Wanaka Revisited

In a couple of hours, I'm going to try to go to bed and hope I could actually sleep and then wake up for an 8-o'clock start tomorrow. It's a daunting task given I've spent the later part of my holidays being a nocturnal, only sleepin after fajr and waking up just before Asr. This is in contrast to how I spent the early part of the holiday, where I would dose off before 11pm out of sheer tiredness and would then wake up refreshed next morning and not dose off after Fajr. Just digressing here, I've read somewhere that the hadith saying it's makhruh to sleep after Fajr is dhaif. Can anybody verify that fact? However, that early part of holiday was spent traveling, and after conquering the glacier, I went down for a quick visit of Wanaka. Just 4 hours drive from Franz Josef and passing the scenic Lake Hawea, Wanaka is one of the top tourist destination in NZ, mainly for it's winter activity attraction. We went there for sight seeing and only went walking on Mt Iron, a 2-hour walk just on the outskirt of Wanaka. It's more of a pit-stop for us before heading to Queenstown. Winter hasn't really kicked in yet when we enter and so no snow-capped mountains yet. There were lots of fog though. Here are some panoramic photo I've come up with from that walk on Mt Iron:

I haven't really develop my panoramic photo skill yet, hence the narrow slit appearance of these photos. Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I've spent the last few hours of my holiday reading this hilarious website: . As far as I can remember (not that far) I did promote this website a few years ago in my blog. It now certainly has upgraded and contain some new hilarious articles. Should be good comic relief for those who was or is involved in MSA (Muslim Student Association) or anybody for that matter.

West Coast Revisited

A month plus a week on and I am back writing a nonsense entry for this totally random blog of mine. A quick update of what has happen: school --> assignment --> test --> more test --> holiday (yeay) --> NOW: holiday almost ending. Despite the glamour of Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy, I'm not going to delve much into my medical student experience but I just wanted to recount the holiday I've spent. First up, was 'West Coast Revisited'. Perhaps, some of my loyal reader out there remembered my brief mention of my trip to the West Coast last year, so this year I returned. Why? To conquer the glaciers, the Franz Josef Glaciers to be exact. Franz Josef glacier are just one of the several glaciers situated at NZ West Coast (other notable glaciers - Fox Glacier, and Haast Glacier). A glacier is a large, slow-moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity.[1] What unique about this glacier is that it is situated between rain-forest! It just happen that the Southern Alps, a mountainous range running longitudinally in the middle of NZ South Island, hold up rain cloud from the Tasman Sea and cause the area to experience heavy rainfall and subsequent fall in temperature (esp at the valleys) help maintained the glaciers from melting away. Conquering is a bit hyperbolic I must say, as I only took a half day guided tour. Though rated as medium fitness intensity, it certainly was a light workout as during the tour, we stop a lot to allow our guides pike away ice to make steps. The tour took us through the rain-forest surrounding the glacier before proceeding to hike up the glacier itself. Special footwear (Spikes) was provided. Once there, the glacier is certainly magnificent. The ice are bluish in colour as ice absorbs all light except blue colour. The ice cubes you see in your fridges are white because it contain lots of air while these glaciers are compacted ice. Other activities on the glacier that could be done are heli ride and ice climbing. Wiki article on Franz Josef glacier is here. Anyway, here are some of my personal pics for sharing. Up top is me at the glacier it self, in between some icy valley there. Bottom photo: Top - the guide. The temperature is pretty warm, but the ice are cold. The guide was piking all day, thats why he's just in his short-sleeve shirt compared to us who are all in blue jackets. Bottom - More photo of the glacier and the group we were in.

Obesity Cured!

Obesity is up there among the most problematic public health problems that plagued most parts of the world now. Complications related to obesity is plenty - sleep apnoea, increased risk diabetes, IHD, osteoarthritis, almost virtually every disease there is. OK, a bit hyperbolic there, but the point is it is a HUGE problem. (see what I did there). The prevalence of obesity and overweight is as follow:
US: (2004) = 116 million people or 64.5% of population
China: (2004) = 27.3% of population ("reference")
MYS: (2008) = 50% of population (from my memory of a result from a recent public health survey. I can't be bothered to find a 'proper' reference)

But there is a cure. And it's all natural so it must be good for you:

weirdo part 2

---continued from part 1: It shocked me a bit and caused me to paused for a while. My mate, who had started solah (formal prayer) earlier, just finished his solah and was then approached by the fella. They started discussing and even though I was supposed to concentrate on my solah, I just couldn't contain myself from peeping in. In a nutshell, that guy said that we should seek Jesus as our saviour, Jesus would save us from hell and that he was a prophet. wtf. Not the first two, but the last part, he's a prophet? lmao. When I finished my prayer, I totally ignored him and left my mate there. hahaha. Don't worry, nothing happened to my mate as he also quickly end the conversation and excused himself. That night, we stayed away from the room and only return to sleep at the dorm. That guy was kinda huge, a Maori, I guess (think of Jonah Lomu of the All Blacks..) We checked out the next day and never had anymore conversation with that guy. I never regretted not talking to him anyway. It would just be pointless to get your point across to someone who clearly thinks himself as a prophet. This guy was staying at a backpacker, and by the looks of his stuffs and setup, he's there for long term. In addition, aside from us, he didn't talk much to anyone else even though clearly most people in that backpacker are not Christians. So, how can this guy be a prophet?
On a totally unrelated note, I got the colds again...sigh. This should be my last post for the week, as I need to get cracking for a test on Friday. I will also be on-call on Thursday and trying to get a patient for a case report. Cheerios. Here are some funny photo with bad English (worse than mine).

minah rempit

Stolen from pixdaus.com

weirdo

Ironman was good but not great. At least it wasn't a waste of money. On a totally unrelated note, in my North Island travels that I chronicled couple of months ago in this blog, I came across this weirdo at Whakatane. Me and my travelling companion checked in at backpackers once arrived at Whakatane and as what normal Muslim would do, we stop by and pray our daytime prayers before continuing travelling. So we prayed at our dorm room and there was this guy who was sitting on his bed and as soon as I started praying that guy went on to say out aloud "O Jesus, please give guidance to this man, blablabla..." --- to be continued. I'm knackered today. Before I dose off, these are some of Bizarro comics that for Malaysians out there might be familiar with if you read The Star comic section. (Mai - it's Bizarro not 'gonzo' as I have mentioned before but I did get the last syllable right, sort of...).

aargh

Here I am, staring at the computer, struggling to get my ethics essay done. Damn those ethic essays! I always struggle to go through them. Medical ethics essay assignments are supposed to be easy as they only revolve around those 5 principles - beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, dignity and autonomy - but to fabricate an ethical issue based on these principles out of thin air or superficial knowledge of a patient, that's a different story. So, I admit, I didn't do enough background work to get the essay going and so I have to struggle a bit harder by fabricating stuffs. Oh yeah, and I also have this disease called the yips. Definition of the yips according to HIMYM: overthink stuffs. (Real definition: nervous at putting in golf that lead to a mishit.) Anyway, tomorrow is the last of the test for this run I am currently on and so I will reward myself by going to watch ironman. I hope the story is legen..wait for it..dary.

Freezing

Winter has set in NZ and OMG it's freezing. My current flat doesn't seem to have any insulation at all! No wonder it's cheap. I think I have bitched about this before but there you go, it's cold. It reminded me of those flats in Dunedin that looked a century old and possibly has no insulation as well. Even when using winter duvet, I remembered needing to wear jerseys and sometime thermal to go to sleep back in those days. History repeats itself again as I have to resort to the same thing again. Anyway, in 3 days time I will be sitting 2 psych tests and 1 pathology test so wish me luck. Psych is never my cup of tea with all those weird disease classifications that make it look quite artificial. I don't have much insight into the subject though but as patients can have psychological problems intermingling with 'real' medical problems then it is an essential knowledge a doctor must acquire.
While chilling in between my studies, I have made progress on reading that book by Michael Legat on writing. So far, the advice I can remember at the moment is read your workout loud to appraise your writing - suitability of style, proper use of words, character of composition, flow of story. So far, the content of the book focuses on writing fictional works, such as novel, but what I am interested in writing is an intriguing informational composition.
No witty/funny photo for the entry today as my Internet connection has clock down again. I was going to share a particular blog to you but I refrained as it has some joke with sexual theme that I think would be sinful for me to promote. I just leave you here bewildered by that unnecessary comment.

Moscow!

I was going to write the other day, cursing Michael Carrick for handling the ball needlessly in the dying minutes of the Chelsea game, but now since we're through to Moscow for the Champions League final and him doing an OK job in this morning Champions League game, I forgive him :D Anyway the next 3 games will define Man Utd season - champion or the first of the losers. My prediction: Champion. I'm so totally not biased.
I've been busy lately trying to catch-up on my schoolwork and guess what, my ward is still closed down because of that virus and I had to scavenge the other ward for my cases for two weeks now. I haven't finished those schoolwork yet but I thought I take a breather and write something. Today, I'm going to share a recipe called 'ayam masak hitam' or chicken cooked-black which I attempted to cook yesterday. Odd name but it was spicy and the taste was OK too, I guess, as I didn't get to taste the food that much since I was the last too eat that night and my flatmates had scraped most of the sauce leaving me with just the chicken. The dish was served with long-grain white rice, and prawn and cabbage tom-yam soup. The recipe is modified from Resepi RR Resepi:
Serving size: 4 male
Ingredient: 8 chicken drumstick, turmeric powder, cooking oil, 2 large onion, 1.5 tbsp chili powder, 4 tbsp oyster sauce, soy sauce (sweet and salty), water.
Method:
1. Roll chicken drumstick in tumeric powder. Fry until golden brown. Lift and set aside.
2. With new cooking oil, simmer diced onion until soft.
3. Add chilli powder and simmer until aromatic (='wangi' - I have no idea of the word in English to translate this Malay word when used in describing cooking method.)
4. Add the fried chicken, water (1/8 cup), oyster sauce and soy sauce. Soy sauce is added until the gravy turns black. Fry until gravy is thick.

Strike ended

The argument against the strike was that such action would:
1. harm patients
2. degrade trust between docs and patient
3. destroy the image of medics as an altruistic profession
4. placing patient as 'ransom'
5. docs are already overpaid
One of of my teachers here proposed that the strike action should be considered in an utilitarian light, which means if the long-term benefit far outweigh the short-term damages then the action can be justified. I totally agree with him (I'm sure he's not reading this blog - I'm not looking for favours here :D) and I felt halting brain drain is better in the long-term than the inconvenience of a 48-hour strike. Malaysia too is suffering from brain-drain, in fact it is far worse than NZ. 4 years ago, a Malaysian public health officer told me that the turnover of doctor from public health service to private sector or oversea is 1 doctor per day! I'm pretty sure the trends remain more or less the same. The problem is further exacerbated by the stop-gap measures taken to fill the void created. One of them is restricting specialist training in Malaysia in order to ensure there are enough junior doctors around. This only result in more turnovers as junior doctors are drove out due to poor prospect. NB: My knowledge on Malaysian health system were mostly anecdotes from people who used to work/studied there and is dated to at least 1-2 years ago. Recently, a pay rise were given to civil servant in Malaysia including doctors, which saw them gaining a quite significant increase in wage. However, the housemanship (internship) years were extended to 2 years as there were quite a number of high profile cases of medical misadventure during election year.
Some idea taken from:
Frizelle, F. Is it ethicals for doctors to strike? NZ med J 2006; 119(1236):1-2

Photo taken from http://www.engrish.com/ and is copyrighted to them.

RMO strike continued

I felt the repercussion of the strike today as one of my class was canceled because there wasn't enough workforce. Continuing from the last entry, with the mounting debt and low wages, most NZ graduates ends up leaving the country, mostly to Australia due to the fact that NZ graduate could work straight away there without requiring to undergo any examination, or doing locum. In the end result, the health service ends up with shortages of medical personnel while those on locum used to fill these gaps were generally more expensive (3x normal wage) and recruitment drive targeting foreign doctors also drains money. To stop this trend, RDA felt that wage increase is needed to help retain doctors. In my opinion, NZ may not be able to match the wage that Australia or other richer countries are offering to their doctors but with the modest increase, it should help to ease the burden of student loan debt and facilitate retaining those who do wish to stay but were forced to because of financial restrain. There is nothing that could be done to those who do wish to go oversea for the money. It is also good to note that not many medics are in it for the money, in fact, I think it is foolish to do so as the money isn't here and with the intellectual prowess most medics have, other professions are better suited for that.

Some of public opinion on the RMO strike on NZHerald: Here

--- to be continued.

Yeah, I prefer Camel too:

Not. Some docs do smoke though and my colleagues and classmates do - in fact one of the surgeon i know who-amputate-legs-of-smokers smoke (not for fun but because their legs are stuffed - smoking cause your blood vessel to block off esp at the legs), so it's not surprising with all those anti-smoking adverts and campaign out there, smoking remain prevalent in the society.

busy

I don't think it is feasible for me to post daily - something worthwile that is - as I do actually need to study...Anyway, today about 2000 junior doctors all over NZ went on strike and a further 24 hours will be taken tomorrow. Despite this, there has been plan on another strike sometime in May as discussion between RDA (Residential Doctor Association = Junior Doctor union) and DHB (District Health Board = semi-autonomous organizations formed by the NZ government to distribute the funding and provision of health services in their respective district) broke down. Reactions of the public here has been divisive where some has supported it while others seemed disgusted. The RDA justification of striking is stop the retention problem of NZ doctors in NZ. Compared with the wages in other developed countries (NZ considered themselve developed), NZ docs is grossly underpaid. As tertiary education is usually funded by taking loan, most NZ medical student graduate with atleast NZ100,000 of debt.

--to be continued. getting late...

Norovirus

The hospital ward I'm attached to is currently suffering from norovirus outbreak and thus students are forbidden to enter there. Even though norovirus infection isn't normally fatal, especially for a young and healthy guy like me, it can be fatal to those frail elderly at the ward I'm working in. With the strike by the junior doctors tomorrow, I don't know if it will be worthwile turning up tomorrow.

Not in the zone

Nothing new today I'm afraid. But I did come across this quite intriguing youtube video (embedded below) and had a look at the original version and I learnt that the music used in those Urban Ninja video I posted in several entries before this were music soundtrack of the movie the Last of the Mohicans. The music is called Gael according to the comments on YouTube.
I no longer use torrent or P2P to get my music as they are all freely available on YouTube. If a YouTube video finish streaming, the flv file (format of the video) is automatically saved in "temporary internet file" which can be copied, renamed to have .flv extension added on and by using a software, rip the soundtrack off the video and recorded into a new mp3 file.

Theme

Last night, while having trouble sleeping, my mind started racing as usual, usually on random stuffs and one of them is a thought on the blog and here it is - the theme of the blog. I need to stop randomly write and has some direction and purpose and so I came up with this theme: what I learn today. Its nothing spectacular and could be pretty random too but the whole idea is to jot down something new that I did that day. Its the whole self-improvement thing as well as with this theme, I could achieve:
1. Revision
2. Review and reflect
3. Just to make the list long and impressive
On another note, I was going to write about the impending RMO (Residential Medical Officers - to you laymen outthere, junior doctors, I said j-u-n-i-o...kidding) strike this coming Tuesday but I didn't have enough information on it (my Internet connection has been slowed down due to overuse but will be fast again tomorrow). There will be a post on it in the future - largely on ethical issues surrounding it I guess, we'll see what I come up with. Anyway, I'm going to bed early tonight so I could wake up early to cheer on my team at 4 am. Man Utd for the double. In the meanwhile, Yo!: (I nicked the photo off a blog, the credit is in the source)

Nothing important

I have to admit, I can't concentrate on anything - its like I have ADHD or something - and so there has yet to be any consistency in my writing exercise yet. So before going to bed tonight, I'll kick start the exercise with this totally pointless post.
I did made progress on my reading of that Michael Legat book and the book goes on describing the qualities a good writer: discipline, stamina, a love of words and a feeling for them, imagination, experience (knowing the subjects helps), observation (according to authors: writers are observers), something to say, dissatisfaction (with own work), self-confidence (of your own work), selfishness (eg setting aside time for writing), and professional attitude. The qualities that I have: discipline (no), stamina (no), a love blabla (no), imagination (everybody has this -according to the author. this point is elaborated further in the book at a part which I have not read yet), experience (depends - too long to elaborate tonight), observation (yes), something to say (yes), dissatisfaction (greatly yes), self-confidence (scarce - I deleted the previous edition of this blog out of shame of the content), selfishness (yes), professional attitude (huh?).

Flexing

I finally shrug off a cold that's been bugging me since last Thursday and head off to Hanmer Spring today for a hot water pool bath. Hanmer Spring is the only hot water pool that I knew existed in South Island, NZ, and with it only 1.5 hrs drive away, it was the place to go when one ran out of ideas of places to go. Nothing special there, I must say, and its not that relaxing as the place is buzzing with people (for NZ standard that is, if in Malaysian standard it's like omg, so few) but still a good escape from my cold and damp flat (no wonder the flat's cheap!!). So anyway, I went with several flatmates and we just spent the whole afternoon bathing there and picnic and prayer at this park below called Dog Stream Park (weird name):

This part of the entry may perhaps be the most beneficial to you readers out there as I am about to impart my feeble knowledge here, see it is as a token from me rewarding your perseverance in reading this entry this far. Steam inhalation has been thought to relieve the common cold and I was going to use this idea to convince one of my flatmate who caught a cold from me (muahahaha) to join the trip. But, I did some research and behold, according to BMJ (British Medical Journal) Clinical Evidence, there is not enough evidence from clinical trial to suggest whether steam inhalation has any effect on reducing the severity or length of the common cold. Clinical trials that were referred to in this report showed mixed result - some showed very modest benefit of steam inhalation while others showed no benefit at all. Meta-analyses (analysis of result of clinical trials by pooling them together) could not be done because of heterogeneity of study population, different method of assessment and poor reporting by some trials. Other information that might be useful:

Treatments that might be beneficial in common cold: antihistamine (only at reducing symptom of running nose), and decongestant (short-term relief of congestive symptoms)

Treatments with unknown effectiveness: analgesics, anti-inflammatory, echinacea, and zinc

Treatments that is unlikely to be beneficial: vitamin C

Treatments likely to be ineffective and possibly harmful: antibiotic

Exercise

You might have come across this before in this blog but I intend to repeat it here again, my act of blogging is one of the several avenues I have taken to overcome my addictions to other things, ie. worthless hobbies. As part of the rehabilitation, I also resorted to return to reading books and as the saying goes "to kill two birds with one stone" - I've started reading writing for pleasure and profit the revised edition written by Michael Legat. It is really an ancient book - published in 1993 - as the first chapter starts off with describing tools a writer might require and one of them is a typewriter. A typewhat? Exactly, its ancient! But the book is free - I nicked it off my dad's shelf - and writing is a skill I intend to master one day, so I thought it might be worthwhile reading. And by the way, I only finished reading the first few paragraphs of the first chapter, so don't judge the book effects on my writing just yet. In those few paragraphs I read, it described writing as a craft and like all crafts, one could only master through practice. Just like muscles, the writing minds when used regularly will works wells and painlessly but when used rarely it becomes awkward and stiff. A good way to exercise - see what I did there, still connected to the muscle analogy - is to just write down whatever come across your mind. As these exercises turns to habit, writing will become second nature to you. So, be warn readers, I will used this blog as a mean to exercise. Not that it will be any different - as my blog has been on the whole an incoherent mumblings - but it will be much worse as I from now on intend to write more often in this blog. Preferably daily. As if.....





On a different note, here are some panoramic photos of Christchurch (NZ) I would like to share. There are serious flaws in these photo and could serve as tips to those amatuer panoramic photographers (like me). All these were taken using a camera which has no panoramic function and the software used was Adobe Photoshop CS 2. All photos have been scaled down to 30 - 50% of original size. The first one is a photo of Sumner beach. This one isn't that bad.


The second one, also on Sumner beach is pretty bad - the waves in the middle of photo split making it unrealistic. Tips: 2 separate photo of an ocean cannot be used in panoramic photo.

Finally, this is a scenery from Summit Road. Down the valley is part of Christhurch city. Lots of faults in this photo too - find it yourself. Note to self - research on panoramic photo.

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.

the return

OK, I'm back and so many things happened in the past 1 month. I wasn't able to post anything in the past month as my ISP exchange crashed which resulted in excrutiatingly slow internet connection. Anyway, there was the Malaysian GE, and I must admit I am surprised (and somewhat pleased) by the result. Good luck to those involved. On the personal level, I finished my run and spent my easter break at the Canterbury and Otago Muslim Student Association (MUSA)'s Brother Camp. The camp held at Iona Camp, Herbert was 2 days 1 night long and we spent the other day of the break at Dunedin. I'm not in the mood in writing anymore here, this entry is just to get the momentum of writing get going again. There's something wrong with the image uploader, so no photo yet.

Urban Ninja

More?

Sadly I had to move out of my current flat as the rent were raised exorbitantly from $86 to $103 per week. The landlord's reason for the raise was that he wanted to keep the price in par with that of the area, which is central city, but I wouldn't hesitate to say that he needed the money to finance his renovation of another flat, the backyard and the carpark. Nevertheless, we were saved by the university flat (and the conspicuous lack of interest on those uni flat from 4th year medical student who would have gotten preference over us), their cheap rent ($90) and proximity to the hospital. So, today and yesterday, I was busy moving and the move wasn't easy as raining and coryza* both combined to make a simple house move just slightly tougher. I'm writing this entry while taking a break from the flat cleaning and just to share some more of Gary Larson's genious work.

* Coryza: A cold in the head. The word "coryza" came from the Greek "koryza" which is thought to have been compounded from "kara", head + "zeein", to boil. The "boiling over from the head" refers to the runny nose, an all-too-familiar feature of a head cold.

Anthropologists! anthropologists!

Gary Larson's cartoons are hilarious and after years of enjoying them, I only found out who drew the comic strip. I've read his collection book when I was 15 and there are more hilarious ones than those shown here. I just couldn't find it on the net (It's copyrighted anyway). His comics are called "the far side".

End of thermal adventure

After our epic tour of White Island, we quickly sped off to Taupo and spent the night there. The next morning we head off to Wellington and on the way we stopped by at Wanganui for lunch. We took a route that was luckily just reopened after a recent landslide (the photo below is from one of the lookout stops on this route. Would have been unfortunate to miss out on such a view). Nothing much happens during our journey back. So after 12 days, 4000km and almost $1000 spent, the travel finish. What did I get from this adventure? I have no idea really. The thing that really matters - making yourself closer to your Creator - is not something that I had achieved during this trip. Despite this, I'm an avid traveler and has so long to travel and finally got someone to travel with me. The trip didn't dissapoint a bit (apart from Huka Prawn Park) and I thouroughly enjoyed it.

Whakatane & White Island

I don't really remember how far exactly is Whakatane from Rotorua but it was close to 2-hour drive north. Read more about Whakatane here if you want. The top photo is some panoramic view of (1) Whakatane and (2) Whakatane beach. We only went there so that we could go to White Island, one of the 3 active volcanoes in NZ. Last year, Lonely Planet rated White Island as a must-see attraction for those in NZ, so we decided to have a peek. There were couple of tours going there. The cheapest is the White Island Tours at NZD160. It involve a boat ride to White Island, which is 46km offshore from Whakatane, and a guided tour of the White Island itself. Morning tea and lunch are provided (they were halal as they were vegetarian meals). Alternatives were tours involving helicopter ride but the cheapest were around NZD300. I recommend the boat ride as while I was on the boat ride I got to see whales doing their breathing thing! Anyway, I imagined the crater of White Island filled with molten lava but instead it is filled with hot steaming coloured water (bottom photo). I was a bit dissapointed, only a bit, as the island is still intriguing. I forgot why it was called White Island but it certainly isn;t white. It mostly consisted of grey rocks that are sometime interrupted by coloured rocks, mud pools, and fumaroles. The coloured rocks are from residual minerals that flow out of the belly of the volcano. Amazingly there were lots of seagulls there (and lots of bridshit too - perhaps that is why some has called it white! :D) The island has a fascinating history itself. In the past, people has thought that it had abundant of top quality sulphur and so some has mined it. It turn out that the sulphur there were of poor grade and the living condition were too harsh. Factory equipments rusted too quickly and frequent earthquakes and landslides has taken many lives. Eventually the mining companies become liquidated and the lawyer who processed the liquidation brought the island off the company and his family remain the owner of the island to this day. Today, White Island is used as a tourist attraction and scientific studies.

Rotorua Part 3

Rotorua is only 1.5 hrs drive up north from Taupo and is part of the volcanic band that ran across North Island from Taupo to Whakatane. 2 things I noticed once I arrived there: (1) the air had the stench of rotten eggs and (2) there were considerable presence of Maori culture compared to other towns I’ve been before. (1) is because there were plenty of sulphur at Rotorua and (2) Rotorua is a cultural tourist centre of NZ. If one would like to see Maori culture but have limited time, this is the place to go. One can see and experience kapahaka (Maori dance), powhiri (greeting ritual) and tangi (feast) at the Maori village located just on the outskirt of Rotorua. I didn’t go there because I had enough of Maori culture after 4 years here in NZ. :D Anyway, we stayed at the Funky Voyager backpacker, a Rotorua backpacker accommodation which had the highest BBP rating. The facilities were good and the managers were really friendly too. We went to:
(1) Rainbow Springs & Kiwi Encounters: a nature park displaying what NZ jungle has to offer. Also, this is where we got to see the Kiwi bird, an almost extinct bird that NZ has adopted as one of it national icon.
(2) Wai-O-Tapu: Has hot water pool, geyser (we missed this as we arrive 1 hour late from its usual time of eruption – 10am), terraces (silica rocks in a river-like formation – this can form rice paddy-like formation and creates ladder water pools), mineral pool (coloured water pool), fumaroles and mud pools. (second bottom photo)
(3) Waimangu Volcanic Valley: Arrived beyond 6 pm so was not allowed to enter but from the outside looked really lovely. This is the site of a volcanic eruption that destroyed surrounding villages during the 1800s. (top photo: top-left is one of the farm surrounding the valley)
(4) Burried Village: A preserved excavation site of one of the village that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption during the 1800s (top photo: bottom-left)
(5) Blue Lake, Green Lake and Lake Tarawera: top photo: top-right
(6) Redwoods: A park where Californian Redwoods were planted. These were massive tree (height up to 30 meters and diameter of main trunk up to 1.6m). In NZ, these trees grew much faster than those in their native land. (top photo: bottom-right is the fern bush located on the outskirt of this park) (first bottom photo: me standing underneath an average size Redwood).
Next stop is Whakatane.

Hauora Maori

Taking a break from my ramblings on my North Island Trip to write something about the 3 day course on Maori Health I just participated a few days ago. It’s like killing two birds with one stone as one might put it, as I could do revision as well as sharing this knowledge with the few readers of my blog here. The photo above is the marae (local hall for Maori) where I stayed for the course.

The course on Maori Health is part of my medical training. It aimed to train physicians that could practise in a culturally safe and competent manner. Such course was developed mainly due to (1) the health disparity that exist between Maori and non-Maori (ie NZ European) and (2) the NZ government obligation to honour the Treaty of Waitangi. The health disparity is such that Maori life expectancy is 10 year less of that of non-Maori. Some have associated this to lower socioeconomic status but statistics showed that when adjusting for socioeconomic status, the disparity remains. Others have associated it with the “warrior” gene or “diabetic/heart attack/etc” genes to explain the disparity. For them, Maori are just inherently vulnerable to diseases that plagued modern society. However, such thinking is non-constructive and only serves to push the disparity further. Another explanation is that the health system itself is constructed in a way that “institutional racism” was practised. This is not to say that the practitioners are bunch of racists, far from that, but the system itself is formed to cater for one particular ethnic group and thus leaving another deprived. Even if the practitioners were compassionate indiscriminately but the system they are working in does not favour the patient, it will remain a stumbling block for the patient to accept such practise and thus refuse to use it. Hence, Maori has the tendency to use less of health services compared to non-Maori. This often leads to late presentation and higher mortality. With this fault in mind, the whole health system needed a revamp and thus a few steps were taken. For instance, Maori health workers were introduced and their role was to advise practitioners on how to effectively deal with Maori patients. Maoris were also appointed to as members of District Health Board, the regional governing body of the health services in NZ, in order to ensure practices do not leave out Maoris. Furthermore, practitioners were also trained to be culturally safe and culturally competent in order to effectively engage with patients. Thus a course on Maori Health or “Hauora Maori” (Hauora = health in Te Reo, the Maori language) was developed. One aspect of the teaching is the introduction of the Maori Health model known as Te Whare Tapa Wha = the four cornerstone (Whare = building, wha = four). It basically means that Maori health is not only focused on the tinana (physical) aspect but also on hinengaro (mental), spiritual (wairua) and whanau (family) aspects. In order to engage Maori patient effectively, these four aspects must be taken into consideration in diagnosis process as well as the management. In addition, the approach to a Maori patient is different to non-Maori. One can develop better rapport if one engages in whakawhanaungatanga (building connection). This involves sharing your origin to the patient before proceeding to kaupapa (reason/cause of consultation, literally = reason). A practitioner should also be aware of Maori beliefs, values and experiences (MBVE) and how to handle these. One example of MBVE is the use of Te Reo and research has shown that acknowledging Maori patients use of Te Reo result in a more satisfactory consultation. One of the classes in that course that I just did thought us some Te Reo. Here are what I learnt:

Vowels:

E pronounced as better
I pronounced as feet
A pronounced as apple
O pronounced as whore (my tutor used this example)
U pronounced as food
AU pronounced as no

Consonants: H, K, M, N, P, R, T, W, NG, WH (pronounced as fart)

The syllables end when a vowel meets a consonant. Here is some Te Reo:
Tena Koe = hello to one person
Tena korua = hello to two people
Tena kotou = hello to more than two people
Kia ora = hello, be well.

Rotorua part 2

I'm back from Akaroa and am tired. However, I still managed to complete more panoramic photo of my North Island trip and the top one is from Waimangu Volcanic Valley and the bottom one is Lake Tarawera, both of which is several kilometers away from Rotorua. I'm pretty novice at producing panoramic photo and there were several failed ones. I'm not sure if this is true, but it seemed that large body of water, ie lake, is not suitable for such photography technique. Another problem I came across is that item up close can interfere with item up far if the item up close is too close. Then there is the problem of one of the photo component going off at an angle. I think I could overcome this last problem by using a tripod. Before anyone takes advice from this entry, I would like to reiterate that I'm a complete idiot when coming to taking panoramic photo.

Rotorua Part 1

In an hour time, I'm off to Akaroa for a 3 day course on Maori Health. So in the meantime, I present to you a panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua. I misjudged one of the photos and the angle went off horribly and my attempt to get 360 degree panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua failed. The quality of photo was considerably reduced to reduce the size to less than 200kb.

Taupo part 3

The final edition of this entry and I just want to summarise what I did at Taupo in chronological order as not to confuse anyone:

Night 1: Visited the Tokaanu Thermal Park and walked the hot pool trail that was behind it. Tokaanu is a few kilometers off Turangi, which is a few kilometers south of Taupo on State Highway 1. Later, we drove around Taupo, stopping at several lookout points there (photo of Lake Taupo during dusk at bottom of entry). We stayed both night at Rainbow Lodge Backpackers. I highly recommend that place, it deserved the highest BPP (an organization that organize discounts for backpacking accomodation) ratings they had.

Day 2: Went to Tongariro National Park (photo top-left), Whakapapa, Mt Ruapehu Ski field (photo right-bottom and top), a Maori redoubt (photo bottom-left), and Lake Rotaia. Finished the day with a hot pool bath at Tokaanu Thermal Park

Day 3: Went to Huka falls (photo in previous post), Huka Prawn Park (not worth visiting unless you only plan to dine), Huka falls jet boat ride (good fun), and Craters of the Moon thermal park (photo in previous post). The rest of the day spent traveling to Rotorua.

End of holiday review

Yes, sadly my holiday has ended eventhough it was an uneventful one apart from the epic 12 day adventure i had early on. It was meant to be uneventful as I only planned the following for my holiday:
1. NZ north Island trip - checked. See my ongoing chronicle of thermal adventurer
2. Meet family - checked. I realised I wasn't that close to my extended family, at least not what my parents had expected. I blame the generation gap, my 4 years at UK and away from them during my formative years, and my inept social skill for that.
3. Meet old friends - not really checked. Did meet some old friends but could have put more effort in it. Most of them are working now, some even got hitched, which made me think it wasn't appropriate for me to ask them to hang out a lot. That did get in the way but I could have at least visited them. Again my inept social skill comes to haunt me. Anyway, I would like to thanks those who managed to squeeze some time to hang out - Haarith for the soccer match, Mus & Syakir for the Sg Tua swim, Moezz for the BBQ. There were more but I only met them in weddings, lots of weddings, in fact almost every weekend I attended one. My peers are getting hitched one by one which meant one thing - everyone going to ask "when is yours?"
4. Shopping - checked.
5. Invest - not checked.
6. Self rehabilitation/improvement -broad category but I can safely say not checked. Some of the things I wanted to improve:
i) normal body clock - wake up early, sleep early: Hardly achieved, looked like my body is a night-type.
ii) stop video gaming: Played games when bored during the holiday. There were lots of boring days. I did however uninstall all games in my laptop and so once I arrived in NZ, this would come to realisation. I need it to be.
iii) rejoin usrah/da'wah: Didn't do it. Was too lazy.
iv) relearn swimming: Didn't do it. Day was spent sleeping (see i)
v) gym workout: Didn't do it. as iv
vi) read more: ii and i prevented me from this
vii) learn Arabic: as vi
7. Dental - checked. I went to the government clinic and it cost me rm2 for a checkup and a scaling. There was a one month waiting period though between the checkup and scaling.
8. Kinabalu/travel Malaysia - not cheked. Didn't really plan this at all and was just something that came up while I was getting bored at Malaysia. Due to lack of planning, it never matearilised even though I initially rallied up some people for it.

Taupo part 2

The chronicle blabla title is a bit too long so in keeping with my lazy attitude, I'm sticking with the simpler version from now on. We spent 2 nights here at Taupo though originally planned for one, but there was much to see and do here. For starters, Taupo lake is stunningly beautiful. This blue lake was once a huge volcanic crater belonging to a volcano that is thought erupted 25,000 years ago and gave birth to North Island itself. I think, I might be talking crap here (about giving birth part, the rest I'm sure is true) and couldn't be bothered checking my facts about it. Unfortunately I don't have any personal photo of the lake (there's plenty of that on the net) but here are some photo (top 2) I have taken on the Taupo bungy, which is located at the river flowing from the lake:

So, no, I didn't do the bungy. Reason: I already did it 2 years ago on a more spectacular paltform. My take on bungy: do it. If anyone come and live in NZ and never does it, they are missing out. Taupo Bungy is one of the cheapest in NZ but bungy is not that cheap. At Taupo it'll cost you NZD 140 for the first jump. Subsequent jump for that day is NZD 40. The one I did, the Nevis at Queenstown - a mere 143m drop and 8 second freefall, compared to this one, just less than 50m - cost me nzd 200. The night prior to the jump, I thought "wtf was I thinking? If it goes wrong, its suicide." and "200 dollars for an 8 second jump that may kill you, are you serious?". I don't know, or bother to go looking for, about the casualty rate of bungy jumping but it should be pretty low because it remains a commercial activity and so what the heck, I did it but not without fear. I looked back at my jump, which was caught and immortalised on DVD, and the look on my face had fear in every inches of it. I rationalise by thinking how safe it would be, but my, when you fall, the speed of your fall is tremendous as the grounds seemed closer and closer in mere seconds, and you don't feel any pull of the rubber that prevents you from going splat. Lucky I didn't wet my pants - the other thing I was afraid of but just to get the facts straight, I never ever did in my life -and the jump went well - hey, I'm still here. Before the jump, the operator told us that the rubber was from Malaysia, he even said "this better be good". It was good, as one would say Malaysia Boleh. Anyway, I was there at Taupo Bungy because my traveling companion did the jump. When asked what he felt, his answer was "confused" due to "mismatching between perception of movement and sense of movement". Weird.

Back to the photo, the bottom-left is from The Craters Of The Moon, a thermal park where there is a self-tour walk through a park filled with numerous fumaroles, craters and some mud pools. The bottom-right is from Huka Falls. Thats taken from one of the lookout point there. One can also go on a speedboat ride in which the boat does 360 spins or just go on a slow cruise. I opted the speedboat ride and it was plenty of fun. That was nzd 99. Now I'm off to Asr.

How many 5 years old Could You Take In A Fight?

16

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Taupo Part I

Finally, we arrived to Taupo, the start of the "thermal adventure". Don't quote me on this (who does???) but I reckon this is where the volcanic strip that runs across the North Island starts. This volcanic strip features various hot pools, mud pools, geysers, fumaroles, terraces and volcanoes. As with many stunning natural formations in NZ, they become tourist attractions. Fortunately most are cheap/free as most consisted of self-tour. Our first stop was the Tokaanu Thermal Park photographed here in the first three photos from top left going clockwise:

The top left is a boiling mud pool. I heard the mud is good for the skin but I didn't test that theory out. There is a place in between Taupo and Rotorua where one could bath in mud (among others such as hot water pool bath...) for a cool NZD 99 but I didn't bother going because of the price and time. Anyway, Tokaanu Thermal Park charge NZD 8 for a 20 minute hot water bath and then as-long-as-you-like bath in a public swimming pool. That was the cheapest that we ever stumbled on, but also has the most modest facilities. The water is a warm 40 degrees which one need some time to adjust to. And I must admit, 20 minute in a hot water pool is long enough as after 15 minutes I got light headed and needed some time out. Oh, and I did dip my head into the pool and you're not supposed to because one can catch amoebic meningitis that way. Anyway, I only read the warning signs, which was posted on the back of the door to the pool!, after several dips of the head. I'm totally fine by the way, no Kernig sign, no neck stiffness whatsoever after. Continuing with the photo, top-right is the river that flows infront of Tokaanu Thermal Park and bottom-right is one of hot water pool found outside the park. Finally, bottom-left is a photo of the Tongariro River. A river full of rainbow trout thus a popular angling spot. There is even a National Trout Center there where the rainbow trout is farmed.

Cronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Manawatu

So, at the end of the 4th day at Wellington, we headed off to Palmerston North, which is located at the region known as Manawatu. This place was a mere stopping place on our way to Taupo, famed for its beautiful Lake Tuapo and cheap outdoor activity. Taupo (and Rotorua) is the North Island equivalent of Queenstown and Wanaka but more on that later. Anyway, Manawatu has its attraction as well. One of them is the Te Amati Wind Farm, photographed here on top right of the photo:





There are various places to view the wind farm, but the best is the one underneath where the car park is literally beneath one the wind turbine. Wind as a renewable energy source sounds very ideal with its almost non-existent pollution and relatively cheap cost, but practically it is hard to be viable. A place need to have winds that blows frequently enough and strong enough and must also be not too far from its beneficiaries. Anyway, we didn't stay long because we can't. It's too cold, the wind chill is just too much even in spring (1st December is "officially" recognized as start of summer in NZ). The other three photo from bottom right going clockwise: some random valley in the Manawatu region; typical NZ highway - 1 lane with not many cars punctuated by 2 laned "passing lanes" at certain intervals; Mt Ruapehu - one of the 3 active volcanoes in NZ, I heard it just recently erupted some time last year but I am certain that it did erupt in 1997.

Into the wild

This entry contains spoiler of the movie Into the Wild (2007). A brief synopsis first: Based on true events of Chris McCandless, who after graduating from college at the age of 24, donated all his college funds to charity, left his family and set off to live in the Alaskan wilderness. He hailed from an affluent suburban family, which nevertheless is a disharmonious one and is the reason extrapolated by the moviemaker as why the person hated the society he is in and as to why he had wanted to live self-sufficiently in the Alaskan wilderness. This reason is perhaps accentuated by the influence of the works of Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau and Jack London, which some say shaped his ascetic personality. The movie portrays his journey, the encounters he met along the way and some explanation of the reasons of his journey. I wouldn't say this movie a classic, but the story of this man did intrigued me somewhat. His ascetic personality is what made me intrigued at a time when I myself are so indulged in my own whims and is searching for a revelation to conquer it. However, it has to be said that his measure was extreme and that pure asceticism is not what is ordained in Islam. To borrow the words of Sayyid Abul A'La Maududi, a great thinker of Islamic revivalism in his book ethical viewpoint of Islam: "this (ascetic) attitude is in radical violation of the entire scheme of nature and is virtual revolt against the Will of God as immanent of His Creation. The greatest harm done to humanity by this wrong concept is that it has removed from practical life some of those individuals whom God had endowed with high moral qualities, thus leaving the field or worldly affairs mostly for the persons of inferior moral calibre." What was ordained in Islam is moderation and what it is that a man to do and don't is clearly written. My problem then is due of something else...

On another note, the idea of secluding oneself either to escape from society that has indulge itself in vices or out of the pursue of internal peace is not new. It was one of the practice of sufism, known as khalwa, and it was based on the fact that Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) secluded himself from the idolatrous society of pagan Meccans. However, one must remember that this occurred prior to his prophethood and such is not considered a sunnah.