[ ~*My Sanctuary. A place of peace. --*]

scribbles-

Saturday, February 20, 2010

today is saturday, and nana and her mum, nila, brought me to the farmer's market. it's something like our pasar malam back home, except it's in the day and it's run by ang mohs. well, not totally angmohs. u can always rely on some asian infiltration some where. :P

so i set my alarm clock for 8.15am, which i promptly switched off and went back to sleep cos i was too tired. i slept at 2.30am the previous night cos i got too caught up in my book. it was 10.15am when i cracked open my eyes again, and still they were half closed. then nana knocked on my door to ask if i wanted to go to the farmer's market so i HAD to get up. i went out of my room to see daniel just having woken up too. so after washing up the 4 of us piled into the car and we were off!

before heading to the market we stopped by a garage sale run by amnesty international. nila bought some random stuff like a home phone, cutlery, cos apparently they're really expensive in New Zealand -_-''', and trolley marketing bag and nana bought a big of highlighters. did you know that one stabilo highlighter costs 5 bucks here?!?!! it's robbery, i swear. so for all those items, it only cost $7. so i guess garage sales are good!

after that we were off to the market. parking was a bitch cos it was pretty crowded, and people only wanted to park at the free carpark. finally we got a lot. i saw some pretty cool stuff. basically these people are farmers and they bring their stuff to this place to sell. the first stop was this guy who grew organic garlic and he sold them as pastes and stuff that u can apply on crackers. good stuff. nila bought a free range chicken (yes, it was dead and plucked) cos they're healthier as they aren't injected with hormones. next we were on to the vegetable store, and nila bought one whole big bag of basil leaves for $7. food is actually really expensive in new zealand. there was a crepe stand which sold really good crepes. nana and i shared one passionfruit and whipped cream. sinful but oh-so-good. we also bought dumplings from a mother and daughter team from china. by the end of the day i was so so full. it's too much to give all the details here. i don't have pictures to show here cos i was too lazy to take them. i hate taking photos. they make you look so touristy and you're so busy snapping shots that you're not actually paying attention to the things happening around you.

afterwards we went home to deposit the food cos we had fresh meats with us. nila did some cooking while daniel went to sleep. then the 3 of us girls went to meridian mall, the ONLY shopping mall in dunedin. i got my SIM card and my new mobile phone number. i was allowed to choose my number according to the SIM card, so the girl brought out a whole stack for me to choose. but i ended up choosing the first one i saw cos i felt the number was easiest to remember. then we strolled round the mall a bit and nana went to try on some boots. shoes here are CRAZY EXPENSIVE k. like even after discounts, they're still $100+. siao. i'm definitely not buying any shoes here. finally our last stop was k-mart were i bought so household stuff i needed. then we headed home and i took a shower before calling my parents and talking to yingxy on the webcam.

i left yingxy when nana called me for dinner, and the 4 of us had our meal. all the leftovers were given to daniel, who gamely finished everything. nila and nana says that daniel has a dragon in his stomach cos he eats so much. after dinner nana and i walked to the convenience store nearest our house but it was already closed. so we had to walk back and drive to the store in town which opened later. nila needed some stuff to make indonesian pancake thingies, which look really good and i can't wait to try in the near future. nana, nila and daniel set down to making pancakes while i retired to my room for a while to read and joined them again later. nila is a really cool mom, and she really brings out the crazy side in nana. i can't describe her really, except that she's really childish for a mum in her mannerisms but at the same time you can tell that she really loves her daughter and always gives good advice. when we were at k-mart she was playing with this pink rubber ball she picked up from a random shelf and asked nana to buy it for her. :P i don't know if nana really did. haha! shall ask her tomorrow. yep. so seeing the 2 of them being so loving and enjoying each other's company so much made me laugh but really miss my mum too. and my dad and sis and ping and and everyone back home. :(

on a happier note i think i'm adjusting better that i expected. i haven't cried since i spoke to mum on the webcam, and that's because she started crying first. i'm sure i'm homesick but right now i'm not really feeling it that much. maybe the feeling is buried somewhere deep in my heart which has not been unleashed yet. right now i'm just living day to day. i initially thought that i would miss home so bad that i make myself sick, but fortunately it's not happening that way, so for that i'm thankful.

-I picked up a shell at-5:57 PM