroll in a summer course – absurd! The truth is – I have been a hard worker all my life. I enjoy working hard – there’s something calming about having deadlines and being able to reach them – creating lists and being able to cross off line items. Some of you may agree with me.
But, I have no need to rush right now. This may be my last personal vacation. In about two months, I will begin the life of a consultant. I know I will no longer be able to enjoy the “college summers” (although I worked 40+ hours almost every summer). So, in a way, this summer makes up for all that missed “vacation time”. I feel like I’m off to a good start (one roadtrip to Austin + a month in New Zealand and Australia), but need to revisit some goals set in January, and set some goals for the rest of this summer (especially some travel-for-fun ones).
To anyone reading this post, I encourage you to always reflect on your pace. One good way to analyze this is by examining your sleep debt. For workaholics, we all incur quite a bit. We have our methods for prolonging the inevitable crash as well (caffeine, another shot of espresso, cold showers, brutal morning runs, etc). A good sensor of a need for pace adjustment for me has always been asking myself how long I can keep this up. Typically, when I’m finding myself asking this question, I need to either slow down or maybe speed up.
Action item: This week, create a visual representation of the hours spent doing something that you enjoy that replenishes you and the hours where you are expending energy. For example, a pie chart or simply a 2-column list of the various time commitments and projects you have undertaken. Then, create another visual representation of how you would rather spend your time. If nothing else, it’s good food for thought.
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I cannot believe my southern hemisphere vacation is coming to an indefinite conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in New Zealand and though I only briefly experienced Australia, I hope to return soon. Not looking forward to hours of layovers, but ready to sleep in my own bed again. Happy Fourth of July, America!
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New Zealand Adventures Part I
I have listed some of my favorite posts regarding my time spent in North Island (that’s about as far as I’ve gotten in terms of posting). I hope you will enjoy them:
- On the Road to Rotorua
- From Rotorua to Auckland
- Traveling Auckland
- The Art of Zorbing
- Exploring Auckland
- A lazy Sunday afternoon in Auckland
- Visiting gardens and Mission Bay
- The First of Many Adventures in South Island
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Learning to make some chinese pastries with my aunt today. Delicious yet fattening….
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Best postcard request reason I’ve gotten: I want to see how artistic you truly are, trapped inside the geek body. I want to receive an excellent picture drawn by you depicting your time spent so far in New Zealand. Preferably you find some way to make it Lord of the Rings themed. I mean, I could be creative and say something about the time that I stumbled upon deer in the woods having a wine tasting at a fancy woodland soiree, but then I would just wonder if I told the right story, or if instead I should have told the one where I found an envelope that told me a ninja was hiding on my property and I had to find and battle him for my honor and his woman. Therefore I think I shall just plea to our brotherly love and that time that everyone doubted me but I got good grades…miss you more than a kanga misses her in-pouch roo.
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Currently thinking about the structure of this site. Unofficially renaming this portion of my site my online “stream-of-consciousness”. Sounds more fitting. Will need to start working on the portfolio aspect of the site soon.
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What a day! Drove around Auckland and visited a few beautiful locations. Had a big dinner celebrating grandma’s 90th birthday. Good times. I’m such a slacker on posting pictures. Sorry.
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From Rotorua to Auckland
I love hotels that have great complimentary breakfasts like this one. I think I outdid myself this time.
I can’t neglect to show off the 13 passenger van we’ve been driving through NZ. My uncle happens to be the CEO of a university, which happens to have a bus. Nice!
Today, we visited Wai-O-Tapu and waited for the Lady Knox Geyser to erupt. They pour a soapy mixture into the geyser, which breaks the surface tension between the hot and cold water. Gotta love the smell of sulfur in the air.
Wai-O-Tapu includes a number of sulfur springs and beautiful lush flora. Sulfur springs don’t turn out so well on the iPhone, so I’ll have to upload more pictures later.
tThere was a giant pool of neon green water … I couldn’t resist.
At the gift shop, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw some hand-carved fraternity paddles (or cheese cutters).
After Wai-O-Tapu, we made a brief stop at Waikato River, which supplies energy for 15% of NZ’s total power.
Looking at all that water made me thirsty. Stopping in Taupo for lunch, we found a little cafe called Friends that made a delightful roast beef sandwich with all the trimmings (mushrooms, salt, pepper, onions, and this great light BBQ-like sauce).
The drive from Taupo back to Auckland was quite a drive. Passing through I experienced my first NZ traffic jam that night – thunderstorm included. I couldn’t help but laugh at all of the “friendly” signs on the side of the road reminding me to relax and be patient. At least the scenery was pretty.
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On the Road to Rotorua
Today was my first day to drive in New Zealand. It has surely been quite a riot trying to not drive on the “wrong” side of the road. Perhaps the most confusing part is the turn signals – they are on the opposite side of the car as well. I definitely hit the windshield wipers 3-4x when trying to signal left or right.
NZ ice cream was delicious – 3.00 NZ for this Lime Sherbet.
After a pretty long drive, we made a stop for a picnic right here outside of Cambridge. What a beautiful place. My aunt made these awesome sandwiches using an angel cake mold. Pretty cool – avocado, lettuce, turkey, tomato
I love the NZ landscape – you might call it spacious … it just spans out……. reminds me of a mixture of New Mexico and France
Our destination for the day was Rotorua. Here I am overlooking Lake Rotorua.
We made a trip out to see the Agrodome where we learned about the 19 different kinds of sheep in NZ. More on this later….
We didn’t get to go luging because of the weather, but it was worth taking a picture anyways.
There was a beautiful garden type place near Rotorua
We had dinner at our hotel – Atlas sounded good. It looked pretty. It took us 2 hours to get our main course. That’s perposterous! The scallops were too cold. The lamb cutlets, don’t get me wrong, I love stew, but for some reason, I thought I was getting pan-seared type lamb slices….. very disappointed. and they were medium well instead of medium rare… ridiculous! Dessert made up for it – a delicious orange – chocolate chip rum cake
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I really need to post about the whole plane ride experience. Sneak peek: old lady in front of me reclines her seat back ALL the way and starts snoring…
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About the trip Down Under
So I’ve spent so much time prepping for this trip that I have forgotten to talk about why I am going. My dad’s older brother and younger sister live in Australia and New Zealand.
This is the first opportunity my family has had to visit them. In addition, my grandmother is turning 90, so trip turned into a family reunion of sorts.
Here’s a basic rundown of my itinerary:
6/9-6/16: Auckland and surrounding areas
6/17-6/25: South Island tour, Queenstown, Manapouri, Lake Wanaka, Lake Tekapo, Mt. Cook, and Christchurch
6/26: Back in Auckland
6/27-7/5: Melbourne, Sydney, and up and down the coast.This trip is quite short for the amount of geography we will be seeing. I’m still thrilled to have the privilege to enjoy the beautiful scenery and culture.
Not quite sure what to expect; I’ve really taken a low key approach with this trip and have done almost no research. More room for adventure, eh?
If you are reading this, welcome to my site and please comment with any advice, tips, recommendations, etc.
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Postcards
Send me an email with your address and a reason why I should send you a postcard from New Zealand or Australia. danielliu @ gmail.com
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Just took an online geography quiz at travelpod.com and scored an 88.
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Currently packing bags and cleaning my room. I’ll post some details later this evening.
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Just installed Twitter Tools plugin. Now I can tweet and bleep all in the same place. I’ve decided against forwarding from here to Twitter. I might get un-followed if I flooded my Twitter account.
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Some of my favorite areas of interest include: eating, reading, writing, listening, and creating.
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I'm currently running a the called P2 o...
I’m currently running a theme called P2 or Prologue v2 by Automattic.
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a twitter-themed site slash blog for Dan...
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After getting distracted by Facebook and Twitter, I’m finally settling down to blog after ~5 years of no blog activity.