Friday Shootout: Letter B

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Like Sarawakiana said, I wasn't going to give a commentary.

I am doing this for Ginny. It wasn't my church's kitchen, but it has something to do with my church. The ESOL staff of my church went for a train outing to Onehunga and we went to this Cafe for lunch.

The Barista won second prize. The girl is the barista, but I don't know if she is the one who won.

My church also has a Barista and we give visitors a cup of free coffee.

A barista (from the Italian for "bartender") is a person, usually a coffee-house employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks. .

My World Tuesday/Outdoor Wednesday:Queen Street

You click to enlarge, you see the block that says "Theatre center", my boss owned 50% of the theatres and cinemas of NZ, I used to get free movies. 246 building, you see that red banner with S? That was where I worked.




Those of you in Canada and LA,

Did you go to see Kate and William?

When His parents, Charles and Princess Di came to Auckland, they drove along Queen Street, the main Street where I worked. The girls asked the boss, may we go for 5 min?

He said, OK ,just 5 mins, once the motorcade passes, you come back.

Nobody cared, we said the 2 elevators were too full to take all of us. we just hung around with all the rest of the fans, old ladies,old men, mums with babies.

The ring leader said, just tell the boss, we had to wait for the elevator. Then nobody wanted to be the first to enter the elevators when they came down waiting for us to enter.

The boss stood at the lobby, and TSK! TSK!

Oh dear, I told you Judy, http://lilacgate.blogspot.com/the story I was going to post. LOL, I don't have a photo of either Kate or Diane, what am I going to use? I will show you Queen Street. The Street named after the Queen.

What about Christmas in July? New Zealand is Down Under. We are having winter right now while most of you are basking in the sun. Some New Zealanders celebrate Christmas in July, to get that cold Christmasy feeling.

Of course, these photos are not taken in July, they are my archives photos.

You can almost see the 7 story building I worked. It was known as 246, unfortunately the boss went broke, thanks to girls who took advantage of every parade that walked up the Queen Street. ( hehehe) If our National sports team won any World series game, they paraded showing off their shield, we went down.

I have my other story about the Royal wedding of Princess Di. I might have told some of you. That was so long ago, 31 year????



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Sunday Stills, The letter “F”

My friend's order of fish and chips came in a dish shaped like a fish.


Feijoas, a fruit found in New Zealand. Acca sellowiana, a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, is native to the highlands of southern Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and northern Argentina.[1] It is widely cultivated as a garden plant and fruiting tree in New Zealand, and can be found as a garden plant in Australia and Azerbaijan



Kids in New Zealand like face painting. These days, parties have a face painting theme.
Sunday Stills, the next challenge: The letter “F”
Posted in Sunday Stills with tags Sunday Stills on July 3, 2011 by Ed

This can be anything that begins with the letter F, things or places, whatever catches your fancy…. Oh Yeah…No Archives this week….:-))

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Save our world/sunday scans: Save the polar bear

Photo of the Auckland zoo Polar bear enclosure in the early 1980s. These days, it is not PC to keep polar bears in zoos. I think Auckland Zoo has given up keeping the polar bears. In Singapore, they have a very expensive enclosure.

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I am an online supporter of Green peace, and I am not sure if I am amused or horrified when I read:

A few weeks ago while we were drifting amongst the ice floes, waiting for a break in the weather, a polar bear came up to our ship. As he walked around our ship I was struck the beauty of the lone bear in his home, and how an oil spill here would devastate this pristine environment.



Hi Ann,

I wrote to you on Monday, from my cabin on board Greenpeace’s ship the Esperanza, to share the latest news in our fight to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic.

Today I am writing to ask for your help.

Last Friday, Kumi Naidoo, the global head of Greenpeace, left the Esperanza to brave freezing water fired from water cannons to scale a massive Arctic oil rig.

Naidoo spoke of “a fight for sanity against the madness of those who see the disappearance of Arctic sea-ice as an opportunity to profit”, reminding us that the “cost of a spill is unimaginable”.

We urgently need your help to keep up this fight.

A few weeks ago while we were drifting amongst the ice floes, waiting for a break in the weather, a polar bear came up to our ship. As he walked around our ship I was struck the beauty of the lone bear in his home, and how an oil spill here would devastate this pristine environment.
Melting ice threatens these polar bears who depend on it to raise their young, travel and hunt for seals.

Nick Young,
Signing off from the Arctic Sunrise






The Polar bears have a great time in the Singapore zoo. Their enclosure is chilled and the water is so inviting. They are among the most visited animals, partly the viewing area is cool and partly it is such an entertaining sight to see the giant polar bear swim. The visitors love it after the humidity and the heat outside.

There was once when the polar bear played second fiddle. I can't remember if it was in the Singapore Zoo or in the Auckland Zoo, because I went to both when the Panda bears were on loan. People were flocking to see the Pandas. There was a cartoon which was very clever. No one was visiting the polar bears, they decided to paint their eyes and bodies black hoping to attract some attention.

Fellow blogger Ngao is right about what the consequences would be if the glass broke. I used to worry about the glass at the viewing area of the big wild cats. That would really be scary. Some children and grown up idiots tap on the glass even though there were big signs saying "Do not tap the glass."

Here's my nieces and nephews have a fantastic time. Some day kids, you can come back and take another photo and see how much you have grown.

FSO: Small medium large

I am reposting this post I did in 2008 specially for Marja in Christchurch. Today, there is another after shock in her city. She posted a weather stone, and I remember seeing one in Waiuku. It was a very big stone. To those of you asking, it is really a stone. a mighty big one.

I notice the three of us qualified for small, medium and large. That was in 2006. Today, I would be moved to status small.


We went on a holiday in Waiuku, and were intriqued with this weather forecaster. The water engineer was naturally interested.

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Member Voice for our third FMTSO Scavenger Hunt!!
Our official third scavenger hunt (July 8) was suggested by Kerry ~ Small ~ Medium ~ Large ~.


A reminder of the guidelines for our scavenger hunts:
Guide Lines:
* straight out of the camera, no editing
* one photo per word
* three words for each hunt
* add a fourth photo if you can find all three hunt words in one (or just post this one photo)
* hunt area includes your town, surrounding areas, surrounding countryside

Easy-peasy this week: (in her words)

Something small.
Something medium.
Something large.

Try not to confuse yourself like I just did when I thought about how size is a relative thing. But then I remembered this old ditty from Sesame Street, and it cheered me right up:

Oh, everything comes in its own special size
I guess it can be measured
By where you put your eyes
It's so big when you're close
It looks smaller back a bit
That's about the size of it

Friday shootout: Small ~ Medium ~ Large ~.

Small as in my little friend John John. He is now in Taiwan.

Sorry no photo of me on my own, you will have to make do with this for medium.

The large here is the Moa, a flightless giant of a bird that is extinct.

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small, medium and big.


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Member Voice for our third FMTSO Scavenger Hunt!!
Our official third scavenger hunt (July 8) was suggested by Kerry ~ Small ~ Medium ~ Large ~.


A reminder of the guidelines for our scavenger hunts:
Guide Lines:
* straight out of the camera, no editing
* one photo per word
* three words for each hunt
* add a fourth photo if you can find all three hunt words in one (or just post this one photo)
* hunt area includes your town, surrounding areas, surrounding countryside

Easy-peasy this week: (in her words)

Something small.
Something medium.
Something large.

Try not to confuse yourself like I just did when I thought about how size is a relative thing. But then I remembered this old ditty from Sesame Street, and it cheered me right up:

Oh, everything comes in its own special size
I guess it can be measured
By where you put your eyes
It's so big when you're close
It looks smaller back a bit
That's about the size of it


A joke among the Polynesians is: What did the giant (Tangiwha aka monster) say after he had eaten Tonga, I want Samoa.(some more)

Tonga is an island kingdom and so is Samoa in the South Pacific.

The Moa is an extinct bird, and was the biggest bird that ever lived.

The moa were eleven species (in six genera) of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about 3.7 m (12 ft) in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about 230 kg (510 lb).[6]

Save the world: Don't take shark fin soup

The Kelly Tarlton bus picks visitors from Downtown.



When I was growing up in my parents' home. I ate almost anything you can imagine. As I grew older, many of those exotic things don't appeal to me any more. Shark fin soup is one. I saw on documentaries, when fishermen hacked off the shark fins and throw them overboard, sharks are unable to swim and they drown.

I have been teaching Under the sea with my juniors, and we made up a story that sharkie could be friends with a Tangiwha aka a sea monster.

Call to boycott 'cruel' soup
By Conor Whitten


New Zealand Forest and Bird is urging diners to boycott a popular Chinese delicacy amid concerns over inhumane fishing practices.

Shark-fin soup is a symbol of wealth and prestige in Chinese culture, selling for as much as $300 a serve in some local restaurants.

But Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell said targeting sharks for their fins was a "barbaric practice".

Sharks in New Zealand waters can be finned as long as they are dead, but Mr Hackwell said there was plenty of evidence that live finning took place.

"We know it's going on. We've been asking the Government for quite a while to do something."

While the Government was set to review shark fishing regulations in 2013, the public could do something now by avoiding restaurants that had shark fin on the menu.

"People have power as consumers. We're the ones who buy the products," said Mr Hackwell.

Shark-finning is illegal in many countries including Britain, the United States and Australia.

The fins are the most valuable part of the animal. After they're removed, the shark is often thrown overboard.

Aucklander James Lawson saw a group walk out of the popular Grand Harbour Restaurant after a confrontation over the presence of shark fin on the menu. Attempts to get comment from the Viaduct eatery yesterday were unsuccessful.

"Finning is prohibited in Australia, the USA, the EU, but not here," said Mr Lawson. "This is abhorrent. Is this what we do in New Zealand?"

Another Auckland restaurant that sells the soup is Crystal Harbour. Its manager, Carlton Sui, said complaints were uncommon.

"I think it's just a real minority of people," said Mr Sui.

Shark populations are rapidly declining worldwide on the back of the $1 billion fin industry and as a "by-catch" of targeting other fish.

A Department of Conservation source said New Zealand tuna fishermen caught up to two and a half times as many sharks as tuna.

Greenpeace marine biologist Karli Thomas said: "A lot of these sharks are being taken in fisheries targeting tuna, but the value of the shark fins means they're a kind of target in themselves."


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