Natural Splendor.

If you ever want to feel the juxtaposition of life's cultures, styles and landscapes, just fly from Singapore to Christchurch. Getting on the plane was a normal day in a large, somewhat overcrowded (in downtown tourist areas anyway) city experience. A taxi ride to the airport through highways and intersections, passing by large apartment blocks along the way. An unloading of luggage and such in a massive departures hall. A moseying around an airport that is as beautiful as it is filled with things to do....

... and you get off in a land of "slooooowwww", deliberate, beautiful, natural, content, "I have time for you" country. New Zealand's second city, Christchurch, felt like a small friendly town coming from Singapore. Funny. Just two weeks later, after traveling around one lane highways - through mountain passes, glaciers and across spectacular vistas with snow capped mountains overlooking crystal clear lakes - it seemed like quite the metropolis! Strange how life's experiences often dictates the way you perceive the same place.

In between our first entry into New Zealand (including the amazing Southern Alps and Mount Cook peeping out from the blanket of the white clouds below) and our departure there were two weeks of complete exhilaration, relaxation, amazement and the pure joy found in discovery and opportunities taken. What a land of contrasts? Yet it seems that each contrast has a place beside the other. One minute you are driving a long a coastal road marveling the fur seals lounging on the rocks, and the next you are driving through the rolling hills of vineyards. One minute you are overlooking a beautiful wilderness and the next you are driving or walking through an enchanted forrest whose sole purpose seems to be brigning you nothing but a day's worth of fresh air and a mind's worth of silent anticipation of what you might find next. It was no wonder that, on the night of the first day of 2010, as we sat at a playground, Irini expressing her giggling satisfaction with the swings, we saw something orange poking it's face from across the water. We watched in amazement as the moon slowly lifted its face to greet us and, as if there just for us, it gave us a show that was worthy of royalty in lives past. In all ways natural, New Zealand stole our hearts away.

More to come...