Easter break

For 4 years running now, I've spent the start of my easter break by attending the Canterbury University and Otago University Muslim Student Association (MUSA)'s brother camp. The camp, one of the two main annual activities run by these organisations, was held this year at Iona Camp, Herbert just 20 minutes drive from Oamaru. It is held for university students and aimed at building ukhuwwah (brotherhood ties) among the muslim students as well as being a learning opportunity to further develop knowledge on Islam. Almost for 4 years running - coincidentally I was one of the organizing committee for the first two - the format of the camp hasn't changed much: The camp starts with team building activities followed by lunch then a lecture then sport and the first day is capped by a barbie (down-under slang for bbq) and night quiz. The following day start with fajar lecture followed by sport and the camp is finished by a lecture. I joined the camp this year mainly to meet up old friends from Dunedin but I found the lectures were quite stimulating as well. Going along the theme "Muslims in the West", the first lecture outlines the behaviour, the attitude, the preparation and the duties that a Muslim is advised to adopt to live in such environment. Of significant interest to me is the idea that as a Muslim here, da'wah should be one of those inherent duties Muslim actively pursue even if it is just portraying oneself as a Muslim. The second lecture reminded the brothers at the camp on the essence of our prayers to Allah in that they are glorification and rememberance of Him and should not be treated as rituals, a practice one can fall into. The lecturer eloquently quoted a beautiful analogy from a famous Muslim scholar (whom I could not recall his name or his work - I'll get back to this later) for his lecture. Anyway, after leaving the camp satisfied with the enlightenment and good company, we were joined by a group of Dunedinites and head off to Oamaru's penguin colony (bottom photo: bottom-right). We came too early to see any penguin as they only return from fishing during Maghrib so we head down south to Moeraki Boulders (top photo). We finished our 2nd day at Dunedin. Before heading back to Christchurch on our 3rd day, we showed our newly arrived friend Dunedin. As usual, Baldwin St, the world steepest street would be one of the destination (bottom photo: top left). Another site to visit in Dunedin is Signal Hill Lookout (bottom photo: bottom left). Finally, we also sneaked to the Albatross Colony at the Otago Peninsula - a 30 minutes drive from central Dunedin but there was admission charge at NZD15 - a price too steep for me to just see birds :D, so we didn't spent much time there.

The other photo showed the Cookie Time mascot wall mural at Cookie Time factory at Templeton located at the outskirt of Christchurch. It made what was once the largest cookie in the world, a record only recently broken. The cookie is no longer there though.