Sunday, March 09, 2008
Bungee Jump in Taupo, New Zealand
I had a chance to go bungee jumping in New Zealand. The day was February 7, 2008. The place was Taupo and the river I jumped down towards was the Waikato River. The height I jumped from was 47 meters. Naomi and I both did it but I went first. The scariest part for me was standing on the platform right before jumping, when I was in the position of the picture on the left. To think that I was to fall straight down for 47 meters was terrifying. My heart was beating so fast! Even though I was scared, I conquered my fear and jumped!
After I jumped, it wasn't scary at all. It was actually fun. I got dipped in the river enough to get my head and half of my T-shirt wet. The speed when I hit the water wasn't very fast because the rubber rope slowed me down.After getting wet, I just bounced for a couple times in the air with the rope attached to my feet until a yellow rubber boat came and rescued me. It wasn't even 1 minute long, but it was great!!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
New Zealand
This was taken from a ferry on the way to Ragitoto Island. That is the NewZealand flag and the Sky tower in Aukland city. I don't know why the flag is red instead of blue.
This is a picture that was taken at Covenant church's family camp. Everyone is gathering right before Supper or tea. My dad spoke at this camp a couple times and my mom showed Japanese toys and talked about Japan to the kids. It was a fun camp. It was great meeting people in the church, going on a hike to the dam, going to the waterfall and swimming in the water, playing with other teens. 
I got a memorable injury at the camp which will remind me of NewZealand whenever I look at the scar. While playing spotlight in the forest at night with other teens, I ran fullspeed into a metal rod sticking out of the ground. It was around 11 o'clock in the night, it was dark so I couldn't see it. My leg was painful for a while, but at least it was worth an impressive looking cut.
Being in NewZealand, we saw quite a lot of sheep including the one above. This huge sheep was right by a sheep farm in Rotaroa. I managed to get on top of the stutue with the help from my dad.
Above is a picture of the waikato River(the longest river in NewZealand). It was very clear and pretty. This is what the river looked like at Taupo. This is the same spot Naomi and I went bungee jumping.
This is the famous Sky Tower in Aukland city.
Not so far from the sky Tower was this thrilling ride called the "reverse bungy" Including Naomi and me, 6 of us from Covenant church did it. It was scarrier than the bungee jump,I think. First, you sit in one of three seats in this ball shaped thing. Second, you get strapped in. Third, you get flung up in the air with the power of 5G. You get swung up and down for a while until you get let down. I sure had an adrenaline riush! It was freaky! I rode it with Naomi and Louise(she came as a short term worker ). The people in the picture above is Jonothan, Tadamitsu and Andrew.The "reverse bungy" is definetly one thing to do when your in Aukland area.
Above is Peter, Joshua, Gabriel, and Jonothan which are the people I went to Ragitoto Island with. The Island was off in the ocean 30 minutes by ferry away from Aukland city. It was cool hanging out with them for a day. We hiked to the top of the volcanic montain, which the Island is made of and went exploring inside lava caves. We didn't take any flashlights, so we used the flash on our cameras to see where we were going. It was fun.
On Waitagi Day(a famous NewZealand holliday), we went to Kawakawa bay to hang out at the beach. We took lunch and ate together. We also played in the sand, threw a rugby ball around, and went swimming. It was nice. 10 of us were there. The sea water was cleaner than the sea water in Japan I've been in.
This is a silly picture taken at Covenant Church in Manurewa the day before we left NewZealand.From left: Jono, Louise, Mat, Naomi, Priscilla ,me
These are some other people from church.From left: Jono, James, Gabriel, Tadamitsu, me
And a group hudle picture from the floor.The main reason for us going to NewZealand was for my dad to speak at the camp and also to encourage people to think about Japan. I had the great 10 days or so catching up with people that came on mission teams in previous years to Japan and making new friends. It was cool going bungee jumping and seeing cool places. The scenery reminded me of Scotland. It was also nice to be in two weeks of warm summer weather while in Japan it was the middle of winter. Now I know more about NewZealand and the culture(Maori/Kiwi) there. I was also introduced to one new christian music band, "Mumsdollar" and one new Rapper, "Rapture Ruckus" both from NewZealand, so that was cool. It was my first great trip to the southern hemisphere. Thanks for all the people that were nice to us.
Sydney Australia
From January 28th to February 12th we went to Australia and New Zealand. My parents, Naomi and I went. In Australia we just visited Sydney for a couple days on the way to NewZealand and on the way back from NewZealand. Tin-Lok, who was one of the members that came on the Australian team during the winter of 2005, drove us around and took us to many places in the city. The picture above was taken by Tin-Lok. We saw the Opera House at day time and at night.
Under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we saw the city lights. The people in the picture above is Naomi, me and Tin-Lok's brother, Tin-Jon(I think that's right). This picture was also taken by Tin-Lok. We actually walked over the Bridge to go to the Opera House.
This is the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge taken from a distance. We actually went inside the Opera House, but didn't go very far.
This is me standing by a strange big plant which I've never seen before in the Northern Hemisphere at Torango Zoo.
After leaving Japan on the night of the 28th, we arrived in Sydney on the morning of the 29th. In the after noon, the same day we arrived in Sydney, Tin-Lok and Julie took us to the zoo. It was pretty cool. Since we were just going to be in the city, I didn't think that we would see Animals native to Australia, but we did! Obviously not in the picture above of Naomi, me, Tin-Lok and Julie with two gorilla statues, though.
We saw Kangaroos, Koalas, an Echidna,Wallabies and Wombats that are native to Australia. The sad thing was that we didn't see any Kangaroos hop. They were extremely lazy at the zoo. They were just lying on the ground not moving at all, probably because of the heat from the sun. I like the picture above of the Kangaroo. He looks like he's thinking because of the way he's folding his arms.
One of the things I think of when I hear of Australia is the Hillsong United band. They've come to Japan a couple times to do concerts. I've been to two of their concerts. I posted about one of the concerts on this blog earlier. They're a really great worship band. While in Australia we were able to visit the main Hillsong church and also the Hillsong church in the city. The picture above is of the church in the city. We were able to have a simple tour of the church. Both churches were very big. It was great to see where Hillsong United comes from after listening to there CDs a lot. At the church we bought three Albums, "In a valley by the Sea" , "To the ends of the earth" and "Everyday" They are great CDs.
This is a picture at a Chinese restaurant that Tin-Lok's mother took us to. You can see us, the Ghents, Tin-Loks brother and sister and Ms. Hayman(I think) who joined us for the meal after driving us back from Hillsong church.It was a delicious meal. We saw one of the restaurant staff cut up a cooked duck with it's beak still on.
We went to a prayer group that prays for Missionaries in Japan. My Dad spoke for a short time. It was nice meeting these people and talking.
These are the members of the Australian team that came to our church in Itayanagi during the Christmas season of 2005. We were able to see 6 of the people in the picture above again so that was nice catching up.
At one of the airports we actually had to walk outside and walk up one of those movable stairs to get into the airplane. For some reason I thought they stopped doing that, but I guess they still have to do that for small airplanes.
Australia was a nice place.
