SURPRSISE!

My Room, New Zealand. 8:24 PM, 13th of September, 2010.

I'm not gone yet- and neither is this blog! I figured instead of creating a new blog for my trip to the South Island, I'd just keep posting here. ;) Yes, you heard right. I'm back home for two weeks, and then Dad's dragging me down South for my brother's speed skating competitions. At least Mum and Dad agree with me I get the area on top of the camper van. ^_^ So yep, I'm flying on Thursday, the 16th. Mum and I are coming back on the 28th, whereas Yoshi and Dad are going over to Australia for the competitions over there. The competitions here in NZ are only a couple days I think, but Dad's arranged for us to travel around the south island for a bit over a week. If you've seen the Narnia movies, or Lord of the Rings, a large amount of that was the south island of New Zealand.

But yeah- just a quick update for now to let y'all know what's going on. That I'm still here and all...
But until next time, this is Icey, disappearing through the screen layer. :p

Rarotonga.

Muri Beachcomber, Rarotonga. 11:36 AM, 22nd of August, 2010.

Kia Orana! :p Sorry, had to. >.<

We arrived dark and early on Monday the 16th. Customs here in Raro are really relaxed. They’re probably the only airport that will let you take a bottle of water from the plane. The line to get through wasn’t nearly as long as our departure from Calgary. Not even a fifth of the length. Granted, that was departure, this was arrival. When the Sun came up I as ready on the beach to catch it rising behind a small island. We went for a snorkel after the sunny high of the day a bit before noon. The sun seemed to be at it’s peak at around ten in the morning. Sea Cucumbers and sea weed is all there is to look at right where we are on the beach. Evening came and we headed to the resort office to find out what there was to eat nearby as our place didn’t have a restaurant at it like most of the other places do. Four-Hundred meters out the driveway is Miro’s, a small burger joint. So we head there for dinner... Clockwise around the island. I don’t recommend following their instructions at the office to find Miro’s. They had two signs: Four-hundred meters right outside the drive, and four-hundred meters left outside the drive. headed left, Clockwise, disregarding the ‘right’ as meaning ‘close-by...’. So the sign saying left needs to be corrected from four-hundred meters to thirty-one-and-a-half kilometers to the left. We eventually gave up on the left and walked all the way back to the resort, checked the sign(s) again, and tried going right (Anti-Clockwise) this time and found it in four-hundred meters.

Tuesday (17th) was a fairly quiet day for the main part. I didn’t go for a swim, as we ran out of sunblock......... And you really do need it here. Later in the evening, we went to an “Island Night” where we got to eat a bunch of the island food (I was obviously still hungry come the time we headed back to the resort; I’m a picky eater, and braces don’t help any.) there were some people that performed songs and dances and right at the end, they tried to get a few people from the audience to try and dance; they held a competition. (I videoed it.) We headed back to the resort and went to bed... Then course, Yoshi’s ankle pains kicked in. Always count on Yoshi’s ankle pains to keep me up late. I ended up grabbing a pair of headphones and my ipod which only had two songs on it to help me ignore him until he fell asleep. (‘Requiem for a dream’, a well known epic piece of music. And the end section of ‘Kameo Medley 1’, which I cut to the right length because I like it and don’t want to have to listen to a half hour of music before it. :p FG knows what part I’m talking about. ;))

The next morning (18th, Wednesday) we awake to find a notice that the reef-sub-boat we booked to go on, on the 18th, was canceled that day due to stormy weather. That day was the most windy day of our whole trip here I think... Yoshi and Dad hired a sail boat for the day to go around the lagoon that Muri beach is. Mum and I went into town to get fudge. Nom. We needed fudge/chocolate, so yeah. Then we went out to Crown Beach Resort to have indian food for dinner. They have one night a week -wednesdays- where they have asian and indian food. ^_^ However, the butter chicken was probably the blandest butter chicken I’ve ever had... And it didn’t help that night that Yoshi had anc\kle pains and started throwing up at 3 AM. I was up from two AM until five AM then.

19th, Thursday, after hardly any sleep from Yoshi gagging up the bland butter chicken, we found ANOTHER notice that the reef-sub had been canceled. Apparently the weather was even worse than the day before. So it was another quiet day. Until lunch time at least when Tippie and I had a quick little video call. ^_^ *waves* Hopefully next time we can do a longer one. After the call, I ran off to have lunch with the rest of the family, and managed to make it there before the food came out. Later that evening Mum and I took a kayak right out to the reef that divides the lagoon from the ocean. It kinda serves as a protective barrier for the smaller fish, ad it keeps sharks out of the bay and a large portion of the island. We had italian for dinner that night, and thankfully, it wasn’t over-loaded with tomatoes like I realized it could be after I ordered my food.

Friday the 20th HAD to be our most busy and bustling day of the lot. I say this because the reef sub WAS on, and we’d already booked to go on a glass-bottom-boat, lagoon cruise with snorkeling at a marine reserve. 10 AM four hour cruise, 4 PM reef sub. The Cruise was great, a few of crew on the boat brought ukuleles and played island music on the way to the reserve, then we got to see a couple eels, a few blue sea stars, and loads of pretty fish. ^_^ After snorkeling, we all went to an island and they made an island lunch for us. Then they had a coconut show, explaining all the uses of coconuts. Seriously, they let no part of it go to waste. >.<

On Saturday (21st), I woke up to hear the sound of a party being set up at the sailing club next to us. They’d started testing their audio systems. Thankfully I’m not deaf, though Yoshi will say otherwise- (actually, he’d claim I’ve always been. I have selective hearing. It works fairly well when he pesters me, until he gets mad and starts blaming me for all his problems. <_<)>.< $15 per person buffet is pretty good though. :p

Now we have today, Sunday. The entire island shuts down on sunday it seems. A bit like New Zealand at the end of the year with Christmas. We went out driving for a long time to find somewhere that was actually open for breakfast. After a long time, we managed to find somewhere.... somewhere with cold french toast that’s hard to chew. <_<

But until next time, this is Icey, disappearing through the screen layer. ;)

Why I hate flying.

Las Angeles Airport, California, United States. 5:11 PM, 15th of August, 2010.

Las Angeles Airport, California, United States. 5:11 PM, 15th of August, 2010.

Why I hate flying.

Well, that was a rush. We had every imaginable delay at the Calgary airport. We even got there two hours early and we still ended up delaying the flight. Let’s go back to the start of today, when I got up and had breakfast. Milk with Milo and Strawberry Jam on bread. (For those who don’t know what Milo is, it’s a chocolaty type drink-mix that you have with milk. better than nesquik(sp?) or chocolate milk. :p) So yep, I ate breakfast, and got packed. My Auntie stayed the night with us out at Grandma and Grandpa’s last night, and she was the last one up this morning amazingly. So we got ready to go, and she drove us into the city to the Calgary airport... It wasn’t until I got out of the car at teh airport after an hour long drive, I’d left the book I was reading back at Grandma and Grandpa’s. I’ve been kicking myself for hours and hours now and am still furious with myself by the way. mum said we could check the store at the airport- which took not even five minutes, and they didn’t have the book there... Then we got in line and it was three times longer than when we’d gone to find the bookstore. Stupid stupid stupid me again! ARGH!

So after a long time- over an hour and a half of standing in a queue to get through customs- that only really was meant to take twenty minutes by the estimate they gave us... Apparently they’d taken pretty much everyone EXCEPT US out of the queue and jumped them ahead to get them to the plane on time. We got to the carry on bag scans with five minutes until our plane was about to take off, and everyone else was already on board. Then turns out Mum accidentally put some Sunscreen in one of the carry on’s... Ten minutes later we’re SPRINTING through the long hallway of gates to get to the last one where everyone was waiting for us. >.<>.<>

Hey DioMers in Cali, I’m in you state now.

(And really- right now, I can’t wait to get out of it. LAX is too crowded, and not big enough, and the ‘bookstore’ here is a small magazine stand that should be burnt for multiple reasons. (content) So yeah...) Hopefulyl things get better when I’m at Raro, if not, then probably won’t until I’m home- home properly, not only home for a month. I WANT NOVEMBER!

I’ll keep on posting when in Raro; Dad says the place we’re staying has internet. So until next time, this is Icey disappearing through the screen layer.

I note the disclaimer in my previous post.

Grandma and Grandpa's house, Canada. 10:52 PM, 12th of August, 2010.

I said whenever my next post might be- so I guess it's now whenever. It's Thursday, the 12th of August now as I write this. I had to get Mum to help me keep track of days for this post. Deary me, my memory must be failing me! Good news though, I don't have to re-type this post to put it up online- my grandparent's got a new computer! I'll explain that in a bit. ;) Just to quickly note, the 4th (day after my previous post) was a fairly quiet; we stayed around here. I've gotten quite a bit of reading done in these quieter days, that's for sure. I've read two of the star wars books I bought while being here, and have started a third. I've also read all the five Mangas I've gotten so far- the last one is still shipping............. 'Still' being the operative word. We talked to someone at Chapters, and they expect that it'll get in on Saturday, and to talk to the manager in tomorrow to get more info. We talked to the Manager tonight, and she tried to get the info for us on the shipping- but the help desk closed a half hour earlier, so we got the info for tomorrow. Meh, hopefully all this can be sorted out in time.

Soooooooooo, back onto my calendar update! On Thursday the fifth, I went to see my Mum's school friend's daughter again. ^_^ Still don't know what to call her online; I forgot to ask the question again. By the way Kitty, SHE PLAYS THE GAME TOO! :p Bwahahaha! So yeah- We went Berry picking, as her grandmother lives three blocks away and has a ton of Raspberry bushes. ^_^ Nom. I, uh, ended up with a red face from all the berries we ate. :p Yoshi was at off-ice training that day, to it gave me a great excuse to head into the city to visit. ^_^ I also got to find out a bit about her story, which was pretty cool. She's got some well developed characters. *hopes she sends more to read soon* Me'thinks she writes in a notebook first, then types it, hence why the chapters are only a few hundred words long. [insert innocent whistling here] I also invited her to come to the lake with us on Monday, as we were going back there to help my Auntie's friend finish the extra hamburgers from her party a few days back that I mentioned. ^_^ We managed to get her on the list to go.

Also on Thursday: Breaking news! Okay- well, broken. It's happened already, so switch to past tense already Icey! *pokes self over and over to do so* *can't be bother to correct last sentence in asterisks to past tense, or this one either.* No longer are my grandparents confined to a old, dying, Windows 98! THE IMAC IS HERE! However, getting dial-up set up on it was a real pain. >.<>.<>

Sunday the eighth, we (Mum, Yoshi and I) went out and had breakfast at a restaurant with my Auntie, her mother-in-law and my Auntie's husband, and her sister.... Hopefully that made sense. :p After that we (Mum, Yoshi, my Auntie and I) headed to Heritage park. I've never been a fan of museums or anything of the sort, but I've gotta say, Heritage park is really great, if for at least the reason I felt like I fit in wearing a high-neck top like all the staff. :p But no, seriously, the people that worked there and were demonstrating all the things people did back in the days show there were enthusiastic about what they were talking about, they didn't mind being asked questions, and were all friendly people that made the whole place a load of fun. I note, I did not go on either of the Ferris wheels there: I'm afraid of heights, even if the short one is only five meter tall... After that, we (same lot in brackets mentioned above. Mum, Yoshi, Auntie and I) Went back to the same restaurant we had breakfast at, and had dinner. >.<

Monday finally came. Lake time! We went to pick up [long explanation of friend's relation goes here] (Oh dear, I can only imagine that laugh you'll get when you read this. Running from the laptop to the door laughing is one thing, but running down stairs and to the door is another. :p) and arrived at the lake slightly early. Yoshi quizzed us on things related to ATLA, (She'd seen the TV show too.) and then we helped carry the food down to the table we'd be using for the picnic at the lake. Unfortunately, a pipe had burst so the water pack area wasn't going, however the lake was still full thankfully. We went swimming. For a long time. I have a sunburn on my back. Typical Icey; loves the water too much. T'was great fun. ^_^ unnamed-due-to-lack-of-online-name (Crazy Canadian Girl? You talked about maybe going onto a chat room as that one day. >.<>

Tuesday. Another quiet day. Another reading period. Another loss of The Game.

So I got to CCG's around 3PM'ish. Fun'ness. ^_^ We watched The Thirteenth Year (Old Disney movie about a boy whom when he turns thirteen, starts changing into a merman. Real funny movie.) And WOW, I've never seen someone laugh so hard! *pokes CCG* She ran all the way from the dining table where I had the laptop set up with the movie, five meters to teh door, jumping up and down laughing, then run back, several times! I ended up pushing the pause button whenever she did that. I pushed the button many times within the movie, probably adding around ten more minutes in length to it. Heehee, great fun. We also went through each-others drawing books and stories. She drew THE most adorable cartoon puppy picture I've ever seen. She's an amazing artist. ^_^ And Her story was great too! *still pokes for slightly longer chapters though, and more typed story* Heehee. ;)

And so I shall move onto today! Quiet day for the most part, except I got Grandpa's X-ray and MRI scan images going on their computer (which no one else has been able to figure out before. :p I'm a genius. Their Mac wouldn't load windows files, and laptop no got disc drive- put disc in Mac, use USB drive to copy disc files, read files on laptop via USB, convert to Mac-readable-format, USB back to Mac, Taa-daa! I spent half of today looking at the inside of my grandpa's knee over four years of images! >.<>

This is Icey, disappearing through the screen layer! ;)

Long time no post.

Grandma and Grandpa's House, Canada. 4:10 PM, 3rd of July. 2010.

Sorry, but what can I say? The city turned out to be quite boring... I find myself both surprised and not surprised at the same time as to how the week went there. To sum it up: Yoshi speed Skating. I am severally limiting my complaining here, as the whole trip seems to have become all about Yoshi.... Deja Vu:

1. Get up at 7 AM
2. Eat Breakfast
3. Goto rink to drop off Yoshi
4. Return to hotel
5. Call dad over Skype (That wasn't so bad though. :p)
6. Ruch back to pick up Yoshi at 4 PM
7. Go have dinner
8. Yoshi goes in pool around 8 PM so he 'won't have anckle problems'
9. Yoshi ends up having anckle problems anyway and has ibuprofen
10. Yoshi gets Mum to read a book to "us" (I'm usualy exhausted by this point which no one really realised, so I've missed half of what was being read, really.)
11. Yoshi pesters Mum for a second chapter to be read to "us" (by this stage, I'm ready to thow pillows at them both, mainly Yoshi.)
12. Finally try and fall aasleep while Yoshi moans about his anckles anyway and Mum starts to snore slightly
13. Go back to beginnign of the list for the next day

That sums up the 26th, 27th and 30th. There were a few differences on the 28th, 29th and 31st though. All the same until step seven. On the 28th was my Gandparent's 50th wedding anniversary sinner. It was pretty good, although I despise Chinese food. I made an effot though to eat something and I think I set a self record for digesting chinese food! But since I don't live here in Canada, I didn't have much of a clue what even hald the family members 9that I barely even knew) were talking about... Now that I think about it, it's strange that I have pretty much nothign in common with the other side of my Family... and the other half is here in Canada on teh otehr side of the world... Doesn't help my case at 'family dinners' ...I often feel like I'm in a room with a ton of strangers... Which is often really, the case...

Moving on as I really don't want to rant... On the 29th, Thursday, we went to meet up with an old school friend of my Mum's. He and his wife have one daughter who's a bit younger than I am, and they also have an Arf dog. (Rescued Dogs often seem to be rather friendly I've noticed. ^_^) My Mum's friend's daughter (Not sure what she'd like to be called online. [insert innocent whistling here] :p) told me about a great prank she and a couple friends pulled on a new kid at her school once. (That new kid tried to pull it on the next new kid after him... and failed epicly. I won't attempt to re-tell the story, because she does it so much better, and I'd totally kill it. Heh.) We hopped on youtube and swapped favourite funny videos. Darth Vader the Musical was heard by the parents downstairs three times. (Mum's Friend's Daughter (:p) sings in a chior, and I know the song really well, so what better pair is there to sing a Phantom-of-the-Opera/Star-Wars ripoff song than us? :p I did Vader, and she did Luke. >.<>.<>.< And on Dial-Up, it'd take to long to find and downlaod the drivers to make it worth doing. Oh well, my Mum, Auntie and Uncle are talking my Grandparents into gettign a Mac, so that's good.)

But yeah, finally enough news to make it worth my while posting. Hopefully I didn't bore you with any of my complaining too much. Part of me really does want to get home where I actually KNOW what's going on instead of finding out a few mere seconds before whatever happens...
Well, until next time- whenever that may be, this is icey disappearing through the screen layer.

Whoops, I doomed the world.

Hotel, Canada. 9:21 AM, 24th of July, 2010.

Hey Y’all! (SOUTHERNISM!) Finally I’m posting again. Triple topic this time: The Last Airbender (Which I saw on Thursday), Calgary Zoo (went on Friday) and then also what happened yesterday. (Saturday):p So let’s get started shall we?

“The Last Airbender”, the recently released movie based on the Nickelodeon TV show, “Avatar the last Airbender”. Most comments or reviews I’ve heard about it seem very biased- they either praise it more than it deserves, or bash it down and put it in the movie junk-pile. While the movie has it’s ups and downs, I’d like to try and not take a side, as neither extreme is correct. The following review WILL contain spoilers.

Assuming you don’t know the general plot-line of “Avatar the last Airbender”, here’s a quick (attempt at a) summery. Hunting for food in the South Pole, Siblings Katara and Sokka find an iceberg with a boy, Aang, frozen inside it and they boy’s Sky Bison, Appa. Eventually they learn that Aang is the last airbender, the only survivor of the Air Nomads since the fire nation whipped them all out a hundred years ago. Aang was frozen all that time in ice from running away, and getting caught in a storm. Aang is soon revealed also to be the Avatar who has been missing for one hundred years, making him one hundred and twelve years old! Aang, Sokka and Katara travel up to the north pole so Katara and Aang can learn water bending together, and later they travel the world so Aang can find teachers so he can learn to bend the other elements, and eventually defeat the fire lord.

The TLA movie as a stand-alone, not comparing it to the television, it works well for (really only) an action movie. Though there really didn’t seem to be much dialogue, and they didn’t really explain the plot-line at all, really requiring the viewer to have seen the TV show else be confused. Some of the bending was pretty epic though. The fight choreography is well thought out, and was performed stunningly and precise. The use of slow motion in battle scenes did get a bit over used at times, but asides from that, the camera work framed the fights well. The bending effects were rather nice- but being a 2D to 3D conversion, they weren’t as good as they could have been. If we get a sequel the director plans to start the movie development in 3D, so that’s certainly something to look forward too.

If you want to compare it to the TV show, do still give them credit for what they tried to do with this film. I know it fell short of many’s expectations, but did you really just want a carbon copy of the TV show? That’s just not possible as a live action movie. In Season one alone of the ATLA TV show, the running time (based off a 22 minute average) is 440 minutes. the TLA movie had a total running time of 103 minutes. Way less than a quarter of the time to try and do just as much. Though it’s true that the Kyoshi Warriors aren’t in the movie (They WERE in the movie-manga adaptation though I’ll point out!) and it’s true that they changed it how in episode six where Katara rallied the Earth Benders, they changed it to Aang doing that... and how Zhao died, and the name pronunciation changes (which I like, by the way)- How Aang defeated the Fire Navy, and mixing Roku and his dragon together- and the fact that Aang remains uninformed of Sozin’s comet... they tried.

I know it sounds like I’m saying ‘they tried, they tried’ a lot, but they did, and I’m glad. I won’t go and tell loads of people it’s the best film I’ve ever seen, because it’s certainly not, but it wasn’t so bad that you throw it in the junk-pile either. What the Movie did get me thinking of, was that if the Video Game follows the movie well enough, it would make for a good game... A really good game! *is interested in trying it some time...* There’s loads of people out there who love the TV series yet bash the movie, but if they were true fans, they’d appreciate the effort that was put into the movie FOR THEM and just enjoy it anyway like it was made for.

I’ll note quickly I saw the Eragon Movie and then read the books- And I’ll also admit I like the movie more than the books. (No arguing about Eragon please), and I’m aware of many of the changes from book-to-movie, like how TLA has been a TV show-to-movie. I’ve heard many complaints about the changes between the book and movie of Eragon, and I’ve also heard some for TLA. But from my own veiw, (since I liked the Eragon movie) The Last Airbender is a lot like Eragon in adaptations. Sure, there may be many changes, but it’s still the same general story we know and have come to enjoy over time.

If you’re wanting to go and watch The Last Airbender in the theaters, don’t bother goign to it in 3D if that costs extra. It’s a 2D to 3D conversion, and it’s no where near as good as true 3D. (keep an eye out for the sequel though.) So in theaters, 2D is the way to go, or you can just wait for it on DVD, because that will be worth it. (The Movie Music is beautiful too I might add and am SOOOOOOOO looking for the soundtrack while I’m here!)

Also, if you do see it- there is a funny scene where they’re trying to rally the earth benders, and there’s a group of ten or so, bending, and it looks like they only move one rock. (However, when the camera rotates around enough, you can see one guy bending who’s moves look more fitting to the action and movement of the rock, so I think he’s really the one bending it.) But it looks funny. :p And I am glad Sokka accidentally got waterbended at by Katara a couple times. ;)

From a standalone movie rating perspective, I’d give it a 6/10. I know, but it leaves the viewer plot-confused, and really requires them to have seen the TV show. However ‘the effects were decent’ to quote Sokka. (in true 3D it’d have been epic...) The actors didn’t do a great job, but it was... excusable... The music was amazing, and the scenery was great though.

From the point of view of comparing to the TV show, I’d give it a 2.5/10.

They sort-just-kina followed the plot, but they changed a lot. I mentioned a few of the changes above. I gave them a quarter of the full mark, because that’s how the movie is. It’s fitting also because they had a quarter of the time, so it fullfilled my expectations.

------

On Friday, we went to the Calgary Zoo.

Sorry, *posts sign* Sorry, I’m not here right now.

...Auckland Zoo is better... Even just from memory from ages ago. Honestly, there’s not much to say about the Calgary Zoo... Half the animals had signs in their enclosures saying, “Sorry, I’m not here right now.” And my favorite animal there was the otter. >.<>.<>

So yesterday (Saturday) I was at my Auntie’s house. They have seven dogs at the moment. (two are actually theirs, and the other five are foster puppies.)

Tasha and Cobi are my Auntie’s dogs. Boy, Girl who looks like the Boy (nick-named: Girl), Tippie, Red and Blondie. the five playful pups are adorable. How you can tell them apart is:

Boy: He’s the darkest colored one, and he’s the only boy.

Girl: She looks a lot like Boy, but a bit lighter, she’s a girl, and she has this raccoon-looking pattern around her eyes.

Tippie: (Not the DioMer. :p) She’s got the same coloring as Boy, only a few shades lighter, and has a white tipped tail. (Boy has a white tipped tail too, but Tippie is a lighter coloring to Boy.)

Red: No obvious markings, she’s the same shading of fur as Tippie, but she has no tail tip, or raccoon-ring eyes.

Blondie: Like her name suggests, she’s a blondie. :p She’s got by FAR the lightest coloring of the pups.

If you saw the photo of one of the puppies before I linked to in my previous post (which has had more photos added to it- so bookmark the link and check back often.), that was Red I was petting. She just came up to me and I scratched her belly a little, and she decided to collapse sideways and just fall asleep then and there. ;) When they’re all awake though, it’s chaos. They remind me of Dreagons (Yes, Dreagons.) when they play-fight. They climb all over each-other, try pin each-other down, nip at each-other, try and chew on each-other’s feet or tails... All they’re missing is the appearance, mind you, both Baby Dreagons, and Baby Puppies can be cute. :p

Later in the day, we went with my Auntie to one of he friend’s birthday party by a lake (it was shallow though mind you- probably for little kids safety). There was a water park too. All in all, it was pretty cool. :p

And, don’t ask about the blog post topic. ;) If you read a certain comment on a previous post, you’ll get it. Whoops! :p

Until next time, this is Icey disappearing through the screen layer.

Photos!

Hotel, Canada. 9:34 AM, 23rd of July, 2010.

Just a quick update! I've uploaded a few of my photos, and captioned them.

Check them out here!

Until next time, this is Icey disappearing through the screen layer. I'm off to the Zoo! I'll write about the The Last Airbender movie and that in my next post. ;)